Building new Gaming rigs

[Brolan]

I need to build new gaming rigs, one each for my two oldest boys.  I haven't built a totally new system since 2002, I've just been upgrading and fixing old Socket A systems with the best components I can find.  So I'm not up on the latest trends in system building.

Here are my current choices.  I 've got a budget of about $700-800 for each of them and plan on making them with the same components.  Pick them apart and let me know where I am wrong.

I'm an AMD homer so I went with this processor:  http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16819103759

Mother board: http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16813131022

Memory: http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16820146565

Video card: http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16814133193

Power supply: http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16817194015

[Trippy]

Your video card is probably too powerful for your CPU -- i.e you'll be CPU-limited in games and wasting GPU cycles. You might want to consider stepping down to a 8600.

What components are you going to be recycling from your existing computers? You've left off things like hard drives, OS, cases, etc.

[Brolan]

I figured I would just use some cheap SATA hard drives like this one: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136062  I'm planning on upgrading these later as money permits

For OS I'm sticking with XP until Vista is a necessity.

For cases the boys picked out these two: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16811166004
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16811119115

I'm reusing two old DVD drives from their old machines and not bothering to install any floppy drives.

[Brolan]

Your video card is probably too powerful for your CPU -- i.e you'll be CPU-limited in games and wasting GPU cycles. You might want to consider stepping down to a 8600.

What components are you going to be recycling from your existing computers? You've left off things like hard drives, OS, cases, etc.

What CPU would you recommend to balance it out?

[Big Gulp]

Personally, I'd drop to a good DX9 card (in fact, I did, if you look at my thread).  Reason being, the current crop of DX10 cards don't provide enough bang for the buck.  There's also the problem of MS going ahead and obsoleting the 1st generation DX10 cards with their upcoming 10.1 release; all those shiny cards will still work, but they won't be able to pull off the now changed features.

Secondly, good DX9 cards are now dirt cheap.  I got what is pretty much the best DX9 card out there for around $130.  It should be more than adequate for a good long time to come, because none of these developers want to cut off the vast pool of people who are still using Windows XP.  As an added bonus it'll let you bide your time until they finally shake out this DX10 bullshit.

ETA:  I don't know about swapping out your processor.  Of course, I'm biased, because what you're considering is only a tiny step down from the one I just bought.  However, after reading up on Tom's Hardware, you should expect that card to perform about on par with a 2.4 Ghz C2D.  That's not too shabby, especially since you picked the CPU with the larger cache, rather than their cheapo 512K cache versions. 

I don't see the AM2 socket going away any time soon, and you've still got some headroom to go with that socket should you need to upgrade later on.  Just throwing it out there.

[Engels]

I'm wondering if Trippy or anyone else knows if the current AMD chips out there all throttle down the top end vid cards. I used to be an AMD fan, but considering their sluggish adoption of 65 nm processors, I'm gone intel this time.

[Brolan]

Your Radeon card is decent and dirt cheap, but it seems to be out of stock right now.

[Big Gulp]

Your Radeon card is decent and dirt cheap, but it seems to be out of stock right now.

Muahahaha!

I love it when I can sneak in under the wire.

ETA:  You should be able to order them again on Tuesday.  Not a big deal, since no businesses will be shipping between now and then anyway.

[Trippy]

I'm wondering if Trippy or anyone else knows if the current AMD chips out there all throttle down the top end vid cards. I used to be an AMD fan, but considering their sluggish adoption of 65 nm processors, I'm gone intel this time.

Go to here:

http://www23.tomshardware.com/cpu.html

Pick a couple of CPUs (it doesn't really matter which ones) and pick a game benchmark (their selection isn't very good) and you can see how the CPUs compare on an 8800 GTX. The A64 has not been able to compete performance-wise with the Core 2 since the Core 2 came out so the only thing AMD can do is undercut Intel on price. So the A64 X2s are good value but if you are going with an 8800 GTX you are definitely wasting GPU cycles. With the 8800 GTS it's a little less clear but still likely to be the case in certain resolutions and settings.

[Trippy]

Your video card is probably too powerful for your CPU -- i.e you'll be CPU-limited in games and wasting GPU cycles. You might want to consider stepping down to a 8600.

What CPU would you recommend to balance it out?

The A64 architecture is at it's end-of-life. If you want something that's upgradable into the (near) future and you need something right now you really should go to Intel. A64s are a good value right now, though, so you will be paying quite a bit more, relatively speaking, to switch processor lines. In theory the upcoming AM3 CPUs will work in AM2 motherboards but we don't know anything about their pricing and performance so if you want to stick with AMD you are basically taking a gamble they will be able to compete performance-wise with Intel again.

