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[VALIS]

Gonna buy a new computer either this week or next. This is what I have picked out right now. Anywhere I can improve? Anything I should change? I can't do any better than dual Nvidia 1gb 7950's, can I? Anything in this configuration that might not work well together? Is the physics processing unit necessary? I'm not an expert with this stuff, so comments are very appreciated.

edit: See new config, post #51

 

[Chris Remo]

Good lord. I don't keep up with PC hardware like I used to, but yeah that looks pretty ****ing beefy. Those two video cards are insane.

Cue people claiming PC gaming is ridiculous because you have to pay $4000+ to get started.

 

[mood]

That should keep you set until DX10

 

[MMaRsu]

Let me just say this..


HELL YEAH!

 

[Cronox]

You'll regret not having waited for a DirectX 10 graphics card to come out...

 

[Manp]

a motherboard with an ATI Crossfire chipset and 2 nVidia cards? are you kidding? and it doesn't even seem to support 800Mhz DDR2 memory

and what's up with the shitty Pentium D? get a Core 2 Duo!

the physics card is useless

 

[Danj]

CPU: (Sckt775)Intel® Pentium® D 960 Dual-Core CPU @ 3.6GHz 800FSB 2x2MB L2 Cache EM64T

FAIL! If you have that kind of money to throw around, get a better processor, e.g. Core 2 Duo or Core 2 Extreme.

SOUND: HIGH DEFINITION ON-BOARD 7.1 AUDIO

What? You're spending that much and yet not bothering to get a proper sound card? Shame on you! At least get an OEM Audigy 2 or something...

 

[jarosh]

whoa!

 

[AlanHemberger]

Can the PPU

Get a Core 2 Extreme

And uhh, why a crossfire mobo?

 

[Manp]

and if you want to spend your money well, get a couple of Raptor HDs in RAID as main HD and use a single 750GB for data

 

[Danj]

And uhh, why a crossfire mobo?

Actually, that's a really good point, surely he needs an nVidia SLI chipset board if he's running nVidia graphics cards?

 

[Manp]

And uhh, why a crossfire mobo?

i'm not even sure if an SLI setup with 2 nVidia cards would actually work on a Crossfire mobo... but i'm pretty sure it will not

 

[VALIS]

a motherboard with an ATI Crossfire chipset and 2 nVidia cards? are you kidding? and it doesn't even seem to support 800Mhz DDR2 memory

I was wondering about that. Do Nvidia cards and ATI Cross Fire chipsets not work together? So then what's the best motherboard/video card combination?

and what's up with the shitty Pentium D? get a Core 2 Duo!

the physics card is useless

Cool, thanks.

What? You're spending that much and yet not bothering to get a proper sound card? Shame on you! At least get an OEM Audigy 2 or something...

I already have a USB audio card/unit I like a lot. Optical and rca in/out.

 

[Chris Remo]

Actually, that's a really good point, surely he needs an nVidia SLI chipset board if he's running nVidia graphics cards?

Yeah I'm pretty sure that's the case. They're different technologies, and aren't interoperable.

 

[Danj]

I was wondering about that. Do Nvidia cards and ATI Cross Fire chipsets not work together?

Not if you're wanting to do SLI they won't, no. You need to match up your motherboard chipset with your graphics chipsets.

I already have a USB audio card/unit I like a lot. Optical and rca in/out.

Don't those have a slight time lag? I would have thought a PCI one would be better.

 

[Borys]

Your list makes probably the best PC in the universe money could buy now, however...

2 GB of video RAM?

That's some ridiculous shit, Valis!

Anyway: can't you really wait for DX10 cards and Vista? You will regret buying those two DX9 babies in 5 months when Vista ships.
Consider this: when Vista along with DX10 cards like GeForce 8800, that one card will probably give you 75% of performance of your two DX9 cards. SLI them and you'll have 150% performance of what you'd have now.

CAN the PPU, it has NO USE whatsoever, spending money on it is like throwing them out of the window. You'd better spend that $200 on the poor or some 360 games.

