[QUOTE="gregdpw"]what do you guys think of this rig for my friend who is new to pc gaming? http://i52.photobucket.com/albums/g30/theonegman/neweggcart.jpg Looks alright. Good power supply and video card... however, C2D's are a little outdated now when it comes to price:performance. I'd go the AMD route with a Phenom II (the $100 3.1GHz 550 can consistently be unlocked into a quad-core with a decent SB750 or SB710 mobo) unless you have the $100 to shell out for a Q9550 (which kills AMD's current lineup; I can explain if you want). And then, the case... I'd go with something a little more classy, and less bland and generic-looking. Like an Antec 300 (they have one with LED fans now) or cheap Lian Li. They're simply much better, nicer cases. As for the hard drive, I'd get one with a 32mb cache; it greatly improves performance. Blue HDD's are also a tad outdated. I'd spend another $10 and get a WD Black. They're much faster. Or, if you really want bang for the buck, go for the $85 Samsung Spinpoint F1 1TB... $20 isn't a huge premium for twice the storage and superior platters. So, if you went ahead and built that rig there, I'd rate it a 6.5/10... 4.5/10 for price:performance. Might seem a little harsh, but take it into account! Hope this helps. Someone rate mine btw :). It gets P13500 in 3DMark Vantage. Probably like 18000 in 3DMark '06, IDK lol. EDIT: Whoops! Left you out. [QUOTE="tat2pap"]my spec... intel c2q 8400 abit ip35-e palit ati 4870 1gb turbo transcend 4gb 800mhz ddr2 ram cooler master 600w-extreme power psu viewsonic 19" monitor lg dvd+rw frontech 2*gamepad logitech stereo speaker creative 7.1 hd-live sound card. thats it, thanks lenovo mouse & keyboard 7/10. Proc could use a little extra oomph... any OC's? Nice mobo. Wish Abit were still around.
the x3 720 BE is better than the 550 for a slight decrease in clock speed (which can be OCed anyways) you get a full extra core. basically it can compare to quad cores almost. the HD4870 provides a significant increase over the HD4850 which its faster clock speeds and better memory.
that combo is the best. although id wait on the gpu if i were you the dx11 cards are litterally around the corner
TerroRizing
The 720 BE is actually better than alot of quad cores, and I wouldnt bother waiting, unless you maybe want to save a bit of money. DX11 cards wont come cheap for awhile. That's baloney. Then 720 BE is nowhere near comparable to quads in multi-threaded apps. Get the 550 BE with a nice SB750 or SB710 motherboard and unlock the extra two cores. The likelihood of unlocking the fourth core of the 720 BE has greatly decreased now, as AMD is starting to crack down; however, the 550 almost always unlocks into a nice B50. Then, get the 4850; it's not a lot worse than the 4870, and I preferred my 4850 to my 4870 1GB. The memory seemed more stable, and fluid. Then you can always go Crossfire with the 4850's, and save a lot of watts on top of that.
Yes. Just do it. Mice like the G9 and SideWinder (for big hands) are such a huge jump from practically all the others (specifically the ones less than 2000DPI) you really can't go wrong... there's an ergonomic improvement in them too. I got my G9 for $35 on sale, brand new... I believe it was $45 on Amazon last week.
You guys need to look at the benchmarks more. Crysis 1 hogs over 1GB of video memory consistently, and you can't anti-alias that game at all without losing frames with 1GB.
Nvidia wins performance. ATI wins price-performance ratio and video quality. That's how it is, and that's how it's gonna be.mattpunkgd
What?! How does ATI win video quality? Please enlighten me. I personally STRONGLY prefer my GTX 275 to my 4870 and 4850 Crossfire setups (and especially the 4830; god that card has terrible image quality) because I believe the opposite!
One of my favourite online shooters, that's for sure. That, plus Left4Dead and Team Fortress 2. These 3 are the best online shooters, IMO. Haven't tried Battlefield 2 yet, I'll give it a go sometime. CS is cool but.. a little old. And it's crawling with cheaters and whiner babies nowadays. It's sad, used to be my favourite online FPS.Dark_Mystik
Right there with you! The multiplayer just has so much playing value, and it's good these are the games that everyone plays... I don't want to start a 1000-hour WoW campaign just to play with my friends. CoD4 is definitely one of my favorite shooters of ALL time... right behind Quake 3 and America's Army: SF :P.
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