Buildng a new rig - fellow anandtechers...need your help

[INGlewood78]

I used to be very knowledgeable with the newest cpus/mobos, price/performance, etc etc. Unfortunately, B-school has taken up all my time and I haven?t been able to keep up with the industry in a while. Please help if you can.

Situation: Building a new rig (budget ? up to $2000)
Use: Mainly gaming (mostly WoW)
Size preference: SFF if possible but will entertain up to mid towers
CPU preference: either Intel or AMD ? looking for the best bang for buck
Monitor: Dell 24inch widescreen ? so video card will have to run games at 1920x1200 fairly well

I hear there is a price cut around late April, so I?m assuming I should at least wait until then.

Additionally, are there new technologies just right around the corner that would make it wise to wait for a bit longer? I know computer performance is ever changing?but I?m speaking more to revolutionary change instead of evolutionary.

Thanks to everyone in advance.

Edit: I currently have the monitor, so that will not be priced in.

 

[PCTC2]

I would probably say a E6600 after the April 22nd price cut for $224 and an eVGA 8800GTS. probably an Asus P5B-E motherboard.
But as for technologies, not until next year and the year after. Penryn (45nm die) quad-cores are coming, and then Nehalem Architecture (to replace the Core architechure) and then Nehalem-C (32nm die) in the next 3 years. Computer technologies is evolving constantly and it is very near impossible to keep up.
EDIT: BTW, my rig (see sig link) cost me around $1900 b/c of my sound card, motherboard, RAM, and a few other parts that i got higher-end than really needed. Right now, it'd probably cost about $300 less.

 

[happy medium]

Heres my build for 830.00$, It's very budget / performance minded.
Should run WOW easily at 1920x1200 though.

http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.aspx?catid=27&threadid=2017397

 

[MarcVenice]

something 500 bucks will run WoW, as long as it has 256mb on the videocard. Are you sure you wanna spend that much on a rig that, by the looks of it won't actually get to use all of its amazing calculating power ? Unless your planning on playing FPS-es and stuff like SC and C&C3, such a rig would be warranted. But you could buy 2 1k$ rigs as well, OC them, and run 3dmark06 and still be in the 97th percentile if you upload the scores, with both rigs !!!

Wish i had 2 grand to spend though, have fun !!! Oh, and if your gonna spend 2k anyways, i'd throw in 2 8800 gts xxx at 300 bucks each.

 

[INGlewood78]

This rig will primarily be used for WoW, but I would like to play some FPS also, hence the necessity for an upgraded rig.

 

[MarcVenice]

allright, this is affordable with abt 1k if you wait till 22nd of april though. Oc-ed to 3.2ghz, should make anyone happy Gotta buy some non-stock cooling of course + case yada yada, which is all included in the 1k. Pretty darn sure it will run WoW smoothly at 1920x1200, and most fps-es too. If you get bored, it can handle qaud cpu's too, and can handle another gpu as well ...

8800 gts xxx 320mb
Conroe e6400
ASUS P5N-E SLI
2 GB kit Corsair PC6400 4-4-4-12

 

[trexpesto]

Monitor is what?

 

[INGlewood78]

Thanks to all so far. Any other suggestion?

 

[myocardia]

I'd also recommend an E6600 Core 2 Duo, an Asus P5B-E motherboard, 2GB of PC6400 RAM, but I'd recommend you get a 640 MB nVidia 8800GTS, instead of the slightly cheaper 320MB version. Sure, the 320MB version will run WoW at 1920x1200 just fine, but if you find another newer game that you like, the 320MB version will probably struggle a bit; the 640MB version won't.

For instance, in Battlefield 2, the 320MB version does just fine, as long as you aren't using any AA*: link, but once you enable a little AA, it's performance nosedives at that resolution: link #2, since AA performance depends on the card's onboard memory.


*AntiAliasing

 

[eternitykh]

C2D would be a good choice right now, best bang for the buck with their OC abilities. 2k is a good amount of money for mid-high machines.

wait a few more weeks for the C2D's to drop and also nvidia price drop, 2gb of ddr2-800 or even ddr2-1000 if you want to overclock at those speeds.
8800gts 640mb version, and ya asus p5b-e are nice boards =) hehehe

throw in a nice case, power supply, blah blah, you should have money left over. with prices as of now, you WILL have left over, with the price drops mid april, you'll have even more. so you can either spend more by dropping in a second 8800gts and a sli board, or save the money.

 

[myocardia]

Originally posted by: eternitykh
wait a few more weeks for the C2D's to drop and also nvidia price drop, 2gb of ddr2-800 or even ddr2-1000 if you want to overclock at those speeds.

PC6400 RAM will give you 3.6 Ghz out of an E6600, without overclocking the RAM any at all. I'm sure that will be fast enough for him.

 

[eternitykh]

=P he DID say 2k to blow, haha good headroom for those 1333 bus overclocks in the future haha

 

[INGlewood78]

LOL, thanks a lot for all your help guys, although I didn't say I WANTED to blow 2k. I just have UP TO 2k to spend. Cheaper is always better. hehe.

Overclocking is always an options and I do have an overclocked system at the moment. But I would like a quiet system if possible.

 

[CloE]

as you have 2k to spend, why not water cool it? spend like $300 on WC parts, there you have a very quiet system with a lot better cooling for OC.

I just done my WC setup, E6600 at 3.9ghz only 55C loaded, 45C idle. very quiet but fast.

 

[myocardia]

Originally posted by: eternitykh
=P he DID say 2k to blow, haha good headroom for those 1333 bus overclocks in the future haha

That's true, he'd still have OC headroom with his next cpu, if he bought PC8500 RAM. Of course, it would be a major waste with this one, and they'll likely have much faster RAM by the time he buys his nex cpu, so I still wouldn't recommend it. That extra $200 is more than the difference between an 8800GTS and an 8800GTX.

 

[aigomorla]

Originally posted by: CloE
as you have 2k to spend, why not water cool it? spend like $300 on WC parts, there you have a very quiet system with a lot better cooling for OC.

I just done my WC setup, E6600 at 3.9ghz only 55C loaded, 45C idle. very quiet but fast.

thats kinda high. A bit too high for me, even for 300mhz.

http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p73/aigomorla/ApogeeGTX.jpg

i like my 38C loaded @ 3.6ghz.


Personally, if your going to wait, id pick up a Q6600 quad. The price will only be like 50 dollars more for 2 more cores. Thats whta im waiting for, to hold me off til penryn..


Block used in that was a ApogeeGTX btw. Its hwat~!