Get Core 2 Duo processors or wait for Core 2 Quad or however they are called (hint: when Vista ships or even earlier (November 2006) according to intel!).

...

But if you ABSOLUTELY must buy a PC now, go with that config you provided. It's simply the best, second to none. It will run Crysis @ 60 FPS, with AA and AF @ 1600x1200. You can't get a better rig this year.

Oh yeah, X-Fire and SLI doesn't work together.

 

[EGM92]

You'll need some sort of SLi Ready board and not a crossfire board as they're different on how they work (SLi cards are equal, in CrossFire (ATI) you need a Mothercard and then a daughter card which are sometimes hard to find a matching pair) Pentium D's are shit IMO, get a Core 2 Extreme X6800. If you have a slow CPU your going to cause a bottle neck on the GPU's making it worthless to have both cards, as I always say GO BIG OR GO HOME. If you can't afford a REALLY good Conroe, get a AMD AM2 socket. Recently AMD had huge price cuts across the board to compete with the Core 2 duo launch and AMD has always been better for gaming then Intel. Also buying 800mhz ram would also help a lot with stopping bottlenecks and right now would be a good time to buy some as a lot of the major manufactures have shrunk the latency on high speed ram.

You can buy better DVD-RW's also, 18x SATA drives are out.

Also, buying an internal PCI sound card is much better then a USB audio device.

 

[shuri]

I dont think of any pc game right now, or in the future, that will actually require a pc like that.

 

[VALIS]

Anyway: can't you really wait for DX10 cards and Vista? You will regret buying those two DX9 babies in 5 months when Vista ships.
Consider this: when Vista along with DX10 cards like GeForce 8800, that one card will probably give you 75% of performance of your two DX9 cards. SLI them and you'll have 150% performance of what you'd have now.

Damn, I didn't realize the jump was so dramatic. I figured there'd just be a few DX10-Required games I'd miss out on at first, like MS first party stuff, but the performance would be more or less the same. Guess not. Looks like I'm waiting for Vista/DX10.


*looks at watch*








*looks at watch again*

 

[AlanHemberger]

You'll need some sort of SLi Ready board and not a crossfire board as they're different on how they work (SLi cards are equal, in CrossFire (ATI) you need a Mothercard and then a daughter card which are sometimes hard to find a matching pair) Pentium D's are shit IMO, get a Core 2 Extreme X6800. If you have a slow CPU your going to cause a bottle neck on the GPU's making it worthless to have both cards, as I always say GO BIG OR GO HOME. If you can't afford a REALLY good Conroe, get a AMD AM2 socket. Recently AMD had huge price cuts across the board to compete with the Core 2 duo launch and AMD has always been better for gaming then Intel. Also buying 800mhz ram would also help a lot with stopping bottlenecks and right now would be a good time to buy some as a lot of the major manufactures have shrunk the latency on high speed ram.

You can buy better DVD-RW's also, 18x SATA drives are out.

I thought the new Core 2 Duo Extremes got better benchmarks and results than any of the AMD lines?

Damn, I didn't realize the jump was so dramatic. I figured there'd just be a few DX10-Required games I'd miss out on at first, like MS first party stuff, but the performance would be more or less the same. Guess not. Looks like I'm waiting for Vista/DX10.


*looks at watch*








*looks at watch again*

Why don't you buy the majority of your setup now and just wait to buy the cards later?

 

[Open Source]

Changes:
- 420W case and a 750W power supply? Why not just get a case with no power supply in it? I prefer full tower cases myself...
- a Core 2 Duo processor (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819115003)
- a mobo that isn't ECS and supports DDR2 800 (such as this one: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813136168)
- no Aegia physics chip unless you just hate money
- replace one of the 750GB drives (I am assuming those are 2 different ones?) with a 10k RPM SATA (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822136011) and put your OS and games on that, your movies/music/etc. on the big one.
- drop the video cards and get something to tide you over till DX10. I have 2 7800GTs and I don't even use SLI anymore because nothing pushes the graphics cards that hard (and SLI is not that great anyway). Save your dough till later and get something like this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814102051
- a sound card is not a bad idea, as it will reduce the load on your CPU a little (most games nowadays are CPU-limited). This is fine: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16829102004.

