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Help me knock off a few $$$ on my gaming build

L

loganex

Member
I use my system mostly for gaming. I play crysis, assassin's creed, far cry 2 and I'm gonna start on Fallout 3 with this new build. Because the GPU is the most important part of a gaming rig, especially if i want to turn on all the eye candy, I don't want to skimp there. But I want to know if I can cut back anywhere else with these build specs without seeing a serious drop in performance. I plan to overclock and get my parts in the US, probably from newegg. Here's the specs:

Already have: Corsair TX650W

Plan to buy:
Cooler Master 690
Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3R
4 GB (2x2GB) 1066 RAM
Intel E8400 3.0 ghz
Samsung Spinpoint 500GB
Lite-On 22x DVD-R/W
EVGA GTX 260 core 216
Windows Vista Home Premium 64-bit
Acer 22-inch display 1680X1050

So... Where can I shave off a few dollars without giving up a lot of performance? Also, where else besides newegg should I look for good deals on these components? Thanks for the help
 
You could go with a cheaper case. Something in the $25-$50 range with free shipping.

Since you are planning on OCing anyway, you could drop down to E7300 or E7400. You can easily be able to run those up to 3.33 GHz or 3.5 GHz respectively just by running them on a 1333 MHz bus instead of the standard 1066 MHz bus for those processors. They do have have only a 3 MB L2 cache vs. the 6 MB L2 cache of the E8xxx series but the cache size does not have a huge performance impact. (I'm guessing here, less than 5% difference in most games? Somebody kick in extra info here.)

You could also go with a smaller HD like a 320GB drive, although at this point going smaller might save you only about $10 or less.

Just some thoughts; I'm sure others will have different ideas.

As far as other retailers you could try, I'd say Directron.com, Zipzoomfly.com, Provantage.com and TigerDirect.com/CompUSA.com are all worth looking at. Amazon sometimes has good deals on quality parts as well.
 
Everything looks great but how much do you plan on overclocking? I see no aftermarket cooler so you're ganna go as far as you can go on stock cooling I assume?
 
Sorry, I forgot to include my cooler. I have a Xigmatek HDT-SD-964, 92 mm cooling fan. So I should be good to go, right?
 
Originally posted by: loganex
Because the GPU is the most important part of a gaming rig, especially if i want to turn on all the eye candy, I don't want to skimp there.
Click to expand...
You're planning on running 1680X1050?
That's not that high a resolution these days.

If you plan on OCing and want to save money (maybe to bump up to a GTX 280)...
Like theAnimal said
"Antec 300 case $40 @microcenter
E7300 $120
DDR2 800 instead of 1066"

 
You can probably knock off some significant cost by using multiple vendors.

Check eWiz.com (and froogle their items, too, because sometimes its cheaper to use them as a referal), zipzoomfly.com, outpost.com, mwave.com, maybe a few other vendors.

Froogle.com, pricewatch.com, and pricegrabber.com may be helpful too. But check resellerratings.com for vendors you've never heard of.
 
Originally posted by: Blain
You're planning on running 1680X1050?
That's not that high a resolution these days.
Click to expand...

Yeah, but it's like $100 more to go up to 1900x1200. So I'm OK with 1680x1050 with highest detail and AA.

Thanks for all your suggestions, folks. Looks like the suggestions are cheaper case, processor and memory, could save me $50 to $100 maybe. And of course, shopping around. I've got a couple more questions.

1. If I do drop down to an E7300 and DDR2 800, what kind of performance difference would I see in games vs. the E8400 and 1066? Slower load and save times or what?

2. How much would the E7300 and DDR2 800 limit my overclocking options? It kind of sounds like I could buy the 7300 and get it to perform like a stock 8400.

Thanks again for the help.
 
DDR2 800 isn't "slower" than 1066 rated memory, it's just stable at a different FSB but because of that, and the vast majority of people thinking there's a huge speed advantage, they sell it for more. Unless you're OCing an E8400 to the absolute maximum it will go with a 1:1 or some memory heavy divider, you might need the 1066 since the 800 isn't guaranteed to match the FSB speed, but if you're only shooting for between 3.6-4ghz which most people do, good 800 should be plenty.

As per the E7200/7300 vs the E8400, the only real difference is the cache, where the E7 has 3mb while the E8 has 6mb. Not sure how big an impact that'll make on your games, looking for a chart comparison of similarly clocked chips would be best, like an E7200 at 3.6 vs an E8400 at 3.6 in a game run at low res so that it's heavily CPU based. And for the record, you could easily match the clocks of an E8400 with an E7200.
 
The E7300 has a clock speed of 2.66GHz and a 1066 MHz (266mhz actual) front side bus. Multiplier of 10x.

4 x 266mhz = 1066mhz FSB

266mhz x 10 = 2.66Ghz

At stock speed, the E7300 would need 533mhz (PC2-4200) memory. I'm dividing the rated FSB (1066mhz) by 2 to get the necessary memory speed.

So, hypothetically speaking, with 800mhz DDR2 memory, you can get the front side bus up to 1600mhz, or 400mhz x 10, a 4Ghz clock speed.

4 x 400mhz = 1600mhz FSB

400mhz x 10 = 4.0Ghz

Probably won't get that high, 😀 , but you won't be limited by memory speed.
 
So if I understand right, the only people who need 1066 memory are those using an odd memmory:CPU ratio, like 4:5 or something, right? But I've heard that 1:1 is best and the others put more stress on the mobo.

So there's really no point in DDR2 1066, right?
 
Originally posted by: theAnimal
Antec 300 case $40 @microcenter
E7300 $120
DDR2 800 instead of 1066
Click to expand...

Agreed. OC the cpu and just keep good airflow. That should save you some bucks.
 
Unless you're a hardcore overclocker that wants to push his chip to the absolute limit, yes there's no real point in 1066. If you wait for about 2 weeks, the E7 series of chips will all drop in price.
 
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