I've got an ~$2000 budget - Help me build a dream machine....

[Tostada]

Originally posted by: Bobthelost
He's not sacrificing GPU for CPU, and the performance difference will be far greater than if he were to get a Raptor 150 with the extra money.

It's for current games, serious sam 2 uses Dualcore if memory serves, as do various other games, more are being patched to use them too. Dual core is here now not soon.

You're still wrong. Whether or not modern games can be patched to use dual-core is irrelevant. They're not choking on single-core CPUs, and you're not going to see an increase in playability with a second core. That's totally ridiculous to claim you'd notice more difference from a second core than you would from a faster hard drive.

For example, say he goes and gets a San Diego 3700+ for his CPU and a GeForce 7800 or a Radeon X1900 for his video card. Do you honestly think there is EVER going to be a situation where the CPU hurts is framerate? That's asinine. He could get a Venice 3200+ for $160 if he wanted and I doubt there'd be a game where he'd be able to notice.

Like I said, there's nothing wrong with a dual-core CPU, but you need to have a Radeon X1900 XTX and a Raptor 150 before you start worrying about it. Those are going to make a bigger difference.

edit: I guess the San Diego 3700+ is a bad example since it's actually a faster CPU than some dual-core Athlons, but you get the point (I hope)

 

[kwo]

Originally posted by: Tostada
The dual-core CPU should really be your last priority if all he's concerned about is gaming.

And for your hard drive you want to have two 160GB Seagates in a RAID? Where do I begin... Seagates aren't the fastest drives out there, and for God's sake do some reading about RAID before you assume it helps more than it hurts. About the only time RAID is clearly superior is in video editing.

I think your first priority should be the video card(s), and the second priority should be one of these:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822136012

Thanks for your thoughts, Tostada.

I'll have to think on the HD advice......and while dual-core is not necessarily a requirement, it seems to be at a pretty good price/performance point which is why I'm going with it..... I don't see any single-core solutions that would be of significant improvement at that price......

 

[kwo]

Originally posted by: Wall7486
I think a 74GB raptor will suffice, especially with the price drop. At least to me the raptor150 works better on a >2500 set up. With 2000, you either want to go all out on a GPU or CPU. Since many of the opteron can OC so well you can save some money on the CPU and go all out on a GPU. You definitely would want 2 hard drives. One for OS, 74GB raptor imo for the burst speed, and another >250GB HD for storage. That will take you about 300 dollar on hard drive. 500-600 on GPU. 300-400 on CPU. That is about 1300 already. Get a mobo, burner , PSU and a case and that's basically the setup. Most importantly you want a decent monitor. The point of getting a nice GPU is so you can play on higher res. So invest the rest of your $$ on a monitor.

Thanks for the thoughts - regarding the monitor, notice he's already got that Dell Ultrasharp (see first post for link)

 

[lein]

For the graphics card, I'm inclined to pick an x1900 variant (probably XT). They tend to perform better under high resolution with more eye candy.

 

[JLGatsby]

3800 or 4200 X2? If that's "high end," I'll sing and dance for you.

 

[kwo]

Originally posted by: JLGatsby
3800 or 4200 X2? If that's "high end," I'll sing and dance for you.

ok, ok....no it's not the fastest thing on the block......maybe it's because I'm still laboring along with a Barton.......

Perhaps I should say, "Reasonably priced really good gaming machine"?

 

[Tostada]

Originally posted by: kwo
Thanks for your thoughts, Tostada.

I'll have to think on the HD advice......and while dual-core is not necessarily a requirement, it seems to be at a pretty good price/performance point which is why I'm going with it..... I don't see any single-core solutions that would be of significant improvement at that price......

The type of thing I'd be looking at is:

CPU: AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400 Retail $465 (ZipZoomFly)
mainboard: EPoX EP-9NPA+Ultra $101 (ZipZoomFly)
video: PowerColor Radeon X1900XTX 512 $603.89 (newegg)
HDD: Western Digital 150GB SATA Raptor $286.5 (ZipZoomFly)
HDD: Western Digital 250GB SATA WD2500KS $102.9 (ZipZoomFly)
RAM: Corsair 2 x 1024MB DDR400 $167.9 (ZipZoomFly)
CD: NEC ND-3550A black DVD-R $43.88 (newegg)
case: Cooler Master Centurion 5 ATX $63.25 (ZipZoomFly)
PSU: SeaSonic S12 500W $129.98 (newegg)
input: Microsoft black keyboard, mouse $24.5 (newegg)

That's $1,988.80 with shipping and everything.