Edit: what kind of monitor(s) are you using? I am using dual 24" dell lcds, recommend it highly, even if you have to scale down your specs a bit to afford it.

 

[Manp]

CASE: Hot New! X-Cruiser Mid-Tower 420W Case W/ WINDOW, MultiMeter Display & Control (Black Color)
CPU: Intel Pentium Core 2 Extreme X6800
POWER SUPPLY: Thermaltake ToughPower 750 Watt Power Supply - SLI Ready
MOTHERBOARD: Asus P5N32-SLI Premium
MEMORY: Corsair XMS 2x 1024 @ 800 MHz
VIDEO CARD: NEW!!! NVIDIA Geforce 7950 GX2 1GB 16X PCI Express Video Card
VIDEO CARD 2: NEW!!! NVIDIA Geforce 7950 GX2 1GB 16X PCI Express Video Card
HARD DRIVE: 2x Western Digital Raptor 150Gb. 10.000 RPM 16Mb. cache SATA
Data Hard Drive: 750GB SATA-II 3.0Gb/s 16MB Cache 7200RPM Hard Drive
Optical Drive: something from NEC or Pioneer
SOUND: something like an X-Fi

fixed

 

[Borys]

Ya, DX10 cards are coming:

Nvidia is expected to announce the world's first DirectX 10-compliant graphics chip, the GeForce 8800 (codenamed G80), in the middle of November, graphics card makers revealed. However, despite the advantage of early launch, demand for the new graphics processing unit (GPU) will depend on penetration rate of the new Windows Vista OS and availability of new PC games supporting DirectX 10, the makers indicated.

With Shader Model 4.0 support, DirectX 10 will improve visualization and rendering capabilities utilized in PC games, also reducing CPU overhead, according to the makers. It means that game developers will get additional space to make their games more sophisticated, said the makers.

The makers expressed the doubt that ATI's next-generation R600 chip, which is also expected to support DirectX 10, may appear in the market before 2007. Nevertheless, ATI will continue benefit from its close relationships with Microsoft around the Xbox 360, the makers said.

Since DirectX 10 is positioned as a Vista-only solution, with presumably no ability to work with previous Windows versions, Nvidia's move to launch the GeForce 8800 in November should rather be considered as a symbolic step, said industry sources. So far, Microsoft only promised that Windows Vista will run DirectX 9.0, allowing to later upgrade it to DirectX 10 via Windows Update, the sources indicated. When Microsoft releases a DirectX 10-capable OS, ATI will perhaps catch up with the competition, the sources added.

Rumours:

Description
Earlier today some information regarding the possible specs of nVidia's upcoming G80 based boards surfaced on VR-Zone, only to be "quietly" removed later. Thankfully X-bit labs managed to collect the information on the new cards and we can now present it to you below.

The most important aspect of the leaked documentation are the specs revealed:

- Unified Shader Architecture;
- Support FP16 HDR+MSAA;
- Support GDDR4 memories;
- Close to 700M transistors (G71 - 278M / G70 - 302M);
- New AA mode: VCAA;
- Core clock scalable up to 1.5GHz;
- Shader performance: 2x Pixel/12x Vertex over G71;
- 8 TCPs & 128 stream processors;
- Much more efficient than traditional architecture;
- 384-bit memory interface (256-bit+128-bit);
- 768MB memory size (512MB+256MB)

The unified shader architecture suggests, what the experts have been saying for a while now, that the cards will be support DX10.

According to the same, leaked, information the G80 will surface in November in two varieties, the GeForce 8800 GTX and GeForce 8800 GT priced at a mere USD 649 and USD 449-499 respectively. The GTX model (higher-end) will feature a 384-bit memory interface, a hybrid water and air cooler and 7 TCPs while the GT will have a 320-bit memory interface, a standard air cooler, and 6 TCPs.

