Time to jump on the Express bandwagon - System review needed!

[Akkori]

I am finally gearing up (pun fully intended) to upgrade to PCI-Express. I've been limping along long enough. So I did some reading on the state of things, and put together a modest system. I stay away from the cutting edge... I don't play enough games to justify it. So I thought i would put up what I have to see if anyone can spot any errors or incompatibilities.
I am recycling my case, serial and sata drives, optical drive, and sound card (all but the sound card less than a year old).
So here it is.

CPU Fan      Zerotherm BTF95
Memory      2gb Corsair XMS2 PC2-6400 DDR2 800
PSU      OCZ GameXStream OCZ700GXSSLI 700W
Mobo           ASUS MAXIMUS FORMULA LGA 775 Intel X38
CPU      Core 2 Quad Q6600 Kentsfield 2.4GHz
Video      GIGABYTE GV-NX88T256H GeForce 8800GT 256MB (700mhz clock)

It adds up to $790 before shipping.

edit for video card update...

[schild]

8800GT.

Why do people even pay attention to anything else anymore?

[Akkori]

Hmm, I didn't even look at them. I saw the price for the 8600, and figured the 880 would be around $500. Weird. So what is the progression? GT, then GTS, then Ultra?
Well, I won't spend $300 on a damn video card, so I think this one will be it:

GIGABYTE GV-NX88T256H GeForce 8800GT 256MB (700mhz clock)

and it adds $20 to the total. Thanks for the tip!

[schild]

Nope. Get a 512MB 8800GT and don't look back.

[Engels]

What people aren't telling you is that the GT came out nearly half a year after the GTX and Ultra and is only marginally less capable. It was probably held back because of the usual rule in IT hardware marketing of putting out teh Uber first, wait for that sector of the market to buy the super high end card, and then come out with a 'for the masses' card that's nearly as capable. Essentially, if the GT had come out at the same time as the GTX and the Ultra, the pricing on the two latter cards would have been hard to justify. A similar thing occured with Intel's 6*50 chips; a cheaper way of getting close to the high end Conroe chips. They were released about half a year (?) after the 6*00 chips, when the Extreme CPU had been out for a while.

Those of us with some patience waited, and now have a E6750 Conroe and a GT card, which benchmarks only slightly under a 6800 CPU and a GTX, for a lot less money.

[Akkori]

The one I was looking at on Newegg vanished, and the only other 700mhz is about $310. It was my understanding that clock speed played a more significant role in power than v-ram. So where does ti balance out? Is a 256mb card with 650 or 675mhz clock more beefy than a 512mb card with a 600mhz clock?

[schild]

10% hit on speed for 50% more memory (for textures and such). You be the judge.

[Engels]

The one I was looking at on Newegg vanished, and the only other 700mhz is about $310. It was my understanding that clock speed played a more significant role in power than v-ram. So where does ti balance out? Is a 256mb card with 650 or 675mhz clock more beefy than a 512mb card with a 600mhz clock?

About 3 years ago, conventional wisdom dictated that the speed was more important, since not many games would peak over 256mb in content, but I've been out of the loop on this one, and it wouldn't surprise me if its very easy these days to fill up the 512. I have the 600 mhz w/512, and its pretty rockin. New Egg only seems to have Leadtek ones left, and I've not heard anything about that company.

[Dtrain]

Any particular reason for wanting a quad core? If the purpose of the rig is primarily gaming and light office work, dual core should be all you need, and keep price down, along with power consumption.

Also the 8800 GT is a great card in the low to mid $200 price range. With a price in the low $300s the card is really quite ordinary. Shop it around a little more though, as it seems that the supply is finally catching up to the demand.

I can see why Nvidia has been slow to get this card out in appreciable numbers - ATi isn't much competition at the moment, and this card makes so many of Nvidia's current cards entirely obsolete.

[schild]

Also the 8800 GT is a great card in the low to mid $200 price range. With a price in the low $300s the card is really quite ordinary. Shop it around a little more though, as it seems that the supply is finally catching up to the demand.

