How would you spend my $1500-$1800?

PaladinPup

Junior Member
May 26, 2007
8
0
0
How would you spend my $1500-$1800?

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This is my first build. My goals are the best gaming results I can get for the above mentioned price range.

If I can save more and get the price down, let me know. I have looked at some of the packadges or the of the barebones kits. I find some of the components of a bit less quality with a combo, but it will save about $50-100 in total. Not huge savings though.

I do plan to overclock eventually, when I feel comfortable with it.


Here's what I have researched thus far:

Intel Core 2 Duo E6750 Dual Core Processor LGA775 Conroe 2.66GHZ 1333FSB 4MB Retail

In Stock 25298 $209.99

Antec Nine Hundred Mid Tower Gamer Case 900 ATX 9 Drive Bay No PS Top USB2.0 1394 Audio
In Stock 21123 $119.99

EVGA E-GEFORCE 8800GTS 500MHZ 640MB 1.6GHZ GDDR3 Dual DVI-I HDTV Out HDCP DIRECTX10 Video Card
In Stock 21406 $472.34

EVGA Nforce 680I SLI LGA775 Conroe ATX DDR2 2PCI-E16 2PCI SATA2 RAID Sound GBLAN 1394 Motherboard
In Stock 23215 $249.99

OCZ Platinum XTC REV.2 PC2-6400 2GB 2X1GB DDR2-800 CL4-4-4-15 240PIN DIMM Dual Channel Memory Kit
In Stock 19337 $149.99

Antec Truepower Trio 550W Power Supply ATX12V V2.0 Active PFC SLI Certified 120MM Fan
2-5 Business Days 21601 $110.20

Western Digital Raptor 74GB SATA 10000RPM Hard Drive 5.2MS 16MB NCQ 5 Year MFR Warranty
In Stock 18013 $204.06

BenQ FP222WH 22IN Widescreen LCD Monitor Black 5MS 700:1 1680X1050 Senseye HDMI VGA DVI W/ Cable $329.00



Thanks,

PP
 

Capt Caveman

Lifer
Jan 30, 2005
34,543
651
126
Are you buying these components in the US? If yes, then you can get the 8800GTS 640, motherboard, power supply, ram and 150gb Raptor for much less money.
 

LightningRider

Senior member
Feb 16, 2007
558
0
0
I would get a P35 chipset based motherboard instead of the 680i unless you are going SLI but I see that you are not. ASUS P5K might be a good choice.

The E6850 or Q6600 might be a better choice of a processor too, not that the E6750 is bad.

You can get the GTS 640MB for almost 50$ less in the sales section of NCIX.com this week or get the KO ACS3 version for the same price as the one you posted.

-OR-

The 8800GTX is only 100$ more, and the Ultra has come down a lot as well, it's only like 30$ more than the GTX. If you're going for a gaming rig, I think the GTX a least would be a good choice.

Not sure if those will push you over the 1800$ limit as I didn't add them all up but it might be something to consider. Check out the sales section this week for www.ncix.com though they have a lot of great deals. They are a Canadian site by the way if you didn't know.
 

PaladinPup

Junior Member
May 26, 2007
8
0
0
Thanks All!!

I do intend to go the SLI route, not immediately though. Most of the cheaper mobos that indicate SLI compatible do not actually have 2 PCIeX16 slots.

My thinking is this: In a year or two from now, wile I'm playing newer games at higher resolutions, I 'll have to get a newer GPU @ the top price to keep up with standards I want. Instead I can buy the exact same GPU 2 years from now at a far lower price than it is today and get about a 60% improvement in graphic pefromance without out having to shell out top dollar for the newer cards.

Is this not accurate? Or am I delusional? ;)


Thanks,

PP
 

swtethan

Diamond Member
Aug 5, 2005
9,071
0
0
You COULD wait and see if the new G92 from nvidia drops this fall, or you can buy a 8800GTX now.
 

Ika

Lifer
Mar 22, 2006
14,264
3
81
That 8800GTS is WAY too expensive. You could probably get one for around $360-380 if you look hard enough.

You also don't need to spend quite that much on RAM. If you look, you can probably get D9 chips for $20-40 less, more after rebates.

Finally, you could save money on your monitor by going with the smaller 20" Acer AL2051W (which has much better picture quality, but is glossy) for $200, or a better picture with the LG L226WT (which actually might be more expensive, but will probably look better).
 

LightningRider

Senior member
Feb 16, 2007
558
0
0
You can't really get a 640MB 8800GTS for 360$ CDN.

Also, if you plan on going SLI later only, it's not worth it, by the time you want to upgrade, there will be a single card out that performs much better than an SLI configuration. Buying a single card solution later on is better too because your system will be consuming way less power, and be producing way less heat with only 1 card instead of 2 which aren't going to be giving you as much performance anyways.

SLI is really not a good upgrade idea I don't think, it's better if you go SLI right away and run games at really high resolutions on a really nice, big monitor. Otherwise I think it's a waste of money. Don't know how great drivers are in SLI mode either, in Vista at least.

And yea, the G92 is supposed to be out at the end of this year.
 

Sinn707

Senior member
Mar 8, 2007
210
0
0
Hi, first thing's first - Do not choose the SLI path. It's not worth it, like the person above me said, in 2 years time getting an extra 8800 GTS to run SLI would be like ... getting an extra 6600GT for SLI right now, which is just wrong. Now lets review the parts, luckily I'm in Toronto too and I'm really good at finding the best prices possible for hardware.

