Buying new PC - Questions...

rymalibouk

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I want to get a new gaming computer. Something with SLI and good video cards. My problem is decideing between Xp and Vista... I hear Xp is better for gaming, but will vista and direct x 10 take over where I will need that anyways? What does everyone suggest?
 
I have Vista 64 bit and I cannot say that I would happily go back to XP, I like the look of Vista a lot and it has the added plus of DX10 support. As more and more game engines start to utilize DX10, you will start to see more and more of a difference. So if the hardware you are going to buy can run it fine, then I would recommend you go with Vista.
As for the parts, what is your budger exactly, and you say this is primarily for gaming?
 
nowa days vista is actually better for gaming IMO,

there used to be some early driver problems when the 7600 was mainstream but if your building new you wont have n e issues,

again with the release of vista SP1 boot times have decreased and IMO id say vista overall now runs better than XP
 
Oh, so it won't be custom then. And a single powerful card is always going to destroy to lower powered cards, especially 8500GTs. You should be looking at a HD 3870/8800GT(s). And if you're just gaming then a Quad is pointless, you'd be better off going for a higher clocked dual core which will give better performance for games. Most engines just aren't optimized for quads yet and peform better with higher clocked dual cores.
You are never going to be able to run games at max settings with two 8500GTs. You could get so much more for your money if you bought the parts seperately and put them together yourself.
 
worshipme, I honestly dont know how to do it and I would have no clue what to buy. Is it hard to do? Any recomendations on what parts to buy?
 
It isn't hard to do at all, you will be able to see what goes where because of the shapes of the connectors etc. There is a guide here: http://www.buildyourown.org.uk/ And if you even have any problems, you can always ask here at CF.
For the same price as that pre-build PC, you could get...
 
Ok, so I think that I may try to build my own computer. Do you mind if I private message you sometime to get some opinions on certain items and see if they all work together? I do like the idea of using the extra money that I would spend on a pre-made to build a better one myself.
 
Give us an idea as to what your budget is, we could put a computer together for you, and it would be considerably better than the 2x8500GT rig you got up there, I'll guarantee you that much.
 
CPU: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115047
This is one of Intel's new 45nm Wolfdale processors, this will give better gaming performance than the Q6600 because of the higher clock speeds. It is also more power efficient and runs cooler.

CPU cooler: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835103031
Since the CPU is the OEM version, you will need a cooler, this will do fine and will be a lot quieter than the stock cooler.

Motherboard: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128059
P35 chipset is what you need, and this is a great board for the price.

Memory: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227267
You said you wanted 4GB, so here is some of the best for a great price too. CAS 4 timings will improve performance a bit too.

PSU: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817341010
The OCZ power supplys are manufactured by the FSP Group so you know you are getting a reliable solid PSU.

OS: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16832116204
As you want 4GB of RAM, you will need a 64 bit OS, for all the memory to be addressed (32 bit OS's cannot address more than 3GB of RAM)

Case: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811233002
I've read some very favourable review about this case and it's a full tower, made from alumimium, and it looks great.

Disk drive: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827129009
You can't really go wrong here, but having a nice SATA interface with it's tidy thin cable is a plus.

GPU: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127325
This will absolutely destroy two 8500GTs. It is a full G92 with all the 128 stream processors. Great price too.

I didn't add a hard drive as I didn't know how much space you'd need.

All that comes to $950 not including the $70 worth of rebates. So that's $880 and it will outperform the prebuilt by a fair margin, especially in games.
 
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