Here is my future PC set up. Let me know what you think. It's been a while since I built my last comp (about 3-4yrs ago). I tried to pick well reputable parts. Let me know what you computer geeks think. I'm open to suggestions. I'm going to overclock little bit to get maximum performance. $219.98 Intel Core 2 Duo E6400 $145.99 ASUS P5B-LGA 775 Intel P695 Express ATX $231.98 Kingston 2 x 1GB DDR2 800 KVR800D2N5 $119.99 Antec 900 Black Steel ATX case $109.99 Antec True Power Trio 650w Power supply $279.99 EVGA 8800GTS 320MB PCI express x16 $74.99 Seagate 250GB 7200rpm SATA 3GB/s $42.99 Western Digital 80GB 7200rpm SATA 3GB/s $35.99 Lite-on 20x DVD burner $17.99 Sony 52x CD burner $6.99 Floppy Drive $294.99 Samsung 206BW 20" widescreen LCD monitor all these prices are from newegg.com price ain't bad! --------------- $200.99 AMD Athlon 64 x2 5200+ 2.6GHz $132.99 ASUS M2N SLI Deluxe Mother Board
I would go with the Intel Core 2 Duo with a Intel 965/975 chipset board. Other than that it looks good.
i know it sounds little dumb, but i heard like Intel is more for multi task and AMD is more for gaming. I never had AMD chip before, so I kinda want to give a shot at it.
I'm not 100% sure but I think AMD single cores were better than Intel single cores but, Intel Core Duos are better than AMD core duos.
Intel's new Core 2 Duos are the fastest CPU's you can buy. They beat the AMD x2 in just about every test.
a couple of things.... is it necessary to have a DVD burner, CD burner and a floppy drive? i thought that most DVD burners could burn CDs as well as a DVD. also, i know i haven't used a floppy in probably a good 3 years, you might use it more frequently though....the way i see it, with a 512 MB USB flash drive, you really don't need a floppy any more. especially when you can boot off of them. what are you planning on using for an OS? w/ the 2 GB of RAM, i am guessing Vista eventually, which would be another added cost. not sure what games you are looking into, but i have found that my 2.4 Ghz w/ 800Mhz FSB is more than adequate for what i need. when 64 bit programs start becoming more mainstream, i will upgrade to hardware that is designed for it, but until then, i plan on using my 4 year old machine. last thing...when you say future, do you mean in the next month or 2? if not, chances are the next latest and greatest will be out, making all these prices even lower (like that is a bad thing). all in all, it looks good. hell, if i had the money or need, i would do something similar.
that was the case back in the P4 era. However the core duo2 came out and bascially laid the smack down. However AMD will be back in the summer.
I have an Nvidia 680i chipset and it overclocks like a champ. Picked up an E6300 at frys for $150 and it's sitting at 3.00 GHz from 1.86 GHz very easily on an EVGA mobo. Hardocp.com has some great reviews and just started reviewing power supplies with real in-depth analysis.
I just put together a very similar system from newegg a couple weeks ago. Go dual core unless you want to play the waiting game (bring on Nehalem!) The spec is Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 Conroe 2.4GHz LGA 775 Processor Model BX80557E6600 - Retail GIGABYTE GA-965P-S3 LGA 775 Intel P965 Express ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail EVGA 320-P2-N811-AR GeForce 8800GTS 320MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16 HDCP Video Card - Retail Western Digital Raptor WD1500ADFD 150GB 10,000 RPM Serial ATA150 Hard Drive - OEM Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD4000KD 400GB 7200 RPM Serial ATA150 Hard Drive - OEM Thermaltake W0106RU Complies with ATX 12V 2.2 & EPS 12V version 700W Power Supply - Retail CORSAIR XMS2 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Antec Performance One P180B Black 0.8mm cold rolled steel for durability through the majority of chassis 1.0mm cold rolled steel around the 4 x HDD area ATX Mid Tower Computer Case Klipsch Promedia GMX A-2.1 78 watts 2.1 Speaker - Retail SAMSUNG 206BW Black 20" 2 ms (GTG) DVI Widescreen LCD Monitor My latest 3DMark06 is score with this setup is 8821. I'm not pushing much until everything has been "run in" more and I get the H20 cooling installed. My settings for that are below. Plenty more to go once I get better than OEM cooling. video: 554 core/845 mem cpu 1.38V 333 x9 (3GHz) memory 2.1v 1:1 timing ratio
icic. I'm pretty much ready to buy any day. I'm just being little more cautious before i drop big chunk of $$$. I'm gonna continue to use XP pro. The reason why I buying 2nd CD burner and floppy drive is bc they are cheap. It'll be better off spending $40 bucks now. One day those two might come in handy.
nice set up there, Brian. :bigthumb: Take some picture of h20 cooling set up. I'm really interested int that set up.
BTW, get a floppy drive if you plan on having a RAID setup. Comes in handy. Also, I wouldn't choose the same case/power supply as me if you care about a perfect cable layout. Granted this is better than most, but it's not perfect. I have to route the ATX power cable *in front of* the motherboard, instead of behind the backplane like all the other cables. gasp. I'll find an extension eventually and route it better. I'll need all the room for those water lines.
My only suggestion is to drop the two different drives and spend a little more and get three 250GB Seagate .10 perpendicular drives and get a mobo that has RAID5 on it. Run that for your OS and everything else and you'll be happy with speed and reliability. as for FDD, bah....i haven't used one either for over 5yrs. but a mobo with raid might need it for xp pro. Also, to find some good monitor prices, check out www.edealinfo.com they have good prices sometimes.
I still prefer the AMD chips. I built 2 recently with AMD chips. One was a FX52 and the other a AMD 64 bit X2 +4200. Both were easier and seemed to perform better than the last Dual core intel I built. That one was such a pain in the ass and had all kinds of issues. In my humble opinion the FX series kills the intel and the X2 will definitely keep up and probably run with less issues.
I am a person who doesn't overclock anymore. I was overclocking back in the celeron days. i gave it up years ago. I want to replace my box because I want to do more video editing than I used too and the software I want to use is on the Mac. I want a Mac Pro so I can have the 4 core setup for rendering video. If I was not set on getting a Mac I would build a pc with the E6600 and 3GB ram just so I would not have to worry about needing more RAM.
Are you running Vista, XP, or OS X? Or OS X with XP in parallel... i wouldn't touch Vista with a 10' pole...