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Any opinions/tips for my second build?

N

nitenichiryu1

Member
1. What YOUR PC will be used for. That means what types of tasks you'll be performing.

I will be using this PC for the latest in gaming, recreational video editing/photo editing, and the basic ms office/browsing/etc...

2. What YOUR budget is. A price range is acceptable as long as it's not more than a 20% spread

I have a max of 1200 right now, but my list sort of exceeds that budget by small margins.

3. What country YOU will be buying YOUR parts from.

I'm ordering from the US

4. IF YOU have a brand preference. That means, are you an Intel-Fanboy, AMD-Fanboy, ATI-Fanboy, nVidia-Fanboy, Seagate-Fanboy, WD-Fanboy, etc, etc, etc, you get the picture.

I will go with c2d/c2q for sure this time. I do, however, have a preference for nvidia in both video cards and mobos.

5. If YOU intend on using any of YOUR current parts, and if so, what those parts are.

I have an antec 900 case, keyboard, mouse, and monitor already.

6. IF YOU have searched and/or read similar threads.

I have read some other threads, but I still want a couple of opinions before I make anything final.

7. IF YOU plan on overclocking or run the system at default speeds.
I plan on overclocking.

right now this is what my list of things look like

msi p7n sli platinum 750i 164.99
8800gt 512 or 9600gt 214.99 or 174.99
PC power and cooling 750W silencer 169.99
e8400/q6600/ or wait for q9300=/ 254.99 for q6600, 259.99 for e8400
g.skill 4gb 2x2 F2-6400CL5D-4GBPQ 79.99
WD caviar 160gb 7200rpm 16mb cache 59.99
samsung spinpoint 500gb (for storage) 104.99
asus or samsung burner with lightscribe 36.99 for asus, 29.99 for samsung
vista 64 99.99
tuniq tower 44.99

total is 1231.90

If i price research a bit more, I think I'll be able to drop off a couple more dollars here and there.

I read a lot of buzz right now for the gigabyte ds3l, but I put the msi 750i down for the sli set up and the packaging features it comes with. Like the ds3l, it also has solid capacitors and pretty good overclocking numbers.

I do like my games to run smooth, but I'm definitely not going to be getting anything like a 9800gx2. I will be using a 1280x1024 resolution and I'm wondering if a single card solution at high settings will be sufficient and whether the card(s) should be 8800gt or 9600gt.

As for the cpu goes, I'm kind of in a dilemma. I know some people say the quads are more future proof and price are all in the same area...kind of. My upgrade cycle is actually pretty long (been using my s939 3500+ 6800gt 256mb since late 04 haha) so I expect my next build to last me 2 years at the very least.

Anyway, thank you all for reading. Any advice, opinions, criticisms are all welcome. If there are other parts i should be substituting, removing, downgrading/upgrading please let me know. Thank you!



 
hmm that is true... I could just partition it, but there is a possibility i would exchange drives from computer to computer. Is having the one big drive split into two partitions better than having two separate drives? performance-wise, of course. Thanks.
 
Ah, yes. I am somewhat of a newb and did not consider the platter density.

Furthermore, how about my motherboard choice? It is difficult to find any info on the 750i, but from what i have gathered it's supposed to be decent at overclocking and it has solid capacitors (the msi 750i). Any input there? Or even on the rest of my build? Thanks!
 
You should wait for the penryn based quad core, the 9450 is already starting to show up at retail (though availability is spotty) and the extra oc headroom and new sse featuers are worth the couple of week wait. Also price's on gpu's are dropping so if you follow the rebates you might be able to get a 8800gts 512 for around $210.
 
Originally posted by: jkresh
You should wait for the penryn based quad core, the 9450 is already starting to show up at retail (though availability is spotty) and the extra oc headroom and new sse featuers are worth the couple of week wait. Also price's on gpu's are dropping so if you follow the rebates you might be able to get a 8800gts 512 for around $210.
Click to expand...

That was one of the things i was thinking about, but since I'm going to overclock (a decent amount--not too crazy, though) wouldn't the lower multiplier on the q9300 and q9450 hurt the overclocking performance? Don't get me wrong, I know these will be great, but would the price/performance ratio beat that of the q6600 or e8400 when that time comes? This is good feedback. Thanks for your replies, everyone.
 
You are correct that the lower multiplier will hurt overclocking a little bit, but the 9300 should still be able to get to somewhere around 3.4 (and will likely be board limited no cpu), while the 9450 should do even better, and as bios's improve you might even get higher, while some q6600's go higher then that, others don't (and even on high end water I can't do much better then 3.8 (which requires crazy voltages)), so based on the differences the q9300 overclocked should trade off witht eh q6600 and the 9450 overclocked should probably have a decent advantage in almost anything (and a major one in anything that uses sse 4). ALso you need to remember that overclocking is never gauratneed and you could pick up a q660 that could do 4 at 1.4volts or one that couldn't hit 3 under water (though the same is true of penryn ones)...
 
Originally posted by: jkresh
You are correct that the lower multiplier will hurt overclocking a little bit, but the 9300 should still be able to get to somewhere around 3.4 (and will likely be board limited no cpu), while the 9450 should do even better, and as bios's improve you might even get higher, while some q6600's go higher then that, others don't (and even on high end water I can't do much better then 3.8 (which requires crazy voltages)), so based on the differences the q9300 overclocked should trade off witht eh q6600 and the 9450 overclocked should probably have a decent advantage in almost anything (and a major one in anything that uses sse 4). ALso you need to remember that overclocking is never gauratneed and you could pick up a q660 that could do 4 at 1.4volts or one that couldn't hit 3 under water (though the same is true of penryn ones)...
Click to expand...

Ahhh so many options. Well I suppose waiting is all I can do now. Thank you for the info!
 
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