New PC, from the gound up

Hi all, :)

My current PC is really... really old, i recently upgraded the card to a X850XT (AGP) and its runs quite well on that. Only 1GB of ram, Intel board/chip etc tho..

My wife plays WoW alot and a few other non-high end games so my plan is to upgrade to a whole new PC and give her this one (plays WoW on max settings fine on a 19" Widescreen @ 1440x900) in fact when im on the 360 or Wii she likes to steal my PC instead of using hers ;) heh

Now i have a large payment comming through fairly soon (next month at latest) so i est the left overs at $4k AUD for a nice new gaming PC

I have been working hard over the last year on my business, coding sites and applications and any spare time i have is for gaming (which i find relaxing, and i need to relax and forget work... code gets stuck in my head and i find it hard to relax and forget it all) and i havn't kept up with the latest and greatest.

So... i need your help, anyone who is willing, can you build me an awesome PC spec? Right now of course the 8800 GTX seems the go i mainly just want your expertise/knowledge.

Im not looking to overclock, so no air/water cooling units ;)

Just a excellant m/b/ram/drive... i was thinking of RAID drives (two 300's maybe?) for some read speed. 2-4gb of ram, a nice PSU with PFC say... i need to know what works well a system with little to no bottlenecks.

So, any ideas?

Hi all, :)

My current PC is really... really old, i recently upgraded the card to a X850XT (AGP) and its runs quite well on that. Only 1GB of ram, Intel board/chip etc tho..

My wife plays WoW alot and a few other non-high end games so my plan is to upgrade to a whole new PC and give her this one (plays WoW on max settings fine on a 19" Widescreen @ 1440x900) in fact when im on the 360 or Wii she likes to steal my PC instead of using hers ;) heh

Now i have a large payment comming through fairly soon (next month at latest) so i est the left overs at $4k AUD for a nice new gaming PC

I have been working hard over the last year on my business, coding sites and applications and any spare time i have is for gaming (which i find relaxing, and i need to relax and forget work... code gets stuck in my head and i find it hard to relax and forget it all) and i havn't kept up with the latest and greatest.

So... i need your help, anyone who is willing, can you build me an awesome PC spec? Right now of course the 8800 GTX seems the go i mainly just want your expertise/knowledge.

Im not looking to overclock, so no air/water cooling units ;)

Just a excellant m/b/ram/drive... i was thinking of RAID drives (two 300's maybe?) for some read speed. 2-4gb of ram, a nice PSU with PFC say... i need to know what works well a system with little to no bottlenecks.

So, any ideas?

DMWhiteDragon

..snip..

willing to spend 4k, right? you can buy the best there is with that.DrakeNOwns

Yea more or less... but what *is* the best? ;)

I havn't a clue what the best chipset/boards are... power supplys.. no idea

Any thoughts or a good site that has the best items listed that work together well?

All i know is i want a 8800GTX (SLi... maybe)

[QUOTE="DrakeNOwns"]

..snip..

willing to spend 4k, right? you can buy the best there is with that.DMWhiteDragon

Yea more or less... but what *is* the best? ;)

I havn't a clue what the best chipset/boards are... power supplys.. no idea

Any thoughts or a good site that has the best items listed that work together well?

All i know is i want a 8800GTX (SLi... maybe)

Il build a pc for u... so u are willing to spend 4k right and u want somthing really good? Here i can put somthing together for u but i need to know are u building a comp or buying a prebuilt? If you are building a comp how big of a moniter do u want? and how big of a hard drive do you want? If you want a prebuilt get a Voodo pc.ferret837

EDIT: damn you gamespot

Well that might work... but its 4k AUD as im in australia :P

Not pre-built as the added on cost they stick on it id rather spend on better/more stuff for the comp.

As for the specs i want... im flexable, but as a more defined list:

RAID Drives, say 2x ... um ... 500gb?
8800GTX
24"+ Monitor
Top PSU?
Top MB ?
Top RAM? 4gb might be handy? for non gaming aswell will be done on the pc
XFi sound card

Alreayd have windows vista, can keep my 19" monitor to splurge on more power if need be

[QUOTE="ferret837"]Il build a pc for u... so u are willing to spend 4k right and u want somthing really good? Here i can put somthing together for u but i need to know are u building a comp or buying a prebuilt? If you are building a comp how big of a moniter do u want? and how big of a hard drive do you want? If you want a prebuilt get a Voodo pc.DMWhiteDragon

Well that might work... but its 4k AUD as im in australia :P

Not pre-built as the added on cost they stick on it id rather spend on better/more stuff for the comp.