No one has actually explained what TCP actually stands for although Techreport has uncovered an nVidia patent which refers to thread control processors. According to the same patent these TCPs will be used to set the function of the unified shader processors.

$649 for a card, damn that is pricey :O

 

[Blue Geezer]

personally i would wait until vista is out and we get the first dx10 graphics cards. but if you have money to burn now and in 5-8 months then go for it.

as for cpu for best atm theres: (should really say best amd, intel ones are kicking their ass atm)

AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core FX62 2.80GHz (Socket AM2)

then mobo to go with that:

Asus M2N32 WS Pro nForce 590 SLi (Socket AM2) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard

Abit Fatal1ty AN9 32X (Socket AM2) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard

depending on which manufacturer you prefer.

again i would wait til june/july next year but if you have money to burn....

 

[EGM92]

I thought the new Core 2 Duo Extremes got better benchmarks and results than any of the AMD lines?

They did in some cases, in other instances improvements were minor. Keeping in mind the Extreme are going to rip your asshole apart with the cost while a AM2 x2 5000+ will cost you half the price. Conroe is overall a better chip though.

 

[Scrow]

when are the first DX10 cards due to come out?

 

[Borys]

*looks at watch*








*looks at watch again*

Really now, they will announce the next-gen cards next month. Honestly - this month is like the WORST time to buy a new PC. I wouldn't do it even if I shat $1000 bills.

But damn, your machine does sound sweet... 1.5TB of storage and 2GB of VRAM. The nerd in me just fainted.

 

[AlanHemberger]

They did in some cases, in other instances improvements were minor. Keeping in mind the Extreme are going to rip your asshole apart with the cost while a AM2 x2 5000+ will cost you half the price. Conroe is overall a better chip though.

Yeah, I was just speaking with cost aside. From what I can tell, that's a non-issue. I was speaking just on performance. But for the average person, AMD's are the more ideal solution.

 

[Danj]

I thought the new Core 2 Duo Extremes got better benchmarks and results than any of the AMD lines?

They do - and what's more, Intel has a quad core chip ready to roll for November. Here and here are some Kentsfield previews.

 

[Manp]

as much as i like AMD, Intel is the way to go

 

[AlanHemberger]

They do - and what's more, Intel has a quad core chip ready to roll for November. Here and here are some Kentsfield previews.

Jesus, that sounds sexy.

 

[Borys]

VALIS:

New generation of graphic cards (DX10) will roll-out in December\ January.
New generation of CPUs (intel's Quad Cores with four cores) will roll-out in December\January.
New OS from Microsoft (Vista) will roll out sometime between January and July 2007.

You really *should* wait.

Everything else is tip-top on your list and won't probably change in 6-12 months (1TB HDDs are still a no-show). But the meat of your ultimate PC rig is gonna change drastically in the beginning of 2007.

H O L D

O N

Replay God of War or Psychonauts in the meantime

 

[EGM92]

Vista cards (DX10) will be released when Vista is released, thats what the manufactures have been saying, there might be a "pre-release" of the highend cards but no one is sure. DX9 and other modified Chipsets dedicated to Vista will be released when the OS is RTM, Mid to late Nov. Release Candidate 2 will be released this Friday to internal beta testers and maybe testers from the public groups after that there will be no other public builds of any sort till RTM.

 

[Liquid Sector]

use this article its pretty good to guide u, and u dont need pc for 4k $ its useless also, SLI i not needed in my opinion!
http://www.sharkyextreme.com/guides/MHGSBG/article.php/3633871

or if u dont agree with me just go and buy one of these:
http://alienware.com/product_detail_pages/Area-51_ALX/area-51_overview.aspx?SysCode=PC-AREA51-ALX-R5&SubCode=SKU-DEFAULT
i love them :lol

 

[wonderfuldays]

a motherboard with an ATI Crossfire chipset and 2 nVidia cards? are you kidding? and it doesn't even seem to support 800Mhz DDR2 memory

and what's up with the shitty Pentium D? get a Core 2 Duo!

the physics card is useless

I agree.
Crossfire MB + nVidia SLI?
Don't buy AGEIA physics card! Useless!

