processor vs gpu

[jstrawn]

I am getting ready to build a system and I am wanting a few opinions on it. It will be for gaming (mostly eqII) and general use.

So far I am looking at:

case - Antec p180
psu - Antec neo power 480
hdd - Maxtor DiamondMax 10 6B300S0 300GB (x2 for raid)
mb - EPoX EP-9NPA+Ultra
mem - Patriot 2GB (2 x 1GB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM DDR 400 (PC 3200)
* (just went out of stock, so suggestions would be helpful here)

dvd - NEC IDE DVD Burner ND-3540A
old sound blaster live for now, old nec crt monitor

That leaves me with processor and gpu.

My first thought was

AMD Athlon 64 4000+ - $370
Leadtek WinFast PX7800GT Extreme TDH Geforce 7800GT - $399

What I really am wondering is if I should back off on the processor and go for a 7800GTX (vs the GT). I am trying to stay relatively close to $780 $800 for both processor and gpu.

 

[t3h l337 n3wb]

You should get a 3700+ instead of a 4000+ and save some money. They overclock about the same anyways. Unless your monitor can support like really high resolutions, a 7800GTX is pretty useless.

 

[stevty2889]

I agree, get the 3700+ and save some money, not a huge differance. I am fond of Leadtek myself, so that 7800GT looks good, I went with eVGA, but only because I already had 2 leadtek cards, and didn't need 3 copies of the same games. As for the mem, I just ordered some OCZ platinum myself.

I recomend against using raid-0 if thats what you were planning, it does not give a huge performance increase, I just ditched my raid-0 raptors for a 160gb SATA II WD drive and suffered no noticable performance loss. If you are going raid-1 I suppose thats not gonna hurt anything, but I avoid maxtor like the plauge.

 

[wkinney]

why not the xfx 7800GT, better manufacturer, same clocks (look like) and $40 cheaper AR

http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16814150108

 

[t3h l337 n3wb]

Uh, not really... Leadtek > XFX.

 

[PKing1977]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819103562 = 374.00

eVGA 256-P2-N515-AX Geforce 7800GT 256MB GDDR2 PCI Express x16 Video Card - Retail = $369


PKing

 

[jstrawn]

Thanks for all of the suggestions!

More about the raid...

What about going to a single hdd and adding the savings there to a processor. Moving up to a AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+ (taking the cost savings from the 2nd drive and the $30 on the gpu if I move to an eVGA) or.... just go with one drive, the 3700+ and save the cash.

So, general thoughts on raid??

Thanks again!

 

[jstrawn]

Looks like 4200 x2 and 4400x2 have the same clock speed. Does the cache make that much difference (seems like that is the only difference??).

Jim

 

[theMan]

some people say that in order to make a 4200 into a 4400 it would need to be going 100mhz faster.

raid is a total waste of money, unless you instist on having the absolute best. you hardly get any performace gain for 2x the cost. just get a high quality single sata II drive. get some ocz value ram and get the 3700+ it overclocks really well. and it is almost garaunteed to get fx55 speeds.

 

[jstrawn]

Thinking about this hdd (ditching the raid).

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822144415

 

[stevty2889]

Originally posted by: jstrawn
Thinking about this hdd (ditching the raid).

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822144415

Thats the drive I have, I am very happy with it, burst rate is almost the same as my 36gb raid-0 raptors. Going with that and a 4200+ X2 sounds good to me, but then your system would be almost the same as mine lol. My X2 is currently at 2.618ghz with no problems, just waiting for my 2x1GB OCZ platinum to get here so I can go back to 2gig of ram.

 

[theMan]

with the savings from the cpu and hdd, you could even bet 2gb overclocking ram like ocz platinum.