PC geeks - ultimate gaming rig help

[hanselthecaretaker]

As far as gaming goes, at this point if you want to save money, learn how to build your own rig with parts from here-

http://www.newegg.com

For some reason people are still so afraid of opening up their computer case, and it's kinda baffling as to why, as it's much more logical than they initially think.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/building-pc,511.html

Also you can always ask here for example for some help-

http://forums.cnet.com/5204-6122_102-0.html?forumID=44&tag=forum.fd


Anyways, regarding a decent gaming PC, one underestimated factor is, what resolution are you looking to play a game in? I built a PC for $830 that can run Bioshock on high in 1680x1050 at a near-solid 60fps, all from newegg.com
It can also run Crysis on high but that was on my old monitor with a max res. of 1024x768.

So, you start with whatever monitor you plan on keeping for a while, and then build around its native resolution with hardware that can support it.

DDR2 800 is still mainstream as far as chipset/memory speed goes, but if you want to "future proof" your system (say 3-4 yrs) you'll need to spend more than what I did.

I can give you more info after I get some sleep.

 

[stosstruppe]

Thanks everyone so far for the detailed & informative posts. Was instructed elsewhere to ascertain that I was actually using PCI-Express (I am) using some software called CPU-z.

I was also told to check and see if my power supply could handle the latest cards:

I don't know if your power supply could handle the change though. Evga recommends 400w with 26 amps for the GT/GTS G92. Open up your case and look at the sticker on the side of the power supply. The watts will be easy to find, but you’ll have to add up the 12v lines to figure out the total amps (ex: 12v1 – 15a, 12v2 – 15a = 30 amps total.)

Power Output 460Watts 32Amps

Not sure where to find info. regarding my motherboard. I checked the Dell invoice which has a detailed list of all the components I purchased, though nothing screams out "motherboard!".

The current monitor I use I've always set it to 1024x768. Never experienced anything higher so never had the opportunity to observe the difference in visual quality.

 

[gjohnson5]

Yet Another generality without sources or information to back it up

AMD top of the line quad core processor
http://products.amd.com/en-us/Deskt...+&f6=B3&f7=65nm&f8=125.000&f9=4000&f10=False&

Intel top of the line Server processor
http://compare.intel.com/pcc/showchart.aspx?mmID=889844,33088&familyID=5&culture=en-US

The AMD processor has 4000 MHZ system bus. The Best Intel has to offer is 1600Mhz. One distinction between Intel technology and AMD is that AMD chips don't have front side bus. What that means is the memory controller is on the chip. So the speed of the processor talk to the ram is much higher for AMD machines...

http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processors/ProductInformation/0,,30_118_8796_8799,00.html

Intel chips are running 50W more power consumption then the AMD's. Granted the Intel chip is 3.1 GHZ vs a 2.5GHZ AMD, so the processing power edge goes to Intel. The hypertransport makes AMD a good option...

Intel has the best processors to date, AMD is scrambling to produce something comparable as of yet. The only thing they have Intel beat on so far is power consumption, and that's not by much. Their new motherboards were supposed to be the king shit but have so far gotten mixed reviews, and there is limited ATX support, most of them are still mini.

 

[NickyE3]

Thanks everyone so far for the detailed & informative posts. Was instructed elsewhere to ascertain that I was actually using PCI-Express (I am) using some software called CPU-z.

I was also told to check and see if my power supply could handle the latest cards:

I don't know if your power supply could handle the change though. Evga recommends 400w with 26 amps for the GT/GTS G92. Open up your case and look at the sticker on the side of the power supply. The watts will be easy to find, but you’ll have to add up the 12v lines to figure out the total amps (ex: 12v1 – 15a, 12v2 – 15a = 30 amps total.)

Only figures I could find were V: 115/230 A: 6.0/3.0 Hz: 60/50.

Not sure where to find info. regarding my motherboard. I checked the Dell invoice which has a detailed list of all the components I purchased, though nothing screams out "motherboard!".

The current monitor I use I've always set it to 1024x768. Never experienced anything higher so never had the opportunity to observe the difference in visual quality.

What is your dell model?

 

[stosstruppe]

What is your dell model?

D07XP5 - XPS Gen 5

 

[stosstruppe]

Ok, pretty much settling on a GeForce 8800GT GFX Card as everyone seems to be raving about them and there high performance : cost ratio. However when you put "8800GT" in to a search literally dozens of different products come up, leaving a layman such as myself completely

Essentially, what are the differences between all these different models e.g. 256, 512 & 1GB RAM etc ?

 

[gjohnson5]

Dude:

Nvidia makes chipsets...
Many Many Many manufacturers will make video cards by that name because they resell an NVIDIA chipset... All of those cards by the name GeForce 8800GT GFX are basically the sane thing and the same driver funtions on all of them

Ok, pretty much settling on a GeForce 8800GT GFX Card as everyone seems to be raving about them and there high performance : cost ratio. However when you put "8800GT" in to a search literally dozens of different products come up, leaving a layman such as myself completely

Essentially, what are the differences between all these different models e.g. 256, 512 & 1GB RAM etc ?

 

[gjohnson5]

ALso the ATI Radeon X1900 I bought several years ago for this box still provides very high quality 3d and fast performance. Also ATI owns OpenGL so I would expect 3D to more advanced on ATI cards

I need an HD display and a new ATI video card that does HD... That if I ever cared about gaming

 

[Razorguns]

Yet Another generality without sources or information to back it up

AMD top of the line quad core processor
http://products.amd.com/en-us/Deskt...+&f6=B3&f7=65nm&f8=125.000&f9=4000&f10=False&

Intel top of the line Server processor
http://compare.intel.com/pcc/showchart.aspx?mmID=889844,33088&familyID=5&culture=en-US

The AMD processor has 4000 MHZ system bus. The Best Intel has to offer is 1600Mhz. One distinction between Intel technology and AMD is that AMD chips don't have front side bus. What that means is the memory controller is on the chip. So the speed of the processor talk to the ram is much higher for AMD machines...

http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processors/ProductInformation/0,,30_118_8796_8799,00.html

Intel chips are running 50W more power consumption then the AMD's. Granted the Intel chip is 3.1 GHZ vs a 2.5GHZ AMD, so the processing power edge goes to Intel. The hypertransport makes AMD a good option...

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,2226942,00.asp

ET's famous quad showdown article. Read the conclusion on the last page.

r

 

[gjohnson5]

Dude , you didn't even read the article , you just looked for the conclusion at the bottom of this opinion????

If you look at your own post you'll see that the AMD have much better 3d rendering and video encoding was faster. ALso once the video quality of the games went up , you noticed the AMD actually surpass both intel chips in performance. I bet if they did a more intensive test such as the database tests I talk about you would see the Intel's get smoked

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,2226942,00.asp

ET's famous quad showdown article. Read the conclusion on the last page.

r