As for the specs i want... im flexable, but as a more defined list:

RAID Drives, say 2x ... um ... 500gb?
8800GTX
24"+ Monitor,

[QUOTE="DMWhiteDragon"]

[QUOTE="DrakeNOwns"]

..snip..

willing to spend 4k, right? you can buy the best there is with that.DrakeNOwns

Yea more or less... but what *is* the best? ;)

I havn't a clue what the best chipset/boards are... power supplys.. no idea

Any thoughts or a good site that has the best items listed that work together well?

All i know is i want a 8800GTX (SLi... maybe)

Thanks for the info :)

And i hope i can get the best... thats the plan anyways, how does a quad core go up against that cpu? This comp will need to last a long long time lol

[QUOTE="DrakeNOwns"][QUOTE="DMWhiteDragon"]

[QUOTE="DrakeNOwns"]

..snip..

willing to spend 4k, right? you can buy the best there is with that.DMWhiteDragon

Yea more or less... but what *is* the best? ;)

I havn't a clue what the best chipset/boards are... power supplys.. no idea

Any thoughts or a good site that has the best items listed that work together well?

All i know is i want a 8800GTX (SLi... maybe)

Thanks for the info :)

And i hope i can get the best... thats the plan anyways, how does a quad core go up against that cpu? This comp will need to last a long long time lol

[QUOTE="DMWhiteDragon"]

[QUOTE="ferret837"]Il build a pc for u... so u are willing to spend 4k right and u want somthing really good? Here i can put somthing together for u but i need to know are u building a comp or buying a prebuilt? If you are building a comp how big of a moniter do u want? and how big of a hard drive do you want? If you want a prebuilt get a Voodo pc.DrakeNOwns

Well that might work... but its 4k AUD as im in australia :P

Not pre-built as the added on cost they stick on it id rather spend on better/more stuff for the comp.

As for the specs i want... im flexable, but as a more defined list:

RAID Drives, say 2x ... um ... 500gb?
8800GTX
24"+ Monitor,

About $3,107.037 aparently

But of course i can add some more cash to it if i wait for another month or so... maybe make it $4k USD even

The best chipset out right now is the nForce 680i - EVGA has some very good offerings there, I'd suggest one of their motherboards. For processors, with your budget, you should be thinking quad-core. The Q6600 is a nice purchase, or the QX6700 if you can afford it. RAM won't matter much, since you're not overclocking. 2GB is plenty sufficient right now. I'd suggest a good 2x1GB DDR2 800 kit from Crucial, Corsair, G.Skill, Patriot, or Geil. Power supply, I'd recommend you the Corsair HX620w, which will easily handle one 8800GTX and a RAID array. If you want to go SLI however, something a bit more powerful like the OCZ GameXStream would be a much better buy. For hard drives, I'm a Seagate fan - the newish 7200.10 series are excellent (even better if you spring for the ES version). Pick up two 250 or 320GB drives (whichever is priced better in your area), and get a nice RAID 0 setup to see some very quick load times with plenty of space. Also with that sort of budget, a sound card would be a great purchase - look for a decent X-Fi card, like the XtremeGamer or the XtremeMusic. I'm assuming you're also in the market for a new monitor, case, etc. since you're on a brand new build. I'd stick with Windows XP for right now, since Vista is still plaguing gamers with its issues. Case is mostly up to you, since you know how much desk space you have, how flashy a case you want, and I'm pretty sure you're familiar with the standard ATX layout. Mouse and keyboard are also your prerogative, buy whatever suits your needs. Monitor, I'd shoot for a good 20.1", with a 1680x1050 resolution or better. Also worth thinking about are SATA optical drives - as long as you're not paying a ridiculous amount of money for them, the extra $10-$30 is well-worth getting rid of the IDE cables, in my opinion.RayvinAzn

Awesome info thanks heaps... just the kind of stuff i was after :)

ok so im going to save you some money...but not much :)
ok here is one of the better motherboards out the it supports SLI....
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813188009
Look at the bottom of that page and you will see a very good combo and it will save u some money even though u dont need too.....
Do you like this case?
http://pc.gamespy.com/articles/767/767965p4.html
(look at the bottom of the page)
For that case you can just read the page im a little short on time here...
Im sry but i cant get into harddrives hopefully somone else will help u with that
For the GPU get two of these for SLI......
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814130078
For the Psu i really dont know sry again.....
You can choose your own disk drives for what you are doing with them
A good sound card is this...
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16829102189
im getting one of these... Im building a comp now with a buget of $2500 (:
Ok soo for a moniter browse around dell.com they have some he nicest moniters around sry i couldnt get into everything tommorow i will prob finish it up if somone hasnt helped you already...

ferret837

Ahh and some more awesome info hehe, thanks again! i appreciate it... i def would love to test a XFi sound card aswell heh, tho i only have a set of Z-5500's

