chazdraves
Golden Member
Greetings, all!
Well, I've had my current rig for a while now and it's growing a bit stale. At the moment I have an A64 3400+ (at 2.65GHz), 1GB of DDR400 (at 438), and a BFG 6800GT OC. Unfortunately, it's struggling a bit with Supreme Commander (raise your hand if you're shocked 😉 ).
Anyway, I'll be posting the above in a FS/FT thread later today - PM me if you're intrigued. Self-promoting aside, I'm looking at some new parts, but I'm not as familiar with some of them as I'd like to be. Obviously, I would like a rig that could run bigger, prettier battles of SC. I understand, however, that it would take the uber-rig to achieve just that, and I'm short a couple pennies. Below is the list I've put together with links. I would greatly appreciate if you guys had a second to take a look at the parts and let me know if there are things I could do with less of, better bargains, more reputable brands, etc. I'm thinking socket 775 as that seems to be the beast of choice now days. I want a good OC setup to ring a bit more performance out of the cost if possible. Also, I already have a large tower-style CPU cooler for the processor.
Processor: Intel Core2 Duo E4300 - I heard this sucker OC's about as fast as the 6400 for significantly less... any thoughts?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16819115013
Motherboard: MSI P6N SLI-FI LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 650i SLI - My current setup is a Gigabyte and I've been real happy with the jumperless BIOS and tweakability, but this was one of the higher recommended boards.. I'm not sure how 650i stacks up against 965 et. all, so if there's a better or more cost effective option, please let me know. I would prefer 2 PCI-E's in case I get crazy. Also, I need two IDE (no SATA yet).
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16819115013
RAM: 2x OCZ Gold 1GB 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 - OCZ always seems to be good stuff, and I hear that 2GB is the new minimum. Any thoughts? Any better value? I'm used to Kingston Value RAM as I dont' usually OC RAM (minus the bit needed to up CPU speed).
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16820227123
Video Card: EVGA GeForce 7950GT 512MB GDDR3 - It seems like the 7950's are twice as fast as the 7600GT's (at about double the price, however). I recall EVGA having a trade-up program, hence the brand choice. Any thoughts? Is there a better value? Graphically, my 6800GT still holds up pretty well in Supreme Commander, so I'm not convinced that I need a 7950. I'd almost rather have something midrange until more DX10 cards come out and prices drop a bit.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16814130061
Anyhow, that's the setup. I'd greatly appreciate any input. I'll readily admit that I can't keep up with every bit of tech as well as some of you. Thanks for taking the time to help me out!
- Chaz
Well, I've had my current rig for a while now and it's growing a bit stale. At the moment I have an A64 3400+ (at 2.65GHz), 1GB of DDR400 (at 438), and a BFG 6800GT OC. Unfortunately, it's struggling a bit with Supreme Commander (raise your hand if you're shocked 😉 ).
Anyway, I'll be posting the above in a FS/FT thread later today - PM me if you're intrigued. Self-promoting aside, I'm looking at some new parts, but I'm not as familiar with some of them as I'd like to be. Obviously, I would like a rig that could run bigger, prettier battles of SC. I understand, however, that it would take the uber-rig to achieve just that, and I'm short a couple pennies. Below is the list I've put together with links. I would greatly appreciate if you guys had a second to take a look at the parts and let me know if there are things I could do with less of, better bargains, more reputable brands, etc. I'm thinking socket 775 as that seems to be the beast of choice now days. I want a good OC setup to ring a bit more performance out of the cost if possible. Also, I already have a large tower-style CPU cooler for the processor.
Processor: Intel Core2 Duo E4300 - I heard this sucker OC's about as fast as the 6400 for significantly less... any thoughts?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16819115013
Motherboard: MSI P6N SLI-FI LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 650i SLI - My current setup is a Gigabyte and I've been real happy with the jumperless BIOS and tweakability, but this was one of the higher recommended boards.. I'm not sure how 650i stacks up against 965 et. all, so if there's a better or more cost effective option, please let me know. I would prefer 2 PCI-E's in case I get crazy. Also, I need two IDE (no SATA yet).
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16819115013
RAM: 2x OCZ Gold 1GB 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 - OCZ always seems to be good stuff, and I hear that 2GB is the new minimum. Any thoughts? Any better value? I'm used to Kingston Value RAM as I dont' usually OC RAM (minus the bit needed to up CPU speed).
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16820227123
Video Card: EVGA GeForce 7950GT 512MB GDDR3 - It seems like the 7950's are twice as fast as the 7600GT's (at about double the price, however). I recall EVGA having a trade-up program, hence the brand choice. Any thoughts? Is there a better value? Graphically, my 6800GT still holds up pretty well in Supreme Commander, so I'm not convinced that I need a 7950. I'd almost rather have something midrange until more DX10 cards come out and prices drop a bit.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16814130061
Anyhow, that's the setup. I'd greatly appreciate any input. I'll readily admit that I can't keep up with every bit of tech as well as some of you. Thanks for taking the time to help me out!
- Chaz
