Fink

Hey Guys,

It's about time I update the ole comp.

I'm looking to start from the ground up. Nothing fancy. Just enough to run any game I want, nothing really hardcore though.

Right now I have an MSI board, 1 gig RAM, 80GB HD, ATI 9600XT, an AMD processor which I can't remember the speed of, Sound Blaster sound card, and a CD reader and DVD-RW/CD-RW combo drive as well as a Dell 2005FPW monitor which is kickass by the way.

Anyway, the computer lags a little bit when playing The Sims 2, sometimes when playing Call of Duty randomly.

Basically just looking for a good upgrade that will keep me running the new games for anohter 2 years or so.

I have been out of the loop on new mobo's and CPU's for so long I have no idea what is good now and what isn't. I know what kind of case and memory I am going to get, hard drive is a no brainer (been looking at some pretty sweet SATA drives lately, I have no experience with that...any ideas?!) I will probably keep my old CD/DVD drives as well as sound card but that remains to be seen.

So basically...what are your recommendations for a new mobo, a new CPU and then some video card ideas.

Thanks guys!

I have always been a die hard Nvidia and Intel fan, not until this last build did I switch to ATI and AMD and I have never had any problems with it at all so I am perfectly comfortable going either way.

Thanks!

-Fink

Fink

...no ideas?

marko3xl3

This is what I am gonna do in a while. I made a list some months ago when this stuff came out, so it's pretty recent.

- Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 (2.4ghz) ~$370
- OCZ Platinum Memory (2x1GB DDR2 PC6400) ~$210
- ASUS PSW DH Deluxe MOBO ~$270

I haven't decided on the video cards yet tho.

Tofer

if your going to get rid of the old computer for cheap, let me know.

Keggo

Honestly... I would wait for the quad core processors that will be available in '07. You'll be happy to know that Intel bought Nvidia... and before that AMD bought ATi. I honestly have always been an AMD and Nvidia fan... looks like my gpu preference will have to change now...?

arjan

I've an Intel P4, and had a gigabyte board. Not all that stable, got blue screens whenever I enabled the onboard network adapter.

I returned the board and went looking for an intel mainboard (not just chipset) and it's been stable sofar.
I've had a couple of computers with all intel stuff, and have had very good luck that way.
It's not necessarely the fastest, but I take stability over performance nowadays.
Don't have the time to mess around with it too much.

I just missed the fact the board didn't have an agp slot to use my video adapter, so I am using onboard video. It's mostly for Autocad etc., so I don't care too much. I've read that onboard video mostly lags in the 3d gaming evironment, so that's something you should look out for.

Fink

I am assuming that the quad core processors will require a whole different motherboard...not something I just pop-in later on after I build this new machine?

Hmm...I'm really needing a new system pretty soon, why does there always have to be something bigger and better coming out around the corner?

Fink

Fink

Not sure why I'm not editing but...oh well.

Assuming I go with the above, which are all in stock at Newegg.com

How about this video card...the cons on newegg.com say it overheats a lot if its not a well-ventilated case which I plan on getting so doesn't seem to be a problem.

What do you think?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814102682

Thanks guys!

Fink

mastacox

I'm waiting for quad-core cpu's and DirectX10 videocards (Q1-Q2 2007), but I'm going for some major gaming horsepower

mastacox

Actually, from what I read in Maximum PC, the Quad-Core Intel chips (Core 4 Duo?) will be compatible with the Core 2 Duo motherboards.

Fink

Alright well I'm just planning on going with the mobo, CPU and memory that Marko suggested. Any ideas on good internal DVD burners? Is Lightscribe worth anything? I don't even know that much about it.

Thanks guys!

Fink

boogyman

i just built a new system..

core 2 duo extreme (2.94GHz), asus p5b motherboard (w/ intel 965 chipset), 1GB 800MHz DDR2

and the other stuff.. 7600GT vid card w/ DDR3, 160Gig sata 3 hard drive, 16x sony dual layer dvd burner

this comp runs everything. i even hooked up the comp to my 1080p television and it ran FEAR pretty smoothly with everything cranked up to the max.

on a side note. the asus p5b mobo will be compatible with the quad core processors intel has next year :-)

Russell

Fink

Okay, here are the links to the things that I have decided on...as long as the funds are where they should be.

Motherboard:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813131045

Processor:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819115003

Memory:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820227088

Case:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811129154

DVD Burner:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16827131038

CD Burner:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16827131013

Power Supply:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817371002

Hard Drive:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822144701

Video Card:

Not sure yet. I have an ATI 9600XT right now but I definitely need an upgrade. Any recommendations would be great!

Sound card:

Soundblaster Live! 5.1, nothin too fancy.

That's it I think. I may need to downgrade some of this stuff to cut costs but we'll see.

What do you all think? Would you change anything?

Thanks guys!

Fink

nick-m

4x4Fink, I'm moving soon and can't take take any of my computer stuff with me...soo, I have a spare Live! 5.1 that I can send you, and a TDK CD burner, although not the newest; 16x-10x-40x IDE CD-RW Drive.

You can have 'em if you want them.

I suggest against getting the Western Digital...go with a Seagate instead.

Fink

Well I've already got a Live! card from eons ago so I'll probably just stick with this one...thanks tho, I appreciate it!

Hey guys, how about this video card?

This is the one thing I still have to pick out...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814121025

I'm still deciding between NVIDIA and ATI...what do you all think?

Any help will be great! Thanks!

Fink

Fink

Any thoughts on a vid card guys?

Fink

89macrunner

keep your video card untill DX10 cards start coming out.

or find a geforce 7900 they are REALLY cheap right now..we had them for $150 at best buy

Fink

The thing with the new DX10 cards is that they are gonna be $$$$ and after spending all the money on the rest of the computer I doubt I'll be able to afford it. I found an MSI GeForce 7900GT with 256mb for $279.99 on NewEgg.com

Would that do all of my current games better than my 9600? I assume it will, lol.

The only games I play a lot are Call of Duty, Soldier of Fortune, Brothers in Arms, Sims 2 and then some older games.

Let me know what you guys think about that one, that's in my price range and as long as it will work for the games I have then that'll be fine til I can get DX10 card for my Birthday next year or something.

Another concern is if this video card is Vista compatible. I'll check that out.

Let me know about this card, thanks,

Fink

marko3xl3

One thing that I wanna ask you about is...why are you getting such high speed memory? It's a good choice if you're gonna overclock. But if not, I think you can go lower to match your processor and save money.

As far as vid card, I'll have to look into that if I have time... haven't been staying with the market.

Oh and what kind of advantages did you see between the PSW and P5B motherboards?

Fink

That was the speed a buddy said he would get...but it would be great if I could save money and get about the same performance, I have no desire to overclock.

Thanks man,

Fink