The first place I would save money would be the CPU, though. I would get the San Deigo 3700+ for $214.70 at ZZF which saves you a lot. I don't really like getting the Manchester core X2 for a pure gaming machine. The single-core San Diego will perform better in games than the cheaper X2s. If you're going to go dual-core, the 4400+ is the better Toledo core and they come with a better heatsink.

Obviously for a gaming system the important part is the video card. The best thing would be SLI, but the Radeon 1900XTX is faster than any SLI setup except dual CrossFire 1900XTXs or SLI 7800 GTX 512s. Well, NewEgg doesn't even have CrossFire 1900XTXs or 7800 GTX 512s. The best you could do is two regular 7800 GTXs, which would be faster, but nowhere near twice as fast (more like 25-30% faster), and then you would probably want a bigger PSU. Dual GeForce7800s can use almost 500W by themselves.

All this talk of overclocking Opterons ... well ... that's the kind of thing you'll see on a tech forum, but when you're building a system for someone else, overclocking is never a good idea. In the end, what does overclocking your CPU do for you? It gives you a little bit more performance in some benchmarks. Is that really important? The person you're building the computer for isn't knowledgable to build it himself, so is he knowledgable enough to appreciate the performance boost from overclocking? Only bad can come of overclocking someone else's system. Obviously it's dishonest to give someone an overclocked system without telling them, but even if you're totally up-front about it, it's just not much benefit to them, and you might just get a CPU that doesn't hold up to the overclock. Don't forget the extra stress on other components. It's just not worth it. You'll make yourself look really bad if something goes wrong. Save that kind of playing around for your own system.

 

[Tostada]

If you want SLI,

CPU: AMD Athlon 64 3700 Retail $214.7 (ZipZoomFly)
mainboard: ASUS A8N-SLI $122 (ZipZoomFly)
video: eVGA GeForce 7800GTX 256 $459.39 (newegg)
video: eVGA GeForce 7800GTX 256 $459.39 (newegg)
HDD: Western Digital 74GB SATA Raptor $156.5 (ZipZoomFly)
HDD: Western Digital 250GB SATA WD2500KS $102.9 (ZipZoomFly)
RAM: Corsair 2 x 1024MB DDR400 $167.9 (ZipZoomFly)
CD: NEC ND-3550A black DVD-R $43.88 (newegg)
case: Cooler Master Centurion 5 ATX $63.25 (ZipZoomFly)
PSU: SeaSonic S12 600W $168.98 (newegg)
input: Microsoft black keyboard, mouse $24.5 (newegg)

That's $1,983.39 delivered.

That is going to be a better gaming system. Seeing as he has a 1920x1200 display, it might be worth it since I think just about every game will let him turn on 4X AA and all the details in 1920x1200 with that. I guess the question is how important is AA when you're already running a resolution that high. Depends how close you're sitting.

 

[JLGatsby]

Originally posted by: Tostada
If you want SLI,

CPU: AMD Athlon 64 3700 Retail $214.7 (ZipZoomFly)
mainboard: ASUS A8N-SLI $122 (ZipZoomFly)
video: eVGA GeForce 7800GTX 256 $459.39 (newegg)
video: eVGA GeForce 7800GTX 256 $459.39 (newegg)
HDD: Western Digital 74GB SATA Raptor $156.5 (ZipZoomFly)
HDD: Western Digital 250GB SATA WD2500KS $102.9 (ZipZoomFly)
RAM: Corsair 2 x 1024MB DDR400 $167.9 (ZipZoomFly)
CD: NEC ND-3550A black DVD-R $43.88 (newegg)
case: Cooler Master Centurion 5 ATX $63.25 (ZipZoomFly)
PSU: SeaSonic S12 600W $168.98 (newegg)
input: Microsoft black keyboard, mouse $24.5 (newegg)

That's $1,983.39 delivered.

:thumbsup: Best build yet.

