Daddy's getting a new rig...

[Montague]

and he needs help. 

Thanks to the state of Alaska (they pay us to live here, what a country) I'll be able to buy a new rig this coming October. Only problem is it's been almost six years since I bought a computer and about 10 years since I built one. Needless to say I'm way out of date with regards to chipsets, motherboards, etc and I need some help figuring out what I want.

Budget - $1500-$2000.

Purpose - Gaming, gaming and more gaming (duh)

I've picked out a CPU, I'll be using the quad-core Q6600. The motherboards I'm totally clueless on. I'd like to overclock the CPU but I want it to be as easy and idiotproof as possible. I've read about Crossfire and SLI, do I really wanna buy 2 vid cards and will it be worth it? What chipset do I want to use?

I already have a new monitor, 22 inch LCD with 1680x1054 max resolution. What vid card(s) will give me the maximum eyecandy for the minimum money (and heartache)?

Thankies in advance for any kind assistance.

[Sky]

Have to leave soon for the weekend, but I'll get it started.


Not sure it's worth it to get quad-core. Your mobo should upgrade to that later if it becomes worthwhile. For now a solid c2d like the 6600 or 6700 would be fine. You also don't really need to o/c the proc at this point, either. My c2d/2gb/8800gtx smokes just about anything I can throw at it.

I've heard good things about the asus stryker mobo, or the newer evga 680i.

Gotta go now, I'm sure the guys will fill you in. There's a couple threads where we just built a few, including mine.

[Ragnoros]

Well the current king of the hill for video cards is the Nvidia 8800 line. However with the resolution you are going to be at you could probably get away with something lower end like a ATI 1900 line or a Nvidia 7900 line. This Comparision Chart can help you get an idea of what falls where. Also check Anandtech out. They are the biggest and best hardware site on the net. As for Crossfire/SLI don't bother. Spending X amount on one video card has been faster then spending it on two half price cards in 95% of cases.

[hal]

Another vote for anandtech. Both the system reviews and the forums are usefull. If you start browsing now in a few months you will know where the power is, where the value is. And have a good idea how to spec your system to meet your goals. The new Intel Core 2 are great chips. Much more powerfull that you would think by there speed.

[Tebonas]

Since this thread is here already - I've got an eye on a X1950 Pro 512MB, since the price hits my sweet spot (gotta reign in my spending until after Ireland). It'll have to do for about a year with RPGs and some sneaky shooters maybe. Doable or should I endure my X800 until I can get an 8800GTS early next year?

[Trippy]

Ask again in October. For hardware that's way too far into the future to recommend right now what you should get. Heck they might even fix Crossfire by that time (okay that's probably not going to happen).

[Tebonas]

No Crossfire board yet, Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe. I will build a completely new rig in a year (with next years holiday money in june to be exact). I just don't want to wait to play Two Worlds that long basically.

[Chenghiz]

From what I've read (I'm building a new system too), SLI isn't really worth it unless you have a lot of money to blow.

[schild]

The price on the quad core 2.16 is now the price the e6600 was 2 weeks ago. Price drops just hit. It's a good time to buy.

[Engels]

Dang, $222 for the 6600 on New Egg. Can't beat that with a stick. The high end quad cores..$1,300. Cripes.

Off hand, can anyone tell me the difference between Conroe and Kentsfield processors? Or is that just how they're differentiating betwen duo and quad?

[Montague]

The price on the quad core 2.16 is now the price the e6600 was 2 weeks ago. Price drops just hit. It's a good time to buy.

Exactly. I was thinking of just getting a 3 gig dual core because there aren't a whole lot of games that can take advantage of all four cores but with the price cut it's like why not? Plus with the 2.16 there should be a lot of room for overclocking, provided I don't blow teh board to smithereens when I try it.

And much   for the tip on Anandtech guys, awesome site

[hal]

Just an reaction to your post. Be very carefull when specking memory above 2 gig. XP can not quite use 3 gig. And 64 bit XP is a bit premature. 64 bit VISTA is a bunch premature. If you wander into these waters know what your getting into.

[Engels]

Speaking of which, anyone using Vista 32-bit with any success?

[Chenghiz]

So at the risk of derail, does the fact my new CPU has 64-bit support mean I should look for 64-bit Vista? Or is 32-bit Vista just fine?

[Engels]

drivers and other things are sometimes hard to get for 64 bit, and few program/games are designed for 64 bit, if any, so ya, stick to 32.

[hal]

You should try to get a processor 64 bit capable. One of the big reasons being the ability to talk to more memory. But the driver seen is not good. To my knowledge 64 XP is fine if you can get all the drivers. However that is a very large if.

[Amaron]

If you're on a budget it's pretty unlikely you'll get much use out of a quad core compared to some other component.  I wouldn't go so far to say that there's no chance you'll see a game that can use 4 cores.  But I will gladly say that extra 100-150 bucks would be better spent on your video card no matter what.

