PC pgrade and getting back in the loop.

[Heatseeker_no.1]

Hi all. I doubt any of you will recognise me as I'v been away from these forums for quite a while now, but am planning on making a return, to BF2 atleast. I used to help people here with all kinds of problems but I've been out of the computer-components loop for a year or two now and so much has changed!

I am planning on building a new pc with a budget of say £400 (I've got a decent enough sound card, monitor and peripherals)

I have absolutely no idea which gfx or cpus are the ones to get, although I was assuming that I should be going with an Nvidia 9600 when they come out as mid range cards always have(or had ) most bang for buck, or are ati leading now?

Is Quad core a gimmick or do any applications other than video encoders utilise it yet?

Who is the current mobo leader?

What kind of wattage would I need for a psu?

And finaly memory prices seem to have crashed, should I pay as much as I used to for more memory, or will the system just be bottlenecked elsewhere?

[=98=]

Please tell me you have an screen, and i know an absolutely mental deal.

[Heatseeker_no.1]

Yeah I said I've got a monitor(screen).

[=98=]

Okay, can you do £447?

[Heatseeker_no.1]

Maybe lol, although I was really wanting to get a midi-tower for portability if you've got some full system deal lined up for me .

[=98=]

Case: Coolermaster RC-330V2 - £25.79
PSU: 500W FSP BlueStorm II - £58.62
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-P31-DS3L - £46.93
CPU: 1.6ghz Intel Pentium/Core 2 Duo E2140 @ 3.0ghz - £43.11
Heatsink: Arctic Freezer 7 Pro - £15.26
Memory: 2gb Corsair TwinX XMS2 - £34.08
Graphics: 256mb XFX 8800gt - £117.36
DVD Drive: Optiarc - £15.97
Hard disk: 160gb Hitachi Deskstar - £29.83
OS: Vista Home Premium OEM - £59.68

Purchase the latest copy of Custom PC where they make the same PC, show you how to overclock, how to install everything and squeeze the last bit of performance out of it!

[Heatseeker_no.1]

Oh, I've also got hdds, ide but i don't think there's much of a real speed difference. So you're not reccomending 9 series cards then? I heard something about how 8 series arn't dx10.1 compatible or something.

[=98=]

9 series aren't out yet and will be damn expensive. DX10.1 will not take off for a while, and it only makes games easier to develop, not look better.

Read here

And, IDE drives are a LOT slower than SATA300/SATA2 drives. An IDE hard disk wouldn't keep up with modern hardware i suggested.

Plus, most modern motherboard provide a single IDE slot for old disc drives. Everything is SATA based nowadays

[Heatseeker_no.1]

Oh, it seems you are correct lol, although wikipedia has the 9600 price at $170 which seems ok if it really is twice as fast.

[=98=]

It'll be very, very similar, maybe a tad slower than the 8800gt. It's up to you on that front. Whichever is out at the time.

the 9series are exactly the same core (G92), it's just they screwed up the naming scheme :p

[TheOak]

I just spent 435 GBP (574€) and got this:
Abit IP35-E
INTEL DUAL CORE E2160
Leadtek Winfast ZL 8800 GT 512MB
2GB 800MHz DDR2 RAM
WD CAVIAR SE 160GB HDD
Samsung 20X SATA DVDRW
Chieftec 500W PSU
Compucase 6A21WS-UG case
2X120mm case fans

Scoring 11k in 3DMark06 with CPU at 2.8GHz. Currently running stability test at 3GHz.

Doesn't even break a sweat running BF2 everything at high and 4xAA.

[Heatseeker_no.1]

Scoring 11k in 3DMark06 with CPU at 2.8GHz. Currently running stability test at 3GHz.

Doesn't even break a sweat running BF2 everything at high and 4xAA.

So there is no real point buying say an e6750 because the slower core 2s are massively OCable?

Is that with a stock heatsink?

[TheOak]

So there is no real point buying say an e6750 because the slower core 2s are massively OCable?

Is that with a stock heatsink?

Well, it's not necessary to fully benefit from a card like 8800 GT but of course with a high end CPU you'd get even better performance.

I've got a Scythe Andy Samurai Master cooler. Ran Orthos for 6h 30min at 3GHz and no errors. Max temps for both cores was 62c and I read that 65c is the max safe temp for this CPU, so I guess it does need an aftermarket cooler if you need to up the voltage. I had to bumb core voltage to 1.3850 in BIOS, CPU-Z shows 1.336 during stressing.

[Heatseeker_no.1]

Ok thanks, Another question, Is there something I'm missing here, or is a ATI Radeon HD 3870 XT 512MB far far better than a GeForce 8800 GT 512MB in every way including price?

[=98=]

Ok thanks, Another question, Is there something I'm missing here, or is a ATI Radeon HD 3870 XT 512MB far far better than a GeForce 8800 GT 512MB in every way including price?

No, the only way it is better is price.

The 512mb 8800gt will out perform the 3870XT easily, and in some tests, even the 256mb out performs it as well. If you have enough, go for the 8 series.