New Alienware computer system.

[Intelia]

GO dual core AMD

 

[KeepItRed]

Wow I had NO idea the 4600+ was faster than a FX-57... I want to try the 4800+ but ICCT doesn't sell it...

 

[Prophet1]

Alot of times sites with alot of reviews will have articles on what hardware works well with what. As in: memory brand A works well with mobo B, and video card X is the best one for that mobo, etc.

 

[KeepItRed]

Well I'm looking for the fastest AMD CPU availible that works the best with the Neo4 Platinum mobo.

Socket 939 btw.

 

[KeepItRed]

Anyone?

 

[nitromullet]

You already know that is the FX-57... The FX-57 is undeniably the fastest consumer CPU available for a single task (gaming) right now. That being said, it is extremely expensive for the performance and a poor value. Personally, I think going for an Athlon 64 X2 is a better way to spend your money (obvioulsy from my sig) because it will allow to play games while doing other stuff in the background. The fastest X2 is the 4800+, but it's literally double the cost of a 4200+ and doesn't offer anywhere near double the performance. I am really happy with my 4200+, and while I did spend a decent chunk on it, it wasn't anywhere near $1,000 US.

Of course, this shouldn't matter, but it seems to matter to you for some reason.... You seem to not want to be pegged as a n00b, rich kid, mama's boy for buying an Alienware, but yet you are compelled to build a rig with n00b, rich kid, mama's boy parts... Why not just let your parent's buy you the Alienware, and learn about computers/value on your own while you also get to enjoy the Alienware? You'll be going to college soon, and your life/standard of living will most likely change drastically in a few years anyway - enjoy the salad days while you can. The Alienware will be a really nice computer, just a bit over most people's budget. Then again, the parts you are looking at are also way over most people's budget. The main reason most people would say anything negative about your Alienware is because they either aren't willing to or are unable to afford one. So, if someone is willing to buy you one, take em up on that offer. As much as I like building my own and saving some cash, I would have nothing against someone else buying me an Alienware. Hell, I'd even get the cheeseball Star Wars one with the goofy paint job...

 

[KeepItRed]

I've relooked at Alienware and made it somewhat close to what I want. The price was about $2,500 american, in which I can make my own better system for 2,000 american.

 

[MBrown]

Dude. Dont get a 4600 get a 4400. 4600 only has 512 cache on each core and the 4400 has 1mg cache on each core and then you can easily overclock the 4400 to a 4800

 

[nitromullet]

I've relooked at Alienware and made it somewhat close to what I want. The price was about $2,500 american, in which I can make my own better system for 2,000 american.

Yeah, I understand that. I build my own... However, I have been reading your posts for the past week, and I would not put $2000 worth of parts into your hands at the moment. Again, I am not saying this to be mean, rude, or condescending... We were all n00bs once, so there is nothing to be ashamed of. However, when I was a n00b, my first build cost about $400 (which was a lot of money to me then), you on the otherhand are planning on building a $2k "starter" rig... For what it's worth, I don't think you're ready for that. Obviously, it's your decision, but I would really hate to see a post from you in a week or two about your fried $2k rig. A $2500 rig that works is a better value than $2000 worth of broken parts. Just think about it, and don't let the pressure of anonymous people on a web forum telling you "Alienware is for n00bs" infuence yoir decision. You will always have time to learn how to build your own while you enjoy the Alienware.

 

[KeepItRed]

I'm not aiming to overclock, thats why I want the "hi-tech" stuff. I doubt I will fry the rig cause I'm getting help from you guys, ICCT and my 18 year old bro who's pretty much an expert. However I'm checking out the parts and he's basically building it for me.

 

[Soccerman06]

Keepitred, you shouldnt get the top end cpu. As I have stated many times before, get the 4400+ for future use, and use that extra money to get SLI or Xfire, which will give 20-50% more fps than using a single card and your top tier cpu. Also, dont bother gettting a single core cpu now days. Multi-threaded applications will soon hit the market but for now, if you ever plan on listening to music and playing a game at its highest resolutions at the same time, youll appreciate the extra core.

 

[KeepItRed]

Great! One last question before I shut up. I'm really looking into the 4400+ due to your advice. If I plan on getting the Radeon X900 will they work great together? According to my bro if you have an old CPU and a brand new top of the line video card, your CPU will slow you video card down, therefore not giving optimal performance.