As for 2 video cards from what all I've read the performance increase isn't nothing but it seems like an expensive toy for people who just end up getting pissed that they've spent tons of cash on their PC and nobody makes games that can possible take advantage of it.

Seems like every week some schmuck starts a thread on anadtech griping about how other gamers are buying crappy hardware and ruining the industry by forcing developers to lower their hardrware requirements.

[Yegolev]

Off hand, can anyone tell me the difference between Conroe and Kentsfield processors? Or is that just how they're differentiating betwen duo and quad?

I think you are right on with that description, but I would have to read Anandtech or somewhere else to verify.  What I did last time was just make note of what mainboards accepted what CPU on Newegg and figured it out from there.

[Krakrok]

Ordered a quad core Q6600 (2.4ghz) Dimension 9200 w/ 2 gigs from Dell yesterday for $650. Steal. Closest other Q6600 machine I could find was a $950 HP.

[Engels]

Ordered a quad core Q6600 (2.4ghz) Dimension 9200 w/ 2 gigs from Dell yesterday for $650. Steal. Closest other Q6600 machine I could find was a $950 HP.

Interesting that its so cheap. I hear intel is not letting anyone but 3 boutique distributors (Falcon NW and two others) sell the Q6800, and with the proviso that they have water cooling. The price is through the roof too.

[Montague]

Ordered a quad core Q6600 (2.4ghz) Dimension 9200 w/ 2 gigs from Dell yesterday for $650. Steal. Closest other Q6600 machine I could find was a $950 HP.

$650? 

How the hell they making any money on that?

[Engels]

Ordered a quad core Q6600 (2.4ghz) Dimension 9200 w/ 2 gigs from Dell yesterday for $650. Steal. Closest other Q6600 machine I could find was a $950 HP.

$650? 

How the hell they making any money on that?

Well, this is a bit odd. I pulled up the Dimension 9200 up on Dell, and Quad cores aren't an option, just the E6700 Core2Duo as the highest CPU. Perhaps the model number is wrong?

[Murgos]

I looked also, I mean, $650 for a quad core was something I was willing to get in on.  The only systems that I could find which you could find were for the XPS boxes.  Still could manage to put together a quad core w2gb ram for ~$1150, which isn't bad but that's a good chunk more than $650...

NM, found it

Select the Q6600 and then under display chose the "I will select a large display -$190" and then, uh, don't.

$649 w/quad core & 2GB ram.

[Engels]

Good find. Its under Small Business; the equivalent XPS system under Home is $300 more.

Something else that's puzzling me. The Q6600 costs less than the E6700. I know the hertz speed on the E6700 is faster than the Q6600, but you'd think that it'd be a price hike either way.

[Krakrok]

I bought it specifically to encode video using WME9. The benchmark looks pretty good for the price point. Seems like I am going to take a pretty big hit in power consumption though. I don't know what my P4 uses but I doubt it's anywhere near 200 watts.

[Trippy]

Good find. Its under Small Business; the equivalent XPS system under Home is $300 more.

Something else that's puzzling me. The Q6600 costs less than the E6700. I know the hertz speed on the E6700 is faster than the Q6600, but you'd think that it'd be a price hike either way.

Those two processors are essentially the same price at Newegg (difference is $2) so if Dell is pricing the Q6600 noticably cheaper than the E6700 it's cause they have a special deal with Intel to pimp that processor.

[Murgos]

Good find. Its under Small Business; the equivalent XPS system under Home is $300 more.

Something else that's puzzling me. The Q6600 costs less than the E6700. I know the hertz speed on the E6700 is faster than the Q6600, but you'd think that it'd be a price hike either way.

According to Tom's the Q6600 performs either at or above the level of the E6700 (or even the E6850) for pretty much every test I checked.

Anyway, $650 bucks for a computer with a ~$300 processor seems like a pretty good deal.  I still have some questions about the quality of the MB, it's expansion slots and such, and the quality of the included RAM with it's 667 MHz (?) bus speed and if that's as good as the MB supports and also what kind of PSU is included.  Does anyone know where I can find specifics about information like that?

Because $650 for a $300 dollar processor isn't a good deal if the system it's in is gimping it down to the point where you need to throw most of it away and start over to reach its potential.

[Engels]

One of the issues with Dell; no chipset information, and since they don't really want you fiddling with it, they don't give you much layout information.

[Krakrok]

Couple different places show an Intel P965 Express MB for the 9200 and the Q6600. Only 1 PCI Express 16X slot seems like. The 8300GS video card is a $50 card so pretty crappy. It has 4 ram slots and the 2GB only take up two. It has a BTX power supply (vs. ATX). Gigabit ethernet. I don't know anything about ram Mhz other than 667 isn't 800 or 1066. If ram comes in 1066 it probably supports it. The outside of the case is nice but the inside of the case is stuffed full of their quick assembly plastic crap. I read somewhere else that the power supply may only be 350W which could be pretty iffy if you put in a bigger video card.

The tech specs are here but it doesn't even list the Q6600 or the video card.