Now ive been told by a few sources that going with DDR2 would be a waste of time as games and what not seem to be going towards DDR3 aswell as having windows 7.... I am not looking for a 'quick fix' but more towards the future something to grow on...
I dont totally understand all this - but would doing the upgrade you just said (Great information btw thanks) would that bring me up to level to current games for good settings etc? and still be good for a year or two years.... or what?
Yes you'd be at max settings, and good for a while. It's the last upgrade step for your mobo.
The DDR2 is a dead end and I don't normally suggest people add more of it. But it's the difference between a $45 investment in 2GB of DDR2 ram, and a $200 investment in a DDR3 motherboard and 4GB of DDR3 ram.
I'm not against a new mobo, but if you do you should not stick with a Socket 775 CPU as previous posts suggested because it's not worth buying a new mobo over your old one just for DDR3 is all.. that's pretty much what I was aiming against in my post. A new Socket 775 mobo isn't a bad buy for budget system but not if you already have one
Reason is, is the Socket 775 is as much a deadend tech as DDR2. If you bought a new mobo it should be worth your while and be a socket 1156 i5 or AM3 Phenom II mobo, so that you wouldn't have to replace it again next upgrade cycle.
Ok so my earlier suggestion was at an upgrade to get you top settings on a tight budget which is always my first thought.. but I realized this isn't really your intention, if I were putting together a fresh system with some real longevity for the price range you're talking..
Ok so my earlier suggestion was at an upgrade to get you top settings on a tight budget which is always my first thought.. but I realized this isn't really your intention, if I were putting together a fresh system with some real longevity for the price range you're talking.. i5 750 combo'd 4gb OCZ DDR3-1600 RAM $295 total ($200 cpu, $95 ram)
Samsung F3 500GB hd $55 New Case? $60 Recycle DVD drive $800 total without case. And it has a Crossfire slot for a 2nd 5850 sometime way down the line. The GPU+PSU deal is an awesome buy alone.. if you don't actually need the PSU you can just sell it online.
Seems like some really nice combo deals - but could you explain what exactly 'crossfire' is? I believe I have a grasp on what it is but I am uncertain. This is all a learning experience for me :-) Everything you've listed seems well to what I can tell rather decent hardware!
And - I know the difference between an ATX case and a Micro ATX case - but the pros and cons are iffy... some say the Larger case gives better air flow as others seem to disagree... Opinions?
Ok so my earlier suggestion was at an upgrade to get you top settings on a tight budget which is always my first thought.. but I realized this isn't really your intention, if I were putting together a fresh system with some real longevity for the price range you're talking.. i5 750 combo'd 4gb OCZ DDR3-1600 RAM $295 total ($200 cpu, $95 ram)
Samsung F3 500GB hd $55 New Case? $60 Recycle DVD drive $800 total without case. And it has a Crossfire slot for a 2nd 5850 sometime way down the line. The GPU+PSU deal is an awesome buy alone.. if you don't actually need the PSU you can just sell it online.
is the best linked so far, Would get the Haf 922 case in combo with that, All other people have been linking OUTDATED 775 platforms, The lynnfield(intel i5)platform is Awesome for gaming with the rigg i quoted you could max out anything on todays market except for mabye crysis, It also incldes a DX11 graphics card which could be useful later on and the whole system is VERY future proof, Picking anything from the 775 platform(the ones loke666 linked for example) would be like cutting your wrists with a teaspoon. It would have been a good system 1-2 years ago, but currently its VERY over priced and outdated, And also Crossfire/sli is when you use 2 linked graphics cards in teh same computer which grants higher performance. Hope this helped, And good luck in your searching.
If you can read this please, i beg you please! 01000111 01100101 01110100 00100000 01101100 01100001 01101001 01100100 00101100 00100000 01100100 01110101 01100100 01100101 00101110 00101110 00101110
Originally posted by EightBall8 Seems like some really nice combo deals - but could you explain what exactly 'crossfire' is? I believe I have a grasp on what it is but I am uncertain. This is all a learning experience for me :-) Everything you've listed seems well to what I can tell rather decent hardware! And - I know the difference between an ATX case and a Micro ATX case - but the pros and cons are iffy... some say the Larger case gives better air flow as others seem to disagree... Opinions?
Crossfire is ATI's version of SLI - putting 2 graphics cards in your system to get more horsepower. So Crossfire lets you put in 2 Radeons, SLI would let you put in 2 GTX's, this mobo happens to support both.
There are some caveats to how well it works though so it's best to buy the single fastest graphics card you can afford, and only resort to Crossfire/SLI as an upgrade route later or if you can afford 2 of the single fastest cards
I can't comment on the airflow/temp, I rarely overclock my hardware so I don't pay much attention to airflow and extra cooling. The 2 downsides to micro-ATX I know are cramped assembly space (not too big a deal unless you tinker a lot), and limited power supply selection. The upside is taking up less space and easy to carry around.