 

[xtknight]

All from Newegg:

ASUS A8R-MVP Socket 939 ATI Radeon XPRESS 200 CrossFire ATX AMD CrossFire Motherboard - Retail $104.99

AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ Manchester 1GHz FSB 2 x 512KB L2 Cache Socket 939 Dual Core Processor - Retail $313.00

Western Digital Caviar SE WD2500JD 250GB 7200 RPM Serial ATA150 Hard Drive - OEM $98.00

2xSAPPHIRE 100149 Radeon X1900XT 512MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16 Video Card - OEM $519.00=$1038

G.SKILL Value 2GB (2 x 1GB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM DDR 400 (PC 3200) Unbuffered System Memory Model F1-3200PHU2-2GBNT - Retail $147.00

Antec NeoPower NeoHE 550 ATX12V 550W Power Supply 100 - 240V UL, CUL, TUV, CE, FCC, CCC, CB, C-tick - Retail $118.00

NEC Black 16X DVD+R 2M Cache IDE/ATAPI DVD Burner ND-3550A - OEM $38.99

COOLMAX CV-570-GRAY W/O PSU Gray 0.6mm Steel/ ABS ATX Mid Tower Computer Case - Retail $14.99

Logitech G5 Laser 931376-0403 2-Tone 6 Buttons 1x Wheel USB Laser Mouse - Retail $48.65

Logitech Internet Pro 967450-0403 Black 103 Normal Keys 8 Function keys Function Keys PS/2 Wired Standard Keyboard - OEM $9.98
---
Subtotal: $1,931.60
Shipping (UPS Guaranteed 3 Day): $63.07
Total: $1,994.67

I hope I did everything correct. One thing I'm not sure about is the Crossfire, if you need a master card or what the deal with that is. I also hope 550W is enough. I'm pretty sure it is. Yeah, the case is nothing elaborate, but if you want power and future-proofage, you got it. I couldn't quite fit a black floppy drive in there (~$2 over), lol.

Edit: just a spelling correction.

 

[Bobthelost]

Originally posted by: TostadaDual GeForce7800s can use almost 500W by themselves.

Dual 7800s do not use 500W, a system using a dual 7800 will not draw 500W from the PSU, which is the important bit. You clearly don't know ****** about electricity or power supplies. If you want to take offense at this then post a single review or tech sheet that says that they draw anything near that number.

As to CPUs, you do have a point there, but for the money i'd still go dual core and single card, he can save money on the motherboard that way and when he does use the computer for something more stressful than these low CPU games then he'll have muscle to spare. A 200mhz overclock at stock settings is pretty damn easy to do i see no reason not to tbh.

The Raptor 74 is relativly slow, the WD4000KD is almost as fast and much more economical. If speed in gaming is the priority then just go for a single drive 150. The only advantage in terms of speed for two slower drives is for video editing when you're reading from one drive and writing to the other.

Rig above is the best i've seen although i'd ditch that NeoHe, they have been known to have issues with Asus, not worth the risk imo, enermax liberty or seasonic instead?

 

[xtknight]

Originally posted by: Bobthelost
Rig above is the best i've seen although i'd ditch that NeoHe, they have been known to have issues with Asus, not worth the risk imo, enermax liberty or seasonic instead?

This perhaps?

ENERMAX EG565AX-VEFMA2.0-SLI ATX12V 535W Power Supply 90V~265V UL, cUL, TÜV, CB - Retail $113.99

With Enermax PSU ($113.99)+NEC Black Floppy ($8.89):

Subtotal: $1,936.48
Shipping: $65.61
Total: $2,002.09

With Enermax PSU ($113.99):

Subtotal: $1,927.59
Shipping: $63.07
Total: $1,990.66

I'll probably just change my previous post if you think 535W is enough for 2xX1900XT and a dual-core CPU.

 

[Wall7486]

I agree with Bobthelost. Get an opteron and 1 GPU. If you want an enermax PSU go with the liberty. Simply because is modular, use what you need and that way you can keep your case clean and it won't interrupt with airflow. If you're not an enermax person, take a look at Seasonics, quiet and reliable, or Silverstone, heavy-duty psus. Don't skimp out on the PSU, because it powers up everything.
I still would go with 1 74GB raptors, and 1 storage drive. But, that's just me and with the drop in raptor prices it won't burn as big of a hole on your wallet like it use to.
Opteron 165 seems to be very popular, I don't know how good are the reports but people saying they can OC them to at least 2.5-2.75Ghz range. So, that is plenty of juice for a ~$310 processor. Single Evga 7800GTX KO or BFG 7800GTX would be the way to go. As I mentioned earlier. Video cards come out way too quickly now. 8-12 months a new architecture comes out. Besides the G71 are coming in a few months.

