PC gurus, speak to me

[SUBMAN1]

Actually, the AMD 9950 Quad seems to be the sweet spot for only $170 or less these days. The E8400 will beat it for gaming 2 out of 3 times, but overall, the 9950 is better for an all around CPU such as compression, etc.

The ATI 1GB 4870 also is the gaming card for those on a budget. Do not buy a 9800 - that is a 'last' generation board. The 260 and 280 are NVidia's current gen.

Some articles on the subject:
ATI 4870 1GB vs Nvidia - http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3415


Some stats on the CPU's:







Here are some compression stats:

[SUBMAN1]

Some perf #'s on what the $250 4870 1GB performs at on 2 of the most GPU hungry games there is:

[GlobalExplorer]

I can't comment on submans Phenom figures, but the 4870 run too hot. With the 4850 you get very good performance for a lot less money and heat.

Submans CPU charts were interesting to say the least. I would however consider that the E8400 overclocks really good. Mine runs 3600 Mhz (a 20% increase) without any ceremony, and would probably go higher, if I push voltages / cooling.

Don't know about dollars, but E8400 are priced at 120€, E8500 at 160€ and E8600 at 220€. So with the E8600 just 666Mhz / 20% faster it's fairly obvious that the E8400 is the price/performance champion among the Core2's.

In addition there are very mature and cheap boards based on the IP35 / IP45 chipsets, like the Abit IP35-E I'm running (really fast & stable board without unnecessary features for just 75€).

Tip: save some money on the CPU and video and invest in a really good
PSU. I personally recommend something like the Corsair 650TX, high quality cables / voltages for <100€. Loose cables were the number 1 stability issue with my last build! So I'd rather not get cable management, it will only create problems.

P.S. I copied you the list of what I got (prices from two months ago but have not moved):

Mainboard: Abit IP35-E
RAM: Crucial DIMM 4 GB DDR2-800 Kit BL2KIT25664AA804 ~95€
CPU: E8400 ~125€
Heatsink: Thermalright Ultra-120 eXtreme ~50€
Video: Sapphire HD4850 1024MB ~170€
PSU: Corsair CMPSU-650TX ~100€
HD: Western Digital WD6400AAKS 640 GB ~60€
Fans (CPU, Case): Scythe Slip Stream 500upm

And everyone should have a look at those WD 640AAKS. Almost the optimal HD, with a two platter high data density design. In practice nearly as fast as Raptors, but cool and quiet, and for half the price! I got two of them, the second one for images and backups.

[Onkel Neal]

Subman, thanks. I sm thinking the video card will be replaced in a year anyway, but I will look into the ATI card you suggest.

GE, yeah, I think the 8400 is the CPU for me, from all I've read I feel comfortable with that choice, plus I always use Intel. What are the components you listed? MB, CPU, ram, etc... you should have labeled them, now I have to look them all up

Thanks and keep it coming, I know there are others here who will appreciate your expertise.

Neal

[SUBMAN1]

One thought comes to mind though - if you go Intel, get a quad. Don't go with a dual core. You may not need it right off, but a lot of games coming down the pike are claiming to use the third and forth cores for better physics, and environmental effects. You won't get that if you only have dual cores, or it will be reduced. Get one of those Intel Quads if you want to go Intel. They don't cost really that much more.

The length of time you seem to keep a gaming system, it would be worth it.

-S

[stabiz]

... or stick with a good dual core cpu like the 8400 and buy a mobo that supports quads. (Most do nowadays)

Oh, and if you are looking at the HD 4870, do NOT buy the one from Sapphire. World of hurt.

[GlobalExplorer]

Neal I fixed that.

I don't agree with Subman here, if you get a quadcore now you also need a more expensive mainboard and you will not see a performance increase in your games. Quadcores run desktop applications faster (photoshop, compression, etc), but seriously, a Pentium 4 or Athlon is already more than sufficient for desktop applications.

There might be a benefit in one or two years but right now you will not find many games that make full use of two cores, let alone four. I personally expect multicores to develop their full potential only when the next generation of operating systems and compilers arrives, i.e. in the next years.

There is of course no reason not to get one. But for games it's not really worth the money imo. If you are a scientist who runs earthquake simulations every day this might be a different situation.

[Wolfehunter]

Originally Posted by SUBMAN1

One thought comes to mind though - if you go Intel, get a quad. Don't go with a dual core. You may not need it right off, but a lot of games coming down the pike are claiming to use the third and forth cores for better physics, and environmental effects. You won't get that if you only have dual cores, or it will be reduced. Get one of those Intel Quads if you want to go Intel. They don't cost really that much more.

The length of time you seem to keep a gaming system, it would be worth it.

-S

Correctomundo. Quad all the way. You have to look to the future.

Nice results subman.

The Geforce GTX280 solo takes alot of juice some as high as 400 watts of power depending on which brand you buying and if you OC it.

Make sure you get a strong powersupply if you get this beast Neal.

[goldorak]

Originally Posted by Wolfehunter

Correctomundo. Quad all the way. You have to look to the future.

Nice results subman.

The Geforce GTX280 solo takes alot of juice some as high as 400 watts of power depending on which brand you buying and if you OC it.

Make sure you get a strong powersupply if you get this beast Neal.

No, unless you're using heavy multithreaded applications, the way to go is to buy a very very fast core2duo. You can save money on the cpu and use the difference for getting a really good graphics card to improve performance.
99% percent of games don't even use 2 cores, let alone 4 or 8 (nehalem processors with hyperthreading).
Don't buy into the hype, if your compiling all day long, using multithreaded photoshop filters etc... then by all means buy a quadcore.
Otherwise you will see no increase in performace for day to day applications.

[GlobalExplorer]

Originally Posted by Wolfehunter

[Quad all the way. You have to look to the future.

If theres's one thing to learn from the last 20 years then it's that early adoption doesn't pay off. Ask that the people who bought 486DX-33, "487" arithmetic coprocessors or in more recent years the GForce3 or Athlon FX because they wanted to be prepared for the future.

I would say get a Dual Core now when they are mature and at the lower price limit.