You would be limited to a micro-ATX mobo too, which has fewer PCI slots and occasionally only 2 memory slots, but there are full featured micro-ATX mobos with 2 PCI-e 16x slots for Crossfire/SLI, 4 memory slots, 1 PCI slot and 1 PCI-e 1x slot.
That's all you need these days since you can use onboard ethernet and onboard sound. I don't have anything against micro's even in normal size ATX cases just to save $15 bucks.
Crossfire is ATI's version of SLI - putting 2 graphics cards in your system to get more horsepower. So Crossfire lets you put in 2 Radeons, SLI would let you put in 2 GTX's, this mobo happens to support both.
There are some caveats to how well it works though so it's best to buy the single fastest graphics card you can afford, and only resort to Crossfire/SLI as an upgrade route later or if you can afford 2 of the single fastest cards
I can't comment on the airflow/temp, I rarely overclock my hardware so I don't pay much attention to airflow and extra cooling. The 2 downsides to micro-ATX I know are cramped assembly space (not too big a deal unless you tinker a lot), and limited power supply selection. The upside is taking up less space and easy to carry around.
You would be limited to a micro-ATX mobo too, which has fewer PCI slots and occasionally only 2 memory slots, but there are full featured micro-ATX mobos with 2 PCI-e 16x slots for Crossfire/SLI, 4 memory slots, 1 PCI slot and 1 PCI-e 1x slot.
That's all you need these days since you can use onboard ethernet and onboard sound. I don't have anything against micro's even in normal size ATX cases just to save $15 bucks.
I've done SLI, and found that one extreme card is better then then saving the money on two lower model cards just to get SLI. Unless you got the money for two extreme cards then cool, but I'd rather have another PCI-E slot in that case too.
p.s. I think its funny learning how to build a PC in a forum thread. Most hardware has auto detect settings, but god forbid you run into voltage issues, code 10s, and under/overclock issues.
as opposed to the single 1TB HDD since it cut your load times noticeably
this is an alright rig that can be built for around $1200 and will hold up
And whatever you do if you are building a RIG do not put it in a crappy $5 case you will lose all credit when you have anyone look at it lol take a look at the Smilodon case from Raidmax its nice looking and very functional especially if you are going to be poking around in there
your right on this quad isnt a must yet i got a dual core x2 4600 and my problem is more of the cache size (512kb)then the speed of the processor.so any 45 nm processor is a good processor buy the one with the biggest cache.
Originally posted by madmaty Asus P6T SE motherboard Intel Core i7 (or the chaper i5 is just as good) 6+ GB RAM ATI 4870x2 850W PSU I also suggest 2x500 GB HDD (formatted Raid 0) as opposed to the single 1TB HDD since it cut your load times noticeably this is an alright rig that can be built for around $1200 and will hold up
And whatever you do if you are building a RIG do not put it in a crappy $5 case you will lose all credit when you have anyone look at it lol take a look at the Smilodon case from Raidmax its nice looking and very functional especially if you are going to be poking around in there
Idk why you'd get a 4870x2 over something like a 5850.. they'll both crush modern games and the 5850 will actually run the next gen (DX11).
In every game bench it's no benefit and if you use onboard raid you're often worse off. Without a dedicated RAID controller chip you can end up getting worse performance than a single drive. RAID is great at artificial tests but real world apps it only helps in very specific situations, so I don't find it worth the hassle.
I also timed my own load speeds in lotro and it was 3 seconds slower starting up on my raid than my single drive (all same model drives)
Comments
Yes you'd be at max settings, and good for a while. It's the last upgrade step for your mobo.
The DDR2 is a dead end and I don't normally suggest people add more of it. But it's the difference between a $45 investment in 2GB of DDR2 ram, and a $200 investment in a DDR3 motherboard and 4GB of DDR3 ram.
I'm not against a new mobo, but if you do you should not stick with a Socket 775 CPU as previous posts suggested because it's not worth buying a new mobo over your old one just for DDR3 is all.. that's pretty much what I was aiming against in my post. A new Socket 775 mobo isn't a bad buy for budget system but not if you already have one
Reason is, is the Socket 775 is as much a deadend tech as DDR2. If you bought a new mobo it should be worth your while and be a socket 1156 i5 or AM3 Phenom II mobo, so that you wouldn't have to replace it again next upgrade cycle.
