$2k w/o monitor to spend. PCI-E? DDR2? ----------

[firebirdude]

Buddy of mine is looking for a gaming rig. Wants to spend around $2k without the monitor. DVD burner is the only real requirement. Other then that, he doesn't really care. What do you guys think? I have heard PCI Express is the next wave, but isin't really even utilized yet. However, I'm sure he will have this rig a while. So in the future, he may want to upgrade video cards. So.... PCI-E? Next, DDR2-533 RAM? What's so special about it aside from the fact it's quicker then regular DDR400? Also, I have heard that the top of the line video cards are hard to come by. They are sold out everywhere. I'm not going to let that stop us. We'll hold the whole rig up waiting if need be. I assume 6800GT Ultra or ATI X800 would be in order? Both run about $450 right? ARE they worth it? Are there any cards between the ATI 9800XT and the X800? And finally, CPU and MOBO. Intel. AMD. Don't mind either. I know large cache sizes and high FSB numbers don't always mean everything. Biggest question regarding CPU's I have is what cores should I be looking for? Thanks for your help guys!

 

[Elcs]

PCI Express = PCI-e

PCI-X is something different. Just to point this out.

 

[RaiderJ]

Athlon64 (Socket 939 for performance - but wait for Nforce4 if really performance/features minded)
512MB+ RAM
6800GT or Ultra (depending on wallet size)


PCI-e & DDR2 are still new technology, and don't give much of a practical performance boost. SLI is one to wait for if spending $500+ on video cards is up your alley.

 

[firebirdude]

Oops. Yes, I did mean PCI-E. Thanks for the catch Elcs. I guess the biggest thing I'm wanting to do for him is leave him with tons of upgrade room. I'm sure within a year PCI-E and DDR2 will be what all the gamers are getting. I would like for him to keep his motherboard and just upgrade the video card for example. And DDR2 isin't much more expensive then comparable DDR memory. I could get 1G of DD2-533 for about $259 where as about $170 for DDR400. 533 is a little faster so that's great, but the biggest thing is he'll have the motherboard capable of upgrading even further in a couple years. And the 16X PCI version of the ATI X800 is only slightly more. Same preformance, but he'll have that upgradability there for the future. See what I'm getting at? Thanks for all you're help guys!

 

[obeseotron]

Athlon64 all the way unless he uses p4 friendly programs and multitasks with cpu intense applications. With a big budget like that you could consider getting a 3800+ or better. Wait for nforce4 pci-e boards to come out, if he's a gamer look into the SLI and an nvidia 6800gt or ultra. The difference is little if he doesn't mind overclocking the gt, which is very easy. With the SLI he can drop in an identical graphics card later and get a 80% or so boost in performance. DDR2 doesn't offer much right now, in most cases on the p4 platform its slower than DDR, and it won't be out for Athlon64 for a very long time. PCI-e will have a much greater impact on the longevity of the system. 1GB of high quality RAM, the really expensive stuff isn't worth it, but getting something fast and still economical isn't that hard, Ballistix works well with Athlon systems. NEC 3500A for DVD burning (see anand's roundup). Hard drives depending on his needs, Maxtor 300GB 16MB cache SATA drives are expensive but probably the best on the market. WD Raptors are a little faster but much smaller. With that much money RAID is certainly possible, but it's benefits to the average user are questionable.

 

[swatX]

amd64 3500+ 350
Nforce 4 SLI mobo (if under 200$) 200
2x 6800GT PCI -E SLI 800
1GB corsair XMS pc-3200 320
DVD burner 140$
cae w/PSU 100$
Maxtor 120GB 60$
what else

extra cooling? 30$

 

[firebirdude]

Ok, so it looks like the first NForce4 SLI motherboards will hit the shelves late Nov time. And by the end of the year, we should have atleast 5 to choose from. Sounds good. We can wait that long for something like this. Not sure if he's going to want dual graphics cards just yet, but atleast that upgrade option will be there when he does move on. So it looks like I'll be looking for the NForce4 SLI boards (PCI-E) and not really worry about the DDR2 addition. We'll see though. Oh, one other question. I have heard DDR400 is as fast as DDR can go. However, if I look o Newegg I see several other faster speeds? And most motherboards don't support these speeds.....maybe one out of their whole inventory. Are these truely quicker memory modules?

 

[obeseotron]

DDR400 was the last certified speed that DDR1 hit. An official 533Mhz DDR1 specification is very unlikely to ever be used. That said those sticks do work at their rated speeds. This only comes up when overclocking. I have my 3500+ running at 10x250 instead of stock 11x200. The RAM is DDR500 and thus capable of running syncronously (250mhz bus : 250mhz ram (500 ddr)) with the bus. So yes DDR400 is the fastest RAM you will ever need if you never overclock anything. It's pretty easy to do with newer athlon boards, and you can take advantage of faster RAM in some cases without overclocking the CPU because Athlon64 multipliers can be freely changed downward. For instance, you could keep a 3800+ at it's default 2.4Ghz, but change it from 12x200 to 10x240 and run your RAM at DDR480. This is nice to be able to do, but it's performance impact isn't great, especially not on the athlon64, which is kept pretty well fed with dual channel ddr400 already. The super low latency RAM that you might have seen allows for the fastest timings to be used at stock speeds, but again this performance increase isn't great especially with athlon64's. Probably best to get something that is name brand and well regarded, but not too expensive.

 

[RaiderJ]

Gah! Doesn't anyone know how to use

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text!