1. What YOUR PC will be used for. That means what types of tasks you'll be performing.
Games (SC2, Dragon Age, and older things like Oblivion), Raytracing (Povray), some modeling with Blender.
2. What YOUR budget is.
US$800 absolute top, (including shipping really, so maybe $750 for parts)
3. What country YOU will be buying YOUR parts from.
U.S.
4. IF YOU have a brand preference.
AMD for processors. For graphics, I have a (probably outdated) notion that ATI does not work well in Linux. I would be willing to have that idea beaten out of me.
5. If YOU intend on using any of YOUR current parts, and if so, what those parts are.
17 inch monitor, dvd drive, case (Antec Sonata from 6 years ago). Current power supply is an Antec True350S. Not sure that will be adequate anymore.
6. IF YOU have searched and/or read similar threads.
Some.
7. IF YOU plan on overclocking or run the system at default speeds.
Have never overclocked, but sounds silly not to nowadays.
8. What resolution YOU plan on gaming with.
Native resolution of monitor is 1280x1024.
9. WHEN do you plan to build it?
Would like to order within the week.
10. Don't ask for a build configuration critique or rating if you are thin skinned.
Be gentle.
I've been running an AMD Athlon 64 3500+ for about 6 years now. Had a macbook pro that died, don't want to go back to a mac or a laptop. I game casually, but would like it to look nice when doing so.
So the parts i'm mostly unsure about are the graphics card, power, and slightly CPU. Am I crazy for going with NVidia these days? I have been single booting linux for these 6 years, but I will probably install Windows7 dual boot just for gaming. Wine has been "ok", but not great.
Also, I've never been a big Intel fan. The sandy bridge hype almost got to me, but not quite. Is this also silly of me? I noticed that there were a few people in http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2132719 with Phenom II Quad core that were pretty happy with them.
Is the power supply overkill?
I do see myself buying a widescreen monitor at some point in the next year or two.
Thank you for your time.
CPU: AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition Deneb 3.4GHz Socket AM3 125W Quad-Core Processor HDZ965FBGMBOX
Motherboard: ASUS M4A88TD-V EVO/USB3 AM3 AMD 880G SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 HDMI ATX AMD Motherboard
RAM: G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666) Desktop Memory Model F3-10666CL9D-8GBRL
Graphics: MSI N460GTX Cyclone 768D5/OC GeForce GTX 460 (Fermi) 768MB 192-bit
Power: SeaSonic X650 Gold 650W ATX12V V2.3/EPS 12V V2.91 SLI Ready 80 PLUS GOLD Certified
Drive: SAMSUNG Spinpoint F3 HD103SJ 1TB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s
Games (SC2, Dragon Age, and older things like Oblivion), Raytracing (Povray), some modeling with Blender.
2. What YOUR budget is.
US$800 absolute top, (including shipping really, so maybe $750 for parts)
3. What country YOU will be buying YOUR parts from.
U.S.
4. IF YOU have a brand preference.
AMD for processors. For graphics, I have a (probably outdated) notion that ATI does not work well in Linux. I would be willing to have that idea beaten out of me.
5. If YOU intend on using any of YOUR current parts, and if so, what those parts are.
17 inch monitor, dvd drive, case (Antec Sonata from 6 years ago). Current power supply is an Antec True350S. Not sure that will be adequate anymore.
6. IF YOU have searched and/or read similar threads.
Some.
7. IF YOU plan on overclocking or run the system at default speeds.
Have never overclocked, but sounds silly not to nowadays.
8. What resolution YOU plan on gaming with.
Native resolution of monitor is 1280x1024.
9. WHEN do you plan to build it?
Would like to order within the week.
10. Don't ask for a build configuration critique or rating if you are thin skinned.
Be gentle.
I've been running an AMD Athlon 64 3500+ for about 6 years now. Had a macbook pro that died, don't want to go back to a mac or a laptop. I game casually, but would like it to look nice when doing so.
So the parts i'm mostly unsure about are the graphics card, power, and slightly CPU. Am I crazy for going with NVidia these days? I have been single booting linux for these 6 years, but I will probably install Windows7 dual boot just for gaming. Wine has been "ok", but not great.
Also, I've never been a big Intel fan. The sandy bridge hype almost got to me, but not quite. Is this also silly of me? I noticed that there were a few people in http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2132719 with Phenom II Quad core that were pretty happy with them.
Is the power supply overkill?
I do see myself buying a widescreen monitor at some point in the next year or two.
Thank you for your time.
CPU: AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition Deneb 3.4GHz Socket AM3 125W Quad-Core Processor HDZ965FBGMBOX
Motherboard: ASUS M4A88TD-V EVO/USB3 AM3 AMD 880G SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 HDMI ATX AMD Motherboard
RAM: G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666) Desktop Memory Model F3-10666CL9D-8GBRL
Graphics: MSI N460GTX Cyclone 768D5/OC GeForce GTX 460 (Fermi) 768MB 192-bit
Power: SeaSonic X650 Gold 650W ATX12V V2.3/EPS 12V V2.91 SLI Ready 80 PLUS GOLD Certified
Drive: SAMSUNG Spinpoint F3 HD103SJ 1TB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s