NEW RIG - Recommendations Please

[rxblitzrx]

Hi Everyone,

I'm a very old overclocker and it's been a long time since I've built a new system. Can I get some help on building a new system? Here's the layout:

Feel free to copy, paste, and fill in the blanks.


BUDGET: $1100 VISTA READY!

CPU: C2D 6300 or 6400 OC'd=Yes
Motherboard:
RAM:
PSU:
Video Card:
LCD:
Hard Drive(s):

What I do with my rig:
1. Watch DIVX movies (not DVD)
2. Read, read, read. I'm a student so I study a lot.


I guess I don't really need a super fast computer. For what I do, the display is probably the most important piece. However, Vista is a beast and requires a really nice computer to run it smoothly.

Thanks so much guys. For those who remember, long live the Celery 300A @ 450!! Yes, that's how far I go back. Unfortunately, I was unable to keep up with the times.

 

[DrMrLordX]

Vista is mostly a system memory and GPU hog if I recall correctly. You will want at least two gigs of RAM and a fairly nice video card if you want to use Aero. Beyond that, not much horsepower is required to play movies on your 'puter . . . how many displays to you intend to run simultaneously?

 

[rxblitzrx]

I'm still trying to figure out why Widescreen LCD is the hot thing right now.

I personally don't think I need it because I don't watch DVD's on my computer, and I don't code or use photoshop anymore. Is a widescreen LCD good for anything else???

How many displays do I intend to run? I was thinking two. But for now, only one.

 

[DrMrLordX]

I personally have found no use for widescreen LCDs, but that's just me. You might want to ask around about that in the video forum if you can dodge the periodic flame wars over there.

If you want two displays in the future, you should definitely look into either some kind of dual-head vid card or just running two cards to support an eventual second display. Honestly I don't know if Vista would tax the GPU on both cards (or twice if using some kind of dual-head card) but it wouldn't surprise me if it did.

Nevertheless, your chosen CPU will do you just fine, and you can probably even get a cheap (relatively) i945 board to host it since you probably won't need to overclock. If you do want to overclock, get an i965 or Nvidoa 650i-based board, though you probably won't need the extra CPU horsepower unless you're encoding as well.

I'll let somebody else fill in the rest of the blanks 'cuz I'm feeling lazy.

 

[rxblitzrx]

thanks for the recommendations! Can anyone else fill in the blanks?

 

[nyker96]

E6400, D9 based RAM, S3, Enhance 5150GH, 7900GS or better if budget allows, any nice 19" LCD, 1 SATA drive 300 or so.
I did a pricing on newegg, $1230 shipped with 100 rebates.

 

[DrMrLordX]

Originally posted by: nyker96
E6400, D9 based RAM, S3, Enhance 5150GH, 7900GS or better if budget allows, any nice 19" LCD, 1 SATA drive 300 or so.
I did a pricing on newegg, $1230 shipped with 100 rebates.

That goes over his budget, and honestly, does he need d9 based RAM and an S3 if he's not overclocking? The machine is only going to play divx films and used for reading (ebooks?).