E6750 is a great choice

Gigabyte Ga-P35-DS3R is a very nice, stable board with the latest chipset and great overclocking capabilities, $149 is the cheapest I could find in PC Village

http://www.pcvonline.com/productDetails.aspx?id=5801
http://www.pcvonline.com/locations.aspx

Antec Nine Hundred is also $119 in PC Village.

8800 GTS 640M, you can get at tigerdirect for $409 or $379 after rebate, that's the cheapest I could find.
http://www.tigerdirect.ca/appl...ails.asp?EdpNo=2597918
http://www.tigerdirect.ca/retailstores/indexca.asp

RAM, I wouldn't pick OCZ if you plan to overclock, I'd go with Crucial Ballistix for the same price and even a little better timings, this particular kit is great:

http://www.canadacomputers.com...duct&cmd=pd&pid=014207
http://www.canadacomputers.com/index.php?do=ShowContact

PSU, the best at $100 mark is Corsair 520HX, without a doubt. I recommend it highly.
$104.99 after $10 rebate in PC Village again.

http://www.pcvonline.com/productDetails.aspx?id=5718

HDD, that 74Raptor is overpriced.

I'd suggest getting 250GB Seagate drive instead, but only this model in particular:

http://www.infonec.com/site/ma...odule=detail&id=349877

If you enter "ST3250410AS" in Newegg.com search and read some reviews about it, people claim it works almost just as fast as raptors, either way you can't go wrong for $70.

http://www.infonec.com/site/ma...e=page&name=CONTACT_US

Monitor: Get LG L226WTX-BN instead. It is the best 22" there is at the moment, 3000:1 contrast, 2ms response time, 170! degree viewing angels. You can find many reviews about this monitor on google, I've seen it at Bestbuy and couldn't believe how different it was from all the competition, amazing colors, viewing angels, no ghosting. Cheapest you can get is here for $310:

http://www.canadacomputers.com...&pid=013085&cid=MT.282
http://www.canadacomputers.com/index.php?do=ShowContact

Here, I saved you some money and recommended better parts, my job is done here :) Good luck!
 

Arkaign

Lifer
Oct 27, 2006
20,736
1,379
126
I'd get the Centurion 532, a really nice solid case, save $65 there, I'm sure a Canadian vendor has it. It's waaaaay better than the cheaper Cooler Master/Centurion cases.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16811119094

Then skip the Raptor, get a 400-500GB NCQ Sata drive, 90% the speed but 6-7x more space. Games these days are *HUGE*, and it'd be nice to have some room for movies and music as well.

With that money saved ($150?), you could jump to a 24" LCD. I have a 22", but wish I'd spent a little extra.
 

nyker96

Diamond Member
Apr 19, 2005
5,630
2
81
Here's what I'd buy with your money:
1. Q6600 - 300 (OC it pass 3Ghz)
2. any case $50
3. Corsair HX520 - $100 (need strong PSU like this one for OC)
4. Gigabyte DS3 3.3 - $110 (High OC potential cheap price)
5. 2x320GB in RAID - $160
6. decent 2x1GB DDR800 or better - $100 (since I OC 2x2GB will be trouble)
7. 8800GTX 768MB - $500
8. $300 for monitor

total: roughly $1700 or so.

Kepp in mind these are my personal choices. Yous you have to select on your own preferences. But if I buy now I'd go for Quad, dualz are bit old for the money you spending.

Also these are not the BEST components I can choose just the better ones for your budget.
 

swtethan

Diamond Member
Aug 5, 2005
9,071
0
0
Originally posted by: nyker96
Here's what I'd buy with your money:
1. Q6600 - 300
2. any case $50
3. Corsair HX520 - $100
4. DS3 3.3 - $110
5. 2x320GB in RAID - $160
6. 2x1GB DDR800 - $100 (since I OC 2x2GB will be trouble)
7. 8800GTX 768MB - $500
8. $300 for monitor

total: roughly $1700 or so.

I think you need more than Hx520 for quad + GTX (maybe)

P35 DS3R is $130 at the egg too :)

everything else looks to be in order, you might be able to buy some value HP ddr2-800 ram for like $25 per gig over at hot deals forum.

 

nyker96

Diamond Member
Apr 19, 2005
5,630
2
81
Originally posted by: swtethan
Originally posted by: nyker96
Here's what I'd buy with your money:
1. Q6600 - 300
2. any case $50
3. Corsair HX520 - $100
4. DS3 3.3 - $110
5. 2x320GB in RAID - $160
6. 2x1GB DDR800 - $100 (since I OC 2x2GB will be trouble)
7. 8800GTX 768MB - $500
8. $300 for monitor

total: roughly $1700 or so.

I think you need more than Hx520 for quad + GTX (maybe)

P35 DS3R is $130 at the egg too :)

everything else looks to be in order, you might be able to buy some value HP ddr2-800 ram for like $25 per gig over at hot deals forum.

That's a goodf suggestion, but I'm trying to fit into his budget tho. I guess if he bump the 8800GTX to say 8800GTS and he can afford to bump up the PSU to say a 700W+ Seasonic//PC Power & Cooling model or a HX620 corsair.