Ok so my earlier suggestion was at an upgrade to get you top settings on a tight budget which is always my first thought.. but I realized this isn't really your intention, if I were putting together a fresh system with some real longevity for the price range you're talking..
i5 750 $200
4GB DDR3-1600 RAM $100
Radeon 5850 combo'd with Thermaltake 600W PSU $300 total (effectively $230 for gpu $70 for PSU after -$70 combo deal)
Gigabyte P55 Socket 1156 Crossfire/SLI mobo $135
Samsung F3 500GB hd $55
New Case $60
$850
Seems like some really nice combo deals - but could you explain what exactly 'crossfire' is? I believe I have a grasp on what it is but I am uncertain. This is all a learning experience for me :-) Everything you've listed seems well to what I can tell rather decent hardware!
And - I know the difference between an ATX case and a Micro ATX case - but the pros and cons are iffy... some say the Larger case gives better air flow as others seem to disagree... Opinions?
is the best linked so far, Would get the Haf 922 case in combo with that, All other people have been linking OUTDATED 775 platforms, The lynnfield(intel i5)platform is Awesome for gaming with the rigg i quoted you could max out anything on todays market except for mabye crysis, It also incldes a DX11 graphics card which could be useful later on and the whole system is VERY future proof, Picking anything from the 775 platform(the ones loke666 linked for example) would be like cutting your wrists with a teaspoon. It would have been a good system 1-2 years ago, but currently its VERY over priced and outdated, And also Crossfire/sli is when you use 2 linked graphics cards in teh same computer which grants higher performance. Hope this helped, And good luck in your searching.
If you can read this please, i beg you please! 01000111 01100101 01110100 00100000 01101100 01100001 01101001 01100100 00101100 00100000 01100100 01110101 01100100 01100101 00101110 00101110 00101110
Crossfire is ATI's version of SLI - putting 2 graphics cards in your system to get more horsepower. So Crossfire lets you put in 2 Radeons, SLI would let you put in 2 GTX's, this mobo happens to support both.
There are some caveats to how well it works though so it's best to buy the single fastest graphics card you can afford, and only resort to Crossfire/SLI as an upgrade route later or if you can afford 2 of the single fastest cards
I can't comment on the airflow/temp, I rarely overclock my hardware so I don't pay much attention to airflow and extra cooling. The 2 downsides to micro-ATX I know are cramped assembly space (not too big a deal unless you tinker a lot), and limited power supply selection. The upside is taking up less space and easy to carry around.
You would be limited to a micro-ATX mobo too, which has fewer PCI slots and occasionally only 2 memory slots, but there are full featured micro-ATX mobos with 2 PCI-e 16x slots for Crossfire/SLI, 4 memory slots, 1 PCI slot and 1 PCI-e 1x slot.
That's all you need these days since you can use onboard ethernet and onboard sound. I don't have anything against micro's even in normal size ATX cases just to save $15 bucks.
I've done SLI, and found that one extreme card is better then then saving the money on two lower model cards just to get SLI. Unless you got the money for two extreme cards then cool, but I'd rather have another PCI-E slot in that case too.
p.s. I think its funny learning how to build a PC in a forum thread. Most hardware has auto detect settings, but god forbid you run into voltage issues, code 10s, and under/overclock issues.
Mhmmm
Asus P6T SE motherboard
Intel Core i7 (or the chaper i5 is just as good)
6+ GB RAM
ATI 4870x2
850W PSU
I also suggest
2x500 GB HDD (formatted Raid 0)
as opposed to the single 1TB HDD since it cut your load times noticeably
this is an alright rig that can be built for around $1200 and will hold up
And whatever you do if you are building a RIG do not put it in a crappy $5 case you will lose all credit when you have anyone look at it lol take a look at the Smilodon case from Raidmax its nice looking and very functional especially if you are going to be poking around in there
look op!dont build it its more costly!as long as the system you buy isnt more then 12 month old your good
that being said! there is a war going on between intel ,nvidia and amd(ati)
and for another year or so amd/ati is the clear winner as gaming goes!
my advice buy an amd /ati rig that is window 7 64 and dx11 ready the cheapest you can find
it will probably be around 800 $.with that you re geared for the futur in mind if you go too low it wont be dx11 ready and
you ll be stuck buying a graphic card within a year.
your right on this quad isnt a must yet i got a dual core x2 4600 and my problem is more of the cache size (512kb)then the speed of the processor.so any 45 nm processor is a good processor buy the one with the biggest cache.
Idk why you'd get a 4870x2 over something like a 5850.. they'll both crush modern games and the 5850 will actually run the next gen (DX11).
Also RAID gaming performance is a myth:
http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.aspx?i=2974&p=5
http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.aspx?i=2969&p=8
http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=2101&p=10
In every game bench it's no benefit and if you use onboard raid you're often worse off. Without a dedicated RAID controller chip you can end up getting worse performance than a single drive. RAID is great at artificial tests but real world apps it only helps in very specific situations, so I don't find it worth the hassle.
I also timed my own load speeds in lotro and it was 3 seconds slower starting up on my raid than my single drive (all same model drives)