 

[Gamingphreek]

First of all why would you plan on getting a card that we have 0 information on? If you are going to invest in something like that at least what for preliminary benchmarks.

The CPU has nothing to do with the Video card. I can put any CPU and video card together and they will be fine (as long as you have driver support for the instruction set of course).

It is true a CPU can bottleneck a video card (and vice versa) however, based on leaked specs, i would say a dual core A64 shouldn't bottleneck it much at 16x12 and up.

-Kevin

 

[Soccerman06]

Right now, the 7800GTX is slowed down by the cpu at lower resolutions, ie anything below 16x12 and high settings. You cant go wrong with dual core, as I said before over and over, once apps are multi-threaded you have 2x2.2ghz A64 under the hood.

Now if you really want to wait and see the next gen on the A64, wait for the M2 mobo and the new socket 940 A64. The only difference in terms of whats included is a better setup on the memory control and DDR2 suport! I havent read too much into the M2 mobo because it wont be released until Q2'06.

 

[VIAN]

According to my bro if you have an old CPU and a brand new top of the line video card, your CPU will slow you video card down, therefore not giving optimal performance.

Technically yes and technically no. If you have an older CPU that can push out a max of 30fps in a game and you have an ultrafast video card. That will give you headroom for the video card to turn on extra settings. If you get something over 300 bucks, the CPU power should be enough to last your for a few years. I'm on near my 2nd year with my 2700 and it's fine for me. I expect that I would have to upgrade sometime in the middle to late 2006. The CPU will last you longer than the video card. I've upgraded my video card to play at the settings I like every year since I've bought the CPU and I find little reason to upgrade the CPU so far.

So buy a decent CPU, but don't blow your load on it. The 4400 is nice for overclocking because of that 1MB of cache, but I don't think you should overclock if you want something that "just works".

Dual core is the future and that's why we are telling you to get it. The new Unreal tournament in 2006 is gonna have some features that are dualcore specific.

 

[Soccerman06]

Dual core is the future and that's why we are telling you to get it. The new Unreal tournament in 2006 is gonna have some features that are dualcore specific

The game is called Unreal Tournament 2007, but will be released in 06. I know it doesnt really matter but you have to be right on the specifics.

 

[nitromullet]

Originally posted by: KeepItRed
I'm not aiming to overclock, thats why I want the "hi-tech" stuff. I doubt I will fry the rig cause I'm getting help from you guys, ICCT and my 18 year old bro who's pretty much an expert. However I'm checking out the parts and he's basically building it for me.

That was my next suggestion. Get someone to help you. Good luck, dude... We'll be here if you need us.

 

[kitkat22]

Ditto with VIAN, If you matched up the new graphics card with say a Athlon 2000 yeah you bet the graphics card is going to be hampered. The 4400 is no slouch of a processor. It can easily take what the next gen GPU's are going to dish out. Maybe several generation down the road the CPU will have trouble, but definitely no the next one.

 

[CDC Mail Guy]

Build your own. I, (within the past few months) purchased a Dell to rebuild my credit. I told them I could build one comperable for a LOT less $, so they gave me a good deal(1/2 off). I got the Dell, turned around and sold it on ebay for 2X what I paid. I then paid Dell in full, and built my own system for a quarter of what Dell PC was originally. Alienware machines look nice, but you can do better. Check out Tigerdirect.com and Newegg.com for great deals. (sorry if I'm not supposed to mention stores...but I'm NOT advertising!)

PS-Go with AMD CPU

 

[Merovingian]

I just built a system recently so I know the market well and here are my thoughts, if anybody has a questions I would be glad to answer them.

Asus A8N-SLI Premium - Because it's easy to update the bios, it's quiet and it's easy to overclock. They say msi and dfi sli boards and those are good boards for experts who want to get the most out of their chips. I just built a system using an MSI board cause I need to save money and the msi board OC'd the 3000+ to 2943Ghz (this is not a simple overclock like the asus). Not bad but you won't need that kind of clock increases that the MSI and DFI board supply on the chip because your multi is higher on the chip I think you should get. The manual is solid as well.

AMD 4400+X2. Expect around 2.5-2.7Ghz on air. Better for multitasking and fast enough for games. Plus, I can easily walk you through the overclock process and give you proper settings. If not you can always run a 3200+ and save some cash. If it were my money and I was new to building I would get the 3200+ and clock it to 2.7+ GHz and pick up the dual core processors when a) stuff is written for dual core and b) the price comes down.