Huh? Even at $300 it's the best value in the industry.

[Dtrain]

Also the 8800 GT is a great card in the low to mid $200 price range. With a price in the low $300s the card is really quite ordinary. Shop it around a little more though, as it seems that the supply is finally catching up to the demand.

Huh? Even at $300 it's the best value in the industry.

Your mileage may vary, but if I were buying in the $300 range today, I'd buy one of the newer G92 based 8800 GTS cards - they have just a little more to offer than a 8800 GT.

[schild]

Also the 8800 GT is a great card in the low to mid $200 price range. With a price in the low $300s the card is really quite ordinary. Shop it around a little more though, as it seems that the supply is finally catching up to the demand.

Huh? Even at $300 it's the best value in the industry.

Your mileage may vary, but if I were buying in the $300 range today, I'd buy one of the newer G92 based 8800 GTS cards - they have just a little more to offer than a 8800 GT.

Yea, for $100-$200 more.

[Dtrain]

Also the 8800 GT is a great card in the low to mid $200 price range. With a price in the low $300s the card is really quite ordinary. Shop it around a little more though, as it seems that the supply is finally catching up to the demand.

Huh? Even at $300 it's the best value in the industry.

Your mileage may vary, but if I were buying in the $300 range today, I'd buy one of the newer G92 based 8800 GTS cards - they have just a little more to offer than a 8800 GT.

Yea, for $100-$200 more.

The same thing that happened to the 8800 GT could happen to the 8800 GTS 512, but right now it's selling for about $350.

I'm starting to see the 8800 GT creep down into the mid $200s, where it belongs, and I'd much rather buy an 8800 GT for ~$250 than an 8800 GTS for ~$350.

Given the choice between a $350 GTS and a $310 GT, though, I think the new GTS is worth it.

[Akkori]

Any particular reason for wanting a quad core? If the purpose of the rig is primarily gaming and light office work, dual core should be all you need, and keep price down, along with power consumption.

TBH, I am not worried about power consumption. The one I have listed (2.4ghz, Kentsfield Q6600 FSB: 1066MHz L1 Cache: 128KB+128KB) is listed for $275 right now. Dollar-wise, the comparable Core 2 Duo is the E6850 Conroe 3.0GHz 4M shared L2 Cache FSB: 1333MHz

So, for modest gaming needs and some medium photoshop stuff, which is the smartest bang for the buck? I don't have a real prblem upgrading the cpu in 6 months to a year when prices drop on the newer one out today.

Thanks for all the help!

[Dtrain]

You will benefit from a quad core for photoshop tasks. However, the similarly priced dual core part has the clear lead in game performance.

Here's a page from a larger article anandtech posted with the debut of the 1333mhz FSB CPUs that might help make your mind up about dual v. quad core performance - it also has some more comprehensive benchmarks a little later on. http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/intel/showdoc.aspx?i=3038&p=8

My priorities may not be yours exactly, but I would be looking at either the e6850 for it's outright performance advantage in gaming, or the e6750 for similar performance at an $80 price break.

[rattran]

All benchmarks aside, a quad core is twice as much epeen as a dual core.


Not that many games even benefit from a dual core at this point. It's nice to not worry about crap running in the background though.

[SnakeCharmer]

Out of curiosity...

Any of you guys that know infinitely more about this than I do, when do you think games will start taking advantage of a quad core's capabilities over a dual cores?

[Trippy]

"Start taking an advantage" is a bit vague -- there are games now that run better on quads than duals (e.g. Supreme Commander). I'd say it'll still be at least another couple of years before the majority of high-end games run better on quads than duals, though. I.e. the current gen graphics engine are just starting to be optimized for dual cores. It's going to be the gen after this one that'll take full advantage of quad cores.

[rattran]

I think the next id engine will probably take advantage of it. Carmack seems to design for the future.

Likely the games on it will still suck though. Doom3 broke my heart. 

[Akkori]

Thanks for the help. I guess  will go with the dual. The mobo I picked can handle quad's, so if I still have it in a year, maybe I will upgrade.