[QUOTE="RayvinAzn"]The best chipset out right now is the nForce 680i - EVGA has some very good offerings there, I'd suggest one of their motherboards. For processors, with your budget, you should be thinking quad-core. The Q6600 is a nice purchase, or the QX6700 if you can afford it. RAM won't matter much, since you're not overclocking. 2GB is plenty sufficient right now. I'd suggest a good 2x1GB DDR2 800 kit from Crucial, Corsair, G.Skill, Patriot, or Geil. Power supply, I'd recommend you the Corsair HX620w, which will easily handle one 8800GTX and a RAID array. If you want to go SLI however, something a bit more powerful like the OCZ GameXStream would be a much better buy. For hard drives, I'm a Seagate fan - the newish 7200.10 series are excellent (even better if you spring for the ES version). Pick up two 250 or 320GB drives (whichever is priced better in your area), and get a nice RAID 0 setup to see some very quick load times with plenty of space. Also with that sort of budget, a sound card would be a great purchase - look for a decent X-Fi card, like the XtremeGamer or the XtremeMusic. I'm assuming you're also in the market for a new monitor, case, etc. since you're on a brand new build. I'd stick with Windows XP for right now, since Vista is still plaguing gamers with its issues. Case is mostly up to you, since you know how much desk space you have, how flashy a case you want, and I'm pretty sure you're familiar with the standard ATX layout. Mouse and keyboard are also your prerogative, buy whatever suits your needs. Monitor, I'd shoot for a good 20.1", with a 1680x1050 resolution or better. Also worth thinking about are SATA optical drives - as long as you're not paying a ridiculous amount of money for them, the extra $10-$30 is well-worth getting rid of the IDE cables, in my opinion.DMWhiteDragon

Awesome info thanks heaps... just the kind of stuff i was after :)

That is a quad core, just a Extreme one.. Its the QX6700DrakeNOwns

http://www.newegg.com/product/Product.asp?item=N82E16819115001
Intel Core 2 Extreme X6800 Conroe 2.93GHz 4M shared L2 Cache LGA 775 Processor - Retail

Must just be the wrong link hehe all good

[QUOTE="DrakeNOwns"]

That is a quad core, just a Extreme one.. Its the QX6700DMWhiteDragon

http://www.newegg.com/product/Product.asp?item=N82E16819115001
Intel Core 2 Extreme X6800 Conroe 2.93GHz 4M shared L2 Cache LGA 775 Processor - Retail

Must just be the wrong link hehe all good

Awesome info thanks heaps... just the kind of stuff i was after :)

DMWhiteDragon

$970.00 Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6700 Kentsfield 2.66GHz 2 x 4MB L2 Cache LGA 775 Processor

$249.99 EVGA 122-CK-NF68-AR LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 680i SLI ATX Intel Motherboard

$649.99 EVGA 768-P2-N837-AR GeForce 8800GTX 768MB 384-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16 KO HDCP Video Card
$ 94.99 Seagate Barracuda ES ST3320620NS 320GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive

$ 94.99 Seagate Barracuda ES ST3320620NS 320GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive

$145.99 Creative 70SB046A00000 7.1 Channels 24-bit 192KHz PCI Interface Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeGamer Fatal1ty Professional Series

$239.99 Patriot eXtreme Performance 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory (4-4-4-12)

$239.99 Patriot eXtreme Performance 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory (4-4-4-12)

$149.99 OCZ GameXStream OCZ700GXSSLI ATX12V 700W Power Supply 100 - 240 V

$149.99 Thermaltake Armor Series VA8000BWS Black Aluminum / Steel ATX Full Tower Computer Case

$338.99 SAMSUNG 225BW Black 22" 5 ms (GTG) DVI Widescreen LCD Monitor with Height Adjustments 280 cd/m2 700:1

$ 41.99 SAMSUNG Black 18X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 8X DVD+R DL 18X DVD-R 6X DVD-RW 12X DVD-RAM 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-R 32X CD-RW 48X CD-ROM 2MB Cache SATA DVD Burner With LightScribe Technology

$3,366.89 USD

Ok im sure that pasted in all weird... but thats what i have so far, sound ok? ($3.5k USD i can handle)

There wouldn't be any major bottlenecks there anyone can see? heh

[QUOTE="DMWhiteDragon"]Awesome info thanks heaps... just the kind of stuff i was after :)

RayvinAzn

I've always wondered if the bigger HDD's had slightly less read times, thanks (never checked up on it myself heh, tho it makes sence) and yea i thought about maybe adding a nice huge drive later (850gb? lol) just for storage if needed

After checking my space... no bigger than 22", desk space wont handle anything bigger... i'll check out that PSU too thanks :)

