Hardware experts - what do you think of this system?

[FrieChamp]

Hey, I got this 2nd investment lined up, which is a new PC for my home. I was in the lucky situation to use the high end machines at my former work place for gaming, but now that I'm left with the ancient machine at home I want to/need to get something new.

The rig should hold up well what upcoming games in the near future are concerned (Crysis and so on) and also for mapping I need something fast.

Obviously I want to get bang for the buck though (student life is hard and dure ), so I'm asking the tech geeks here to have a look at the list of components I've come up with. Maybe you know some items which could be replaced for something cheaper/better.

List goes as follows:

CPU: Intel Core 2 CPU X6800

Board: Some ASUS board

GFX: XFX 8800 GTX

RAM: 2x2048

Screen: Iiyama ProLite E2201W-B1 (I already got the 17" version from Iiyama, I am happy with it and the uniform look should be nice when they are set up as dual screens)

Power supply: Sharkoon Silent

Hard drive: s-ata HD 160 GB (plus my 75 GB one from the old machine)

OS: WinXP pro 64 (I don't want to get Vista but make use of my memory)

DVD Burner: Will be taken from old machine

Case: Something standard, without any plexi glass or fancy multi coloured lights

Do you think this would make a good system? Do you think it is "too much" (as far as I can estimate it's going to be a quite expensive purchase)?

Thanks

[Gorion]

well looks solid to me, except for the windows 64 XP.. cause windows XP64 is shit, its "hacked" together by microsoft.. you really should go vista then, and vista ain't that bad.

Maybe you can go a bit lower with CPU (buy xx50 serie) and overclock it to 3.0ghz or more..

[JAL]

That's kind of a pc I'd buy if I were to buy one at the moment.

I'd buy more hard drive space, atleast 400GB tbh. Other than that it seems

very kickass.

[FrieChamp]

Do you think making it a Quad Core would pay off? :\

[cyberjunkie]

If you're planning on making it a value buy, then maybe a 8800GTS would be better choice. Instead of the X6800 get the Q6600 - better rendering/compiling performance 4GB RAM if you're on a 64bit OS and I personally am no fan of 64bit Vista I'd also spend on a bigger hard drive a WD Caviar 320GB at least, or maybe a 500GB. Silly to get a 8800GTX and a X6800 and get a 160GB drive I'd also recommend a bigger single screen - 22" - not too costly + you get a decent resolution and screen size. Single-Widescreen is great for gaming/movies!. Dell 2407WFP (24") would be superb though but its costly

[FrieChamp]

If you're planning on making it a value buy, then maybe a 8800GTS would be better choice. Instead of the X6800 get the Q6600 - better rendering/compiling performance 4GB RAM if you're on a 64bit OS and I personally am no fan of 64bit Vista I'd also spend on a bigger hard drive a WD Caviar 320GB at least, or maybe a 500GB. Silly to get a 8800GTX and a X6800 and get a 160GB drive I'd also recommend a bigger single screen - 22" - not too costly + you get a decent resolution and screen size. Single-Widescreen is great for gaming/movies!. Dell 2407WFP (24") would be superb though but its costly

I don't render or compile anything, but maybe a Quad Core would pay off nevertheless for gaming some day soon. I don't want to switch to Vista, WinXp 64 worked fine for me at work and I will need the memory for Sandbox. 320 GB? 500 GB? I don't know what you're doing with all that HD space but I don't intend to download pr0n 24/7. File sizes are getting bigger and bigger, but I usually don't stash a whole lot of files that I don't frequently need. Maybe a few more gigs won't hurt, but I gotta save money where ever possible..

The screen I listed above is a 22", anything bigger (especially from Dell) is beyond my limit. I think that's enough work space in combination with the 17".

How does the 8800GTS compare to the 8800GTX version? Is the GTX significantly better, so the extra cash is well invested or does the GTS hold up well enough?

[Zacker]

I am planning on upgrading my comp soon with these components:

Intel Core 2 Duo E6750

Asrock 4core1333-FullHD

Geforce 8600GT

Kingston2x1gb PC2-5300

These components are far from the ultimate top, but they all provide very nice value for your money.