 

[kwo]

Wow.. You guys are AWESOME!!

Thanks so much for all the recommendations...... that gives me a *lot* to chew on...

Yeah..it seems the overall recommendation is to go with a single GPU...which I may wind up doing.....my original setup was created about 3 weeks ago...and now I see with the release of the x1900 series that may not be the best way to go...

Man these things change fast!

 

[xtknight]

Yeah, if you get a single X1900XT you won't have to cheap out on the other components so much. You can add some "padding" in there and a better case and power supply.

 

[alimoalem]

Case: your choice
PSU: good choice

MOBO: DFI or Asus. maybe even Epox
CPU: Opteron 165/4200x2 (i think the $80 is worth it)
Heatsink: stick with stock for now

GPU: nvidia 7800gtx/ati x1900xt (depending on the game he plays. check anand's
review of the x1900xt for benchmarks)

RAM: choose the cheapest. they're all relatively close in performance so you won't see the difference

HDD: why not the western digital drive with 16mb cache? i'm not a fan of the raptor but maybe you should get the raptor (w/150gb storage space) and the 250gb WD w/16mb cache

hope this helps

 

[alimoalem]

have you thought of making a $1700 system or $1800 (performance is basically the same as a $2K system) and keeping the extra cash??

 

[Tostada]

Originally posted by: Bobthelost

Originally posted by: TostadaDual GeForce7800s can use almost 500W by themselves.

Dual 7800s do not use 500W, a system using a dual 7800 will not draw 500W from the PSU, which is the important bit. You clearly don't know ****** about electricity or power supplies. If you want to take offense at this then post a single review or tech sheet that says that they draw anything near that number.

OK, ass, look at the AT article.
http://anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2679&p=15

Maybe it's wrong, but show me a more legitimate test of a 7800GTX SLI system. The SLI rig uses 492W. It doesn't mention how it's tested, although it does say "SLI systems pull insane amounts of power," so I guess you can assume they're talking about the whole system.

According to AT, their SLI system is drawing 492W with a single 120G 7200RPM hard drive and a single-core CPU. Do you honestly think it's a good idea to use a 500W PSU in a SLI GeForce7800 system?

If you think those power requirements are totally wrong, b*tch at someone else.

 

[MrX8503]

Originally posted by: Tostada

Originally posted by: Bobthelost

Originally posted by: TostadaDual GeForce7800s can use almost 500W by themselves.

Dual 7800s do not use 500W, a system using a dual 7800 will not draw 500W from the PSU, which is the important bit. You clearly don't know ****** about electricity or power supplies. If you want to take offense at this then post a single review or tech sheet that says that they draw anything near that number.

OK, ass, look at the AT article.
http://anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2679&p=15

Maybe it's wrong, but show me a more legitimate test of a 7800GTX SLI system. The SLI rig uses 492W. It doesn't mention how it's tested, although it does say "SLI systems pull insane amounts of power," so I guess you can assume they're talking about the whole system.

According to AT, their SLI system is drawing 492W with a single 120G 7200RPM hard drive and a single-core CPU. Do you honestly think it's a good idea to use a 500W PSU in a SLI GeForce7800 system?

If you think those power requirements are totally wrong, b*tch at someone else.

Also another thing, alot of the SLI certified PSU's are upwards of 500watts.

 

[Joepublic2]

Originally posted by: Tostada

Originally posted by: Bobthelost

Originally posted by: TostadaDual GeForce7800s can use almost 500W by themselves.

Dual 7800s do not use 500W, a system using a dual 7800 will not draw 500W from the PSU, which is the important bit. You clearly don't know ****** about electricity or power supplies. If you want to take offense at this then post a single review or tech sheet that says that they draw anything near that number.

