Company of Heroes compels me to upgrade

[TheBDB]

I've been playing Company of Heroes on my current system (Athlon 64 3200, Geforce 6800GT, 1GB RAM) and I think it is time to upgrade so I can get some better performence. I'll probably be buying from Newegg, and I don't have a hard budget, just whatever is reasonable.

Parts I will be reusing are:
Case: Antec P180
Power Supply: Antec 480W
HD: Seagate 7200.10 320 GB
DVD Burner: Nu-Tech IDE
I also have an Audigy, Klipsch 4.1s, and a 21" CRT and 17" LCD

Here is what I am looking at:
CPU: Intel E6850 Conroe 3.0GHz $280
Mobo: Something P35 Based...really don't know how to decide
Vid Card: EVGA GeForce 8800GT 512MB $290
RAM: Crucial Ballistix 2 x 1GB DDR2 667 Cas 3 $57
HD: Western Digital Caviar WD5000AAKS 500GB $100

I will be using Windows XP, and am not interested in trying to set world records for overclocking. Since I'm not overclocking, I don't know how to choose a motherboard other than recommendations. Also, should I bother getting an X-Fi, or just use onboard sound? Is a SATA DVD drive worth the $30? Thanks for any comments.

 

[TheBDB]

Another idea would be to get a Samsung 24" Widescreen LCD for $460. Man, this could end up being an expensive itch I need to scratch.

 

[MegaVovaN]

E6850 is a TERRIBLE bang for buck. Stay away. Either buy a cheper CPU and O/C or buy E6750 (already very fast and you can oc beyond 6850 speeds)
$290 for 8800GT is madness. Think around $250

get 4 gb RAM, eWiz had 2 gb ddr800 sticks for $35 each.
57 for 2x1 gb RAM?>???>!JK!H^E%&GI*%&*VI zomg OVERPAY!


Don't buy a 24" unless you have $$ to constantly upgrade hardware. IMO go for 22" (1680x1050)


edit: I'm quoting DSF here:

Originally posted by: DSF
Actually, the E6850 is terrible bang for the buck for several reasons.

1) Most of the time, you're not going to notice a difference between a C2D running at 3GHz and one running at 2.66GHz or even 2.4GHz.
2) Just about any Core2Duo will overclock to 3GHz, making it pointless to pay for performance that you can get for free.
3) The new 45nm dual-cores are supposed to be out in two weeks, meaning a chip that performs as well as the E6850 but runs cooler will be out at a lower price. The quad-core 45nm chips have been delayed, but the dual-cores have not.

 

[TheBDB]

Don't buy a 24" unless you have $$ to constantly upgrade hardware. IMO go for 22" (1680x1050)

I'm not sure what you mean by this.

And will Windows XP work with 4GB of RAM?

I guess I could do the E6600 and save $40 or so...

 

[teatime0315]

If you use XP 32bit edition then Windows will only see ~3.2gb of ram. You need a 64bit OS to use the 4GB completely.
He means that if you game at 24'' you will be gaming at 1920x1200. That resolution is pretty high and pretty taxing on video cards.
If you want to play newer games like crysis at that res, good luck. Any other games coming after that will probably be taxing on the video card as well.
By going with the 22" your video card will last "longer" because of the lower resolution (1680x1050). Lower resolution means you don't have to upgrade your card as often/quick.
But if you are just going to play COH and never play anything else.. then go buy the 24 inches of goodness and GAME!

 

[DSF]

Originally posted by: TheBDB

Don't buy a 24" unless you have $$ to constantly upgrade hardware. IMO go for 22" (1680x1050)

I'm not sure what you mean by this.

And will Windows XP work with 4GB of RAM?

I guess I could do the E6600 and save $40 or so...

The E6600 has been surpassed by the E6550 and E6750, and its selling price was never updated. Rather than paying for the E6600, you have several options:

E6750: 1333 FSB, 4MB Cache, 2.66 GHz ($190)
E6550: 1333 FSB, 4MB Cache, 2.33 GHz ($175)
E4600: 800 FSB, 2MB Cache, 2.4 GHz ($150)
E4500: 800 FSB, 2MB Cache, 2.2 GHz ($120)

For what it's worth, I had never overclocked before I recently built my E4500-based system, and it was a piece of cake to go from 2.2GHz to 2.9GHz. You might consider it.

I built my system on a Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3L motherboard, but there are other solid entry-level options like the Abit IP35-E as well. It doesn't look like you need onboard RAID, onboard firewire, or a large number of PCI-e x16 or SATA ports. As such, your motherboard really doesn't need to cost you more than $100-130.

Windows XP 32-bit will not fully utilize 4GB of RAM. It will use whatever it can after it uses the address space it needs for your other system components. This usually ends up being 3-3.5GB of RAM visible in the OS. However, it shouldn't cause any problems to have 4GB installed.

MegaVovaN's point about the 24" monitor is that its native resolution is higher (1920x1200). As such, it will be harder for an old graphics card to drive it effectively, meaning you'll need to upgrade your graphics card more often. This all depends on the games you play, the settings you like to play at, and how much AA and AF you want to use of course.

 

[TheBDB]

Ah yes, I forgot about the native resolution issue with LCDs. Thanks everyone for the help.