That build you posted looks great, but there's still room for improvement. 1: Consider the Q6600 instead of the QX6700 - you save nearly $150, and you don't lose much in terms of speed. The biggest appeal of the X-series processors is their unlocked multiplier, and since you don't overclock, the QX6700 isn't really worth the extra cash. 2: You can save a bit of money on that sound card as well. The XtremeGamer card costs nearly half what that Fatal1ty card does, and with your speaker setup, you won't notice the difference. 3: You're paying way too much for RAM - look up the G.Skill stuff - you can get a DDR2 800 kit with a CAS latency of 4 for under $200 - closer to $160 if you don't mind looser timings. 4: I buy monitors mostly based on resolution - most 22" models offer the same resolutions as their smaller 20.1" brethren. Consider a 20.1" monitor if you're shopping for 22" monitors, since you'll pay less, and have the same resolution.RayvinAzn

Makes perfect sence :)

$846.00 Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Kentsfield 2.4GHz 2 x 4MB L2 Cache LGA 775 Processor

$249.99 EVGA 122-CK-NF68-AR LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 680i SLI ATX Intel Motherboard

$649.99 EVGA 768-P2-N837-AR GeForce 8800GTX 768MB 384-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16 KO HDCP Video Card

$ 94.99 Seagate Barracuda ES ST3320620NS 320GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive

$ 94.99 Seagate Barracuda ES ST3320620NS 320GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive

$ 79.99 Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeGamer 70SB073A00000 7.1 Channels 24-bit 96KHz PCI Interface Sound Card

$184.99 G.SKILL 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory  (4-4-4-12)

$184.99 G.SKILL 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory  (4-4-4-12)

$149.99 Thermaltake Armor Series VA8000BWS Black Aluminum / Steel ATX Full Tower Computer Case

$338.99 SAMSUNG 225BW Black 22" 5 ms (GTG) DVI Widescreen LCD Monitor with Height Adjustments 280 cd/m2 700:1

$ 41.99 SAMSUNG Black 18X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 8X DVD+R DL 18X DVD-R 6X DVD-RW 12X DVD-RAM 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-R 32X CD-RW 48X CD-ROM 2MB Cache SATA DVD Burner With LightScribe Technology

$149.99 OCZ GameXStream OCZ700GXSSLI ATX12V 700W Power Supply 100 - 240 V

$3066.89 USD

That price point makes me more happy... i mean i have the cash to spend but i worked hard for it and i dont want to waste it either ;) i may check out 20" monitors instead but i like the size aswell for watching movies (the PC is in the lounge... much to the wifes disgust lol) so have to see. I can always stick with the 19" i have aswell for a while if i want to go under the $3k USD mark

Looks very nice indeed, but there's one more thing you have to consider - as far as I know, Newegg does not ship internationally. You'll need to find a website that does ship to the AU, as I do not know of any myself, and for that I apologize. I believe Wesker776 is from that Australia, and he might be able to point you to a few sites that will ship there.RayvinAzn

Yea thats fine was just using there prices as a guide, i have a few friends who can give me cost on items here in AU so i should be ok. There not gamers tho so they dont normally deal in the top end stuff so i gotta go figure out what i want first lol, as they are likly to put there adverage items in the PC instead with a "good enough" mentality :(

that price point as it is puts be just under $4k AUD so thats on budget and not a problem and if i can get a really good deal even better

[QUOTE="RayvinAzn"]Looks very nice indeed, but there's one more thing you have to consider - as far as I know, Newegg does not ship internationally. You'll need to find a website that does ship to the AU, as I do not know of any myself, and for that I apologize. I believe Wesker776 is from that Australia, and he might be able to point you to a few sites that will ship there.DMWhiteDragon

Yea thats fine was just using there prices as a guide, i have a few friends who can give me cost on items here in AU so i should be ok. There not gamers tho so they dont normally deal in the top end stuff so i gotta go figure out what i want first lol, as they are likly to put there adverage items in the PC instead with a "good enough" mentality :(

that price point as it is puts be just under $4k AUD so thats on budget and not a problem and if i can get a really good deal even better

[QUOTE="DMWhiteDragon"]

[QUOTE="RayvinAzn"]Looks very nice indeed, but there's one more thing you have to consider - as far as I know, Newegg does not ship internationally. You'll need to find a website that does ship to the AU, as I do not know of any myself, and for that I apologize. I believe Wesker776 is from that Australia, and he might be able to point you to a few sites that will ship there.RayvinAzn

Yea thats fine was just using there prices as a guide, i have a few friends who can give me cost on items here in AU so i should be ok. There not gamers tho so they dont normally deal in the top end stuff so i gotta go figure out what i want first lol, as they are likly to put there adverage items in the PC instead with a "good enough" mentality :(

that price point as it is puts be just under $4k AUD so thats on budget and not a problem and if i can get a really good deal even better

Will do thanks heaps for all the help :)

Will do thanks heaps for all the help :)

DMWhiteDragon