OK, ass, look at the AT article.
http://anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2679&p=15

Maybe it's wrong, but show me a more legitimate test of a 7800GTX SLI system. The SLI rig uses 492W. It doesn't mention how it's tested, although it does say "SLI systems pull insane amounts of power," so I guess you can assume they're talking about the whole system.

According to AT, their SLI system is drawing 492W with a single 120G 7200RPM hard drive and a single-core CPU. Do you honestly think it's a good idea to use a 500W PSU in a SLI GeForce7800 system?

If you think those power requirements are totally wrong, b*tch at someone else.

Yes, the entire system is drawing 492 watts from the wall. Power supplies aren't rated by how much AC current they draw, they're rated by how much DC current they provide.

According to OCZ, the 600W unit that was used in that review has a 70% efficiency at maximum load.

492 * .7 = 344 watts at peak efficiency.

Since 344 watts isn't anywhere near the unit's maximum rating, you're probably looking at around 60% efficiency.

492 * .6 = 295 watts at estimated efficiency.

 

[Boztech]

Lian Li V1000A -- $189
Antec Phantom 500 -- $159
DFI SLI-DR Expert -- $199
Opteron 165 -- $325
Scythe Ninja -- $29
Nexus 120mm x3 -- $45
2Gb G.Skill DDR500 -- $225
Maxtor Maxline III 300Gb/16Mb SATA -- $135
NEC 3550 -- $40
eVGA 7800 GT CO -- $320
X-Fi XtremeMusic -- $115
Sennheiser PC160 Headset -- $70
MS 4000 Ergonomics USB Keyboard -- $40
Logitech G5 -- $50


Subtotal -- $1941 before shipping

 

[dab]

FYI: The P160 isn't too bad for cabling, i just revised mine and i'm quite pleased with the results.

 

[ribbon13]

Originally posted by: alimoalem
have you thought of making a $1700 system or $1800 (performance is basically the same as a $2K system) and keeping the extra cash??

Now, I might get like a $20 gadget or some accessories if I'm building a $2k rig for someone, but that is just outright theft.

 

[kwo]

Originally posted by: ribbon13

Originally posted by: alimoalem
have you thought of making a $1700 system or $1800 (performance is basically the same as a $2K system) and keeping the extra cash??

Now, I might get like a $20 gadget or some accessories if I'm building a $2k rig for someone, but that is just outright theft.

Nah...he's good to me ... and ribbon13's right, I might pick up a few tech things in the process of building his rig, but I would never steal...it's his money, not mine.

Besides, it's sort of a parasitic relationship - he spends the money and I get the vicarious enjoyment of putting it together and testing it...it's fun going shopping on a budget like that, even if it ultimately isn't for you

 

[Tostada]

Originally posted by: Joepublic2

According to OCZ, the 600W unit that was used in that review has a 70% efficiency at maximum load.

492 * .7 = 344 watts at peak efficiency.

Since 344 watts isn't anywhere near the unit's maximum rating, you're probably looking at around 60% efficiency.

492 * .6 = 295 watts at estimated efficiency.

If that's really how AT is testing (just going by the AC draw) without even mentioning how they tested, then that's pretty ridiculous. How much trouble would it have been to include the details in that article?

Anyway, that's pretty poor efficiency... And no, PSUs are not less efficient running at a 68% load. That is where PSUs are most efficient. They're always more efficient at 68% load than they are at peak. Almost every PSU achieves its peak efficiency between about 45% and 80% load. For example, the OCZ 480W PSU tested on SPCR has:

70% efficiency at 14% load
79% efficiency at 43% load
80% efficiency at 53% load
80% efficiency at 64% load
78% efficiency at 85% load
78% efficiency at 100% load

If the OCZ 600W has 70% efficiency at 100% load, then it has to have at least 73% efficiency at its most efficient, which is exactly where that system would be running, so that's 359W.

I'm a big advocate of telling people they're stupid for getting a 9-billion-watt PSU for some system that won't use 250W, but runing SLI 7800s justifies a huge PSU. If AT's rig in that article drew even just 350W, that's still less than you're going to be drawing with a dual-core CPU with multiple hard drives. I'm sure the 500W SeaSonic could pull it off (I've got a 430W SeaSonic running an overclocked X2, two video cards and three hard drives), but I don't see why you would do it.