When I'm not actively looking to build/upgrade a system, I tune out from the scene and sites like this and am thus unaware of all the latest lingo when I come back. For a decade of building and several builds and upgrades this worked out fine, but now I'm really, really confused and hope I can get some quick lessons and guidance. My current rig is in the sig and I'm looking to get much faster as economically as possible. TIA!
The rig will be mixed use with an emphasis on eye-candy FPS games like Crysis, Photoshop (have CS3 currently), music creation (Acid) and HD video creation (Premiere), along with the usual smattering of other apps.
Budget is $1000-$1200 with $1500 an acceptable high end and prices under a grand appreciated. I'm most likely going to buy from NewEgg. I know the tables have turned and AMD is on the skids, so I'm returning to Intel after three straight AMD rigs. (I go where the performance is.)
I'm going to be carrying over a pair of PNY 8800GTs to SLI, so a Crossfire mobo is a non-starter. I'm also carrying over my 700W PSU, so my budget doesn't need to include those pieces. I'm not sure what I want to do about a case, but I'd prefer one that's big enough to take today's huge GPUs (I'll probably move up to whatever replace the GX260); preferably that mount the HDs sideways like the Antec Sonata does.
I don't really have time to mess around with trying to wring every last possible MHz out of an OCed system. I'd like to get some extra performance out of my system, but not at the cost of stability and a bunch of noisy fans. I've had enough wind tunnel systems in my life and I'm done with the noise. My current system whispers compared to its predecessors.
I want at least 8GB RAM in my rig, meaning Vista x64 will be running the show, but I'd also like to have a dual-boot or VM of 32-bit WinXP Pro. How hard is that to set up? Should I just go with Home Premium 64 or Ultimate?
Nehalem/i7 is too new, buggy and pricey for my tastes and when you can buy 4GB of DDR2-1066 for $50, spending $250 for 6GB of DDR3 kinda blows unless it's giving four times the performance.
My key questions concern the current C2D Quad nomenclature and code names. It used to be "higher numbers/more $$$ = better", but it doesn't seem so clear cut. I checked the system builder thread and the advice was a little contradictory to me, thus this thread.
Hard drive advice would be appreciated, too. I'm going to need tons of space for all this video, etc. Not sure if I want to get into RAID or not, because I'd ideally need RAID5 for maximum data security. Don't sweat this too much.
Hope this gives enough basic info for people to advice me. Thanks again, in advance.
The rig will be mixed use with an emphasis on eye-candy FPS games like Crysis, Photoshop (have CS3 currently), music creation (Acid) and HD video creation (Premiere), along with the usual smattering of other apps.
Budget is $1000-$1200 with $1500 an acceptable high end and prices under a grand appreciated. I'm most likely going to buy from NewEgg. I know the tables have turned and AMD is on the skids, so I'm returning to Intel after three straight AMD rigs. (I go where the performance is.)
I'm going to be carrying over a pair of PNY 8800GTs to SLI, so a Crossfire mobo is a non-starter. I'm also carrying over my 700W PSU, so my budget doesn't need to include those pieces. I'm not sure what I want to do about a case, but I'd prefer one that's big enough to take today's huge GPUs (I'll probably move up to whatever replace the GX260); preferably that mount the HDs sideways like the Antec Sonata does.
I don't really have time to mess around with trying to wring every last possible MHz out of an OCed system. I'd like to get some extra performance out of my system, but not at the cost of stability and a bunch of noisy fans. I've had enough wind tunnel systems in my life and I'm done with the noise. My current system whispers compared to its predecessors.
I want at least 8GB RAM in my rig, meaning Vista x64 will be running the show, but I'd also like to have a dual-boot or VM of 32-bit WinXP Pro. How hard is that to set up? Should I just go with Home Premium 64 or Ultimate?
Nehalem/i7 is too new, buggy and pricey for my tastes and when you can buy 4GB of DDR2-1066 for $50, spending $250 for 6GB of DDR3 kinda blows unless it's giving four times the performance.
My key questions concern the current C2D Quad nomenclature and code names. It used to be "higher numbers/more $$$ = better", but it doesn't seem so clear cut. I checked the system builder thread and the advice was a little contradictory to me, thus this thread.
Hard drive advice would be appreciated, too. I'm going to need tons of space for all this video, etc. Not sure if I want to get into RAID or not, because I'd ideally need RAID5 for maximum data security. Don't sweat this too much.
Hope this gives enough basic info for people to advice me. Thanks again, in advance.
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