The other option is to step down to an 8600 GTS which is roughly comparable to Big Gulp's X1950 Pro/XT and is roughly the same price. Or you can go with an ATI card like Big Gulp's if you don't mind dealing with the driver issues.

[Trippy]

Personally, I'd drop to a good DX9 card (in fact, I did, if you look at my thread).  Reason being, the current crop of DX10 cards don't provide enough bang for the buck.

That is not correct. The 8800 GTS can give you double the frame rates of an X1950 Pro (depending on game, resolution and settings) for roughly double the price. So the "value" is exactly the same if you care about FPS.

I don't see the AM2 socket going away any time soon, and you've still got some headroom to go with that socket should you need to upgrade later on.  Just throwing it out there.

The AM2 socket is going away. The the A64 X2s have reached their end-of-life as well with the 6000+ (there's been no clock speed bump for 7 months now). As I mentioned above the AM3 CPUs will supposedly be backwards compatible with the AM2 motherboards but we don't know anything about the performance of those chips in comparison to the C2Ds yet. Plus Intel is just waiting for AMD's AM3 release to unlease their 45nm C2Ds which will be cheaper for Intel to make and allow for even higher clock speeds.

[Kitsune]

AM2 is being replaced with AM2+, which AMD claims will be compatible with current AM2 boards after a BIOS update.  This is, of course, contingent upon the motherboard's maker putting such a patch out.  So the upcoming quad-core AMD chips should be able to work in a current motherboard.  As long as they aren't full of shit about that.

I think we'll see the same situation that we have now, where a couple of dual-core socket 939 chips were made, then AMD shifted all of their new chips to AM2.  They'll throw a few AM2+ quad-cores out there, then abandon the socket for AM3.

And the 5200+ dual-core should be fine with an 8800 card, it has decent oomph.  The Core 2 Duos have steadily outperformed the Athlons, yeah, but back when the Duos came out and all of the benchmarks were run, the best Athlon X2 was a 4800.

Honestly, I think your best bet is to wait about two months for the quads to hit the market.  The whole price structure should change at that point, and you can either pay some more and grab a quad-core CPU for future-proofness, or get a dual-core for dirt cheap.

[Trippy]

And the 5200+ dual-core should be fine with an 8800 card, it has decent oomph.  The Core 2 Duos have steadily outperformed the Athlons, yeah, but back when the Duos came out and all of the benchmarks were run, the best Athlon X2 was a 4800.

Still doesn't matter. The A64 X2 has not been able to keep up with the C2Ds at all.

[Brolan]

And the 5200+ dual-core should be fine with an 8800 card, it has decent oomph.  The Core 2 Duos have steadily outperformed the Athlons, yeah, but back when the Duos came out and all of the benchmarks were run, the best Athlon X2 was a 4800.

Still doesn't matter. The A64 X2 has not been able to keep up with the C2Ds at all.

Ok, how abou this New Egg combo deal?  Processor: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115016
Motherboard: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131039

[Trippy]

That's a lot more motherboard than you need for a budget gaming rig.

[Engels]

I just purchased the Gigabyte GA-P35C DS3r, which you can see here. Its cheaper than most, and it has two memory standards, DDR2 and DDR3, and claims will support the new 45nm Intel chips. Its cheaper than the one above.

In the past, I've had some issues with Gigabyte's docomentation, but I can happily report that they've learned to write decent english.

If you buy that, coupled with a $200 Core2Duo processor (I got the E6750 for $205), you're in business for a bit more than what Big Gulp paid for.

Edit: Just did a comparison using the comparison chart Trippy linked between the E6750 and the AM2 X2 5500 of Brolan, and the only place where AMD soundly trounces Intel is in a Memoy math test. Other math tests still have the C2Ds way ahead. That said, the AMD chip is cheaper by an amount that's comparible to the performance dip, so its not a 'bad buy'.

[Brolan]

That's what I have been seeing, the Intel chips might have better performance but the price premium makes it a wash.

Thanks for everyone's help and commentary.  I think I'll go with the systems as originally outlined.  I would like to wait a couple of months to see how prices go but one of the systems being replaced is on it's last legs.

Since I have some headroom with the video card I will use any coming price drop in AM2 CPUs to do an upgrade at that time.

[Engels]

Well, the new 45 nm Intel chip starts shipping mid month, and will have total distribution by mid october, so I suspect that the C2D pricing will drop even more than it has. I'd probably wait, if you can. I didn't, but that's cuz I didn't have too strict budgetary constraints.