Looking to build new PC

AgentCipher · Mar 13, 2009

Hey all,

I'm currently in the need of building a new system. My current system is 3 years old and is starting to show its age (due to fans starting to die and spontaneous system reboots). Unfortunately, in these past couple years I haven't really been keeping up with the market, and I don't know what's good / bad / anything really anymore.

So, I'm looking to spend approx $1000 on a system designed for gaming and general use. Speakers / monitors / whatever not included, just $1000 for everything inside the box.

What should I look for? Intel i7 looks to be the way to go, but that means I need ddr3 memory... and yeah. I'm just lost.

Thanks!

xSauronx · Mar 13, 2009

check the stickies at the top of the forum, the system builder thread should really tell you what you need to know, and theres a starter template you can use to post here that is preferred as far as i can tell

once you see the system builder thread, come here and post the parts youre looking at and see if anyone sees any problems or can make any suggestions based on that. also, search the next 100 thread titles or so for builds that are in your price range

AgentCipher · Mar 15, 2009

Thanks, I read the stickies and I understand a bit more about things :-D

I'm still rather confused on the performance / price difference between i7 and older intel cores. (Please keep in mind that I've never overclocked, and I wouldn't even know where to start from that). My worry is that while the i7 looks like the definitive win for cost vs performance, the required motherboard / memory complicate the process. DDR3 seems to be very expensive compared to performance when compared to ddr2, and the motherboards... well don't get me started.

I'm just curious what the general opinion is from Anandtech peoples, as I've trusted you all for years now with hardware advice :-D I'm probably not going to start building immediately, but I wanted to start getting my feet wet now so I'm not as ignorant when I do

Denithor · Mar 17, 2009

Well, don't let a little ignorance of overclocking hold you back - we all started in the same place you are now and learned as we went.

Not to mention - it's waaaay easier today than it was even just a few years ago.

In general you can expect to spend about $100-150 more for an i7 build than a C2Q build and about $150-200 more than a C2D or PhII build. But prices, they are falling - I've seen an X58 board for $170AR and 6GB DDR3 for as little as $80AR.

There's a lot of value in the PhII X3 chips (710/720) right now because of the low price point, plus you can use those chips on AM2+ motherboards with DDR2 memory to save some more cash. The 720 especially is super-easy to overclock, just raise the multiplier and the speed goes up. Doesn't get any easier than that!

Basically though it comes down to price & what you're doing with your system. For gaming, a C2D is still a fine setup and very hard to beat. For video work i7 is prefered as it is very, very fast and not too much more expensive.

BlahBlahYouToo · Mar 18, 2009

i think a c2q is the way for you to go.
reason being right off the bat you'll save at least $200 and the performance increase doesn't justify the cost of going i7 imo.
second reason is that it appears you're not the type that constantly upgrades so a few years down the road, the i7 platform will likely be replaced by a cpu/mb running on a different socket interface, so your upgrade path is gone.

without knowing your system usage, i'd say a c2q q9400/p45/ddr2 system is a good platform to start on.

q9400 is low $200's (was $180 at microcenter a few weeks back)
p45 is $100
4 gb ddr2 is $20 AR (or $40 no rebate all the time)

compare that to an i7 system that's:
i7 920- $290
x58- $200
6 gb ddr3- $80 AR

$320 for c2q, $570 for i7. that's an extra $250 for a marginal performance boost. and it's not as if the c2q system is slow. your call...

MykC · Mar 18, 2009

heyheybooboo · Mar 18, 2009

{standing golf clap for MykC}

The PhII 940 / Foxconn 790FX combo at The Egg for $260 gets my vote.

MykC · Mar 18, 2009

I personally would avoid an i7 system as it hard to get under $1000 without the bare minimum. However, if you can live with teh 4830 it the platform with the longest future by far. Bearing that I'd go with Phenom II 940BE build.

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Looking to build new PC

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Denithor

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BlahBlahYouToo

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heyheybooboo

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