[Sentura]

i agree with cj that q6600 is a much better trade off than a c2x. i went with the e6750 myself, but i regret not having purchased the q6600 while i had the chance. also i would recommend 4gb ram for whatever purpose it might have (i suspect no less than a full gaming rig). i would even consider going as high as 8gb, even though that might be a bit overkill and would be much more considerable in a year's time when ddr2 prices are perhaps half of what they are now.

also if you want a pretty good board that allows for some novice overclocking, i would recommend the ASUS striker extreme.

[cyberjunkie]

The 8800GTS will save you 100-150$ over the 8800GTX I think. The 22" Dell shouldn't be VERY costly - Dell E228WFP 22" - http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/prod ... u=320-5205

The price difference between a E6750 and a Q6600 is well under a 100$. X6800 is MUCH costlier. On to your HDD, 160GB -> 320GB, for like a 30% price difference you get a 100% space increase. Must be like a 30-40$ price difference. Wonder if you even get 160GB today 320GB I think is the sweet spot. Get the WD Caviar SE16 WD32000AAKS - http://www.westerndigital.com/en/produc ... riveID=299

The thing with the 8600 series of nVidia cards is that they get pretty owned by the X1800/X1900s of ATI in DX9 games. The ATI's are DX9 but the 8600's DX10 performance is appauling from the looks of it , so the 8800___ IF at all you want DX10! If DX9 is all you want to play get a ATI X18xx/X19xx.

[-HP-]

Champ, I would definitely aim to something like that If I was to renew completely my home PC.

Probably would buy a AMD instead, they're cheaper and I think i can call myself an "AMD fanboy", just because It's the best price/cost relation around.

And a quad-core, is too expensive nowadays, and you wouldn't benefit nothing with it on games, at least for the time being, so yeah a Core2 is a nice choice.

Also, don't forget to buy a motherboard with a chipset capable of running DDR2 memories, 'coz DDR1 were discontinued, and they stopped at 400mhz.

I think XFX 8800 GTX It's the perfect choice for an hardcore gamer and mapper, so my advice is buy this one, It's the best of the best, benchmarks don't lie!

I don't know if Iiyama are any good, but if you are aiming at one of those, just make sure it's a 5ms monitor, It's the best for games, otherwise you'll get ghosting effects.

Cheers mate.

[FrieChamp]

The 8800GTS will save you 100-150$ over the 8800GTX I think. The 22" Dell shouldn't be VERY costly - Dell E228WFP 22" - http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/prod ... u=320-5205

The price difference between a E6750 and a Q6600 is well under a 100$. X6800 is MUCH costlier. On to your HDD, 160GB -> 320GB, for like a 30% price difference you get a 100% space increase. Must be like a 30-40$ price difference. Wonder if you even get 160GB today 320GB I think is the sweet spot. Get the WD Caviar SE16 WD32000AAKS - http://www.westerndigital.com/en/produc ... riveID=299

The thing with the 8600 series of nVidia cards is that they get pretty owned by the X1800/X1900s of ATI in DX9 games. The ATI's are DX9 but the 8600's DX10 performance is appauling from the looks of it , so the 8800___ IF at all you want DX10! If DX9 is all you want to play get a ATI X18xx/X19xx.

On the US Dell site the screen costs 267 $, on the German Dell site it costs 347 € ? How fucked up is that

[dux]

Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 G0 Stepping (2.4GHz 1066MHz) Socket 775 L2 8MB Cache (2x4MB (4MB per core pair)) Retail Boxed Processor

£140.76 £140.76

XFX nForce 680i SLI SKT 775 onboard 8 channel audio ATX Motherboard

£119.14 £119.14

Casecom Black Mid Tower Case - Front Blue LED 120mm Fan - With Side

Window £15.31 £15.31

LiteOn DH-16D2P 16x52 DVD-Rom Black Bare Drive - OEM

£8.16 £8.16

EVGA 8800GTX 768MB ACS3 KO Dual DVI HDTV PCI-E 125126

£343.28 £343.28

Coolermaster IGreen 500W PSU - 85% Efficiency ATX12V v2.2 120mm Fan

£44.29 £44.29

Creative SoundBlaster X-Fi Xtreme Gamer Soundcard - Retail Boxed

£48.49 £48.49

Western Digital WD5000AAKS 500GB SATA II 7200RPM 16MB Cache - OEM

£54.25 £54.25

This is what I'm gonna get £900 INC VAT

[NormySan]

Hard drive: s-ata HD 160 GB (plus my 75 GB one from the old machine)

Where to put all the pr0n?