Corsair Value Ram - It's reliable and you shouldn't waste money on "fast" ram cause real world performance differences are few. Go for two 1GB sticks if you want but a pair of 512MB chips will be fine.

BFG 7800GTX - Solid reputation and screaming fast gaming performance, at a cost.

I like my zalman 7700cu CPU fan, comes with fan control and it's quiet with solid temps at medium fan speeds. I hear there is like an XP-90 which is good. Last system I built was watercooled so maybe other members have better input here.

Like quiet? My favorite PSU is the antec phantom 500W. It's a powerful as any 550W PSU and it's silent under normal conditions as the fan does not turn on. When under medium to heavy load it fans lightly. Bad part is it's price over the next psu which also has plenty of power. THe seasonic 430W (I think its the S12 or something) also quiet and much cheaper. Don't care about quiet? Antec Truepower II 430W has plenty of power to support the most powerful gaming systems if you don't run too many hard drives (5 hard drives running 7800GTX's in SLI could cause a problem for the 12v rail), you can play it safe with a TPII 550 if you like.

BenQ has a new DVDR that everybody seems to like, fine, I like the NEC drive cause I have experiance with it but both are good. The NEC drive I like is the 3540. Read anandtech to see review and what they prefer.

Lite-on DVD drive gets my nod.

Raptor 74GB app drive and a seagate 400GB media drive

I would go with coolermaster for cases cause of the quality. I have a wavemaster black but if you want to expandability I would use the Stacker. Antec also has a new P180 case out that you might want to take a look at as well.

Audigy 2 is fine, audigy 4 is choice, I have the audigy 4 cause I'm running a true 5.1 speaker set up with stands. If you get 5.1 get the stands first and the audigy 4 if you can afford it.

There how does that fit into budget not including speakers and speaker stands?

 

[KeepItRed]

Great. How's your Audigy 4? I see you get a nice controller on your desktop Does it make your sound quality any better?

 

[Merovingian]

If you get a 5.1 speaker setup w/stands, it's worth it... Here is my speaker review...

"It's not as much as I had originally planned (I have photos but I'm lazy) but now that I have listened to a few more sets of speakers I have more of a price range.

The speakers I have owned I have stared and I recommend the others I have listened to extensively...

* http://www.rslspeakers.com/ $60 Unreal for the price but the bass is a little on the weak side.

z-2300's for $100 - got these for my brother for X-Mas. Outstanding value cool controls, solid bass at that price.

*z-5500's for $250 no soundcard required as the unit itself has a surround processor. Big 12" sub that is great for movies and games. Problem here is that it has problems with running on another sound card when the soundcard has the surround turned on. So according to logitech you need to turn off the surround on the card for it to function properly. Most people may not even know the diff. Other problem is that they are impossible to find speaker stands for. (I returned them) But I will say that they are hands down the best system I have listened to for the price if you use onboard audio with the surround off (on the onboard). The Bass will scare you when your being shot at it's insane. Problem is that w/o speaker stands 5.1 is pretty useless.

*Klipsch pro audio 5.1 $250 w/audigy4 soundcard. $250 Speaker stands from klipsch $90. The system I have now looks like it has a 10" and 8" subs in one box. Much tighter bass and with the audigy 4 working with the speaker around you, your gaming experiance will never be the same. You can hear where people are shooting you from or footsteps like crazy. It's a hugely unfair advantage in HL2 (I don't really play that many shooter games) GOTTA get the speaker stands and gotta get them from klipsch. I got some knockoff from walmart online that looked exactly the same, noway, tossed those and got the real deal, very nice. Allow a two day break in period cause at first I though they were going back in the box and back to the store."

It's all about 5.1 when playing games but you have to have the speaker stands, I can tell you that the first time I played HL2 with high volume with very makes shift speaker stands was crazy. I was seriously scared in the games I was playing the first time I had the speaker setup because it's so much more real in 5.1 when the volume is high. You will lose your mind! But my audio system is $700US with tax and shipping. Some people want a better GPU but the speakers will last 8 years and that GPU will last 2. My 2c. Let me know about your budget and I can help you add or subtract things from the above list.

 

[Valkerie]

don't waste your friggin' money on alienware

 

[Borealis316]

I wouldn't be caught dead buying or using an alienware. Overpriced pieces of crap. Only thing I've EVER seen that I've liked from alienware is the stickers on the side of their new star wars edition, I'm still not geek enough though to put star wars stuff on my case.