 

[Danj]

(1TB HDDs are still a no-show)

I thought they were due out Q4 this year (i.e. before Christmas)?

But anyway yeah, he's right, if you can just hold on till say January 2007, your system will be 10x more badass.

 

[Borys]

2.5 TB disks from Seagate by 2009?

http://dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=4193

AWESOME!

 

[Wellington]

I don't want to make a new topic but I've got a question.

I want to build a system with a 7600GT, an Intel core 2 duo 6600, 1 HDD, 2 optical drives, what kind of power supply should I be using?

Is a 500W Power Supply sufficient? I can't find any power consumption stats. :|

 

[Danj]

I don't want to make a new topic but I've got a question.

I want to build a system with a 7600GT, an Intel core 2 duo 6600, 1 HDD, 2 optical drives, what kind of power supply should I be using?

Is a 500W Power Supply sufficient? I can't find any power consumption stats. :|

Just make sure you get something that's a) from a reliable manufacturer and b) ATX12V version 2.2 compliant. Something in the 430-500W range should be fine.

 

[Jacobi]

You really should wait for DX10 nvidia cards instead of buying SLI.

 

[Propagandhim]

Honestly, that's too much money to spend on gaming when DX10 is just around the corner. Rethink it, you'll be glad you did when you build your monster machine around Vista.

 

[PleoMax]

Wait for Dx 10 man.

 

[UncleGuito]

Looks like that's from BuyXG or something, which is where I got my comp.

The case is great, it's the one I have too. I'd hold off on the SLI, because since the card is top of the line, you won't notice a big SLI jump for a while.

 

[HokieJoe]

A few years ago, a few friends and I went through several, and I mean several bad Socket A ECS boards. Can’t remember all of the details, but there was something wrong with Northbridge/Southbridge IIRC. That was a long time ago, but please make sure that the ECS board in question doesn’t have any persistent mysterious ‘issues’. As well, often times, mainboards are highly ‘praised’ for their overclocking features. Unless that’s something you’re interested in, I wouldn’t consider it a feature.

All things considered, I’ve had the best support out of Asus boards, and decent support out of MSI boards.

 

[Brimstone]

Honestly, that's too much money to spend on gaming when DX10 is just around the corner. Rethink it, you'll be glad you did when you build your monster machine around Vista.

Totally agree with this logic. If you're going to fork out serious cash, wait for Vista and tailor your hardware around that.

 

[Carl2282]

dude, but buy a cheep mid-range video card, dx 10 is gonna be out soon to make all our dx 9 stuff obsolete
*edit*
and dont get a physics card! as i understand it like no games support it yet and every review ive read of them say they are overpriced and pretty much dont change a damn thing.
*edit*

WTH why would you but an ati board to run SLI? im pretty sure quad sli will only be suported by some motherboards... i'd look into that compatibility

 

[fartblast]

well the only game i can think of worth playing on that is unreal tournament 2007... otherwise not such a good decision

 

[Finaika]

Really now, they will announce the next-gen cards next month. Honestly - this month is like the WORST time to buy a new PC. I wouldn't do it even if I shat $1000 bills.

I just bought a new PC 5 days ago

Spoiler

Although I don't exactly play PC games...

 

[bigmit3737]

Gonna buy a new computer either this week or next. This is what I have picked out right now. Anywhere I can improve? Anything I should change? I can't do any better than dual Nvidia 1gb 7950's, can I? Anything in this configuration that might not work well together? Is the physics processing unit necessary? I'm not an expert with this stuff, so comments are very appreciated.

CASE: Hot New! X-Cruiser Mid-Tower 420W Case W/ WINDOW, MultiMeter Display & Control (Black Color)
CPU: (Sckt775)Intel® Pentium® D 960 Dual-Core CPU @ 3.6GHz 800FSB 2x2MB L2 Cache EM64T
POWER SUPPLY: Thermaltake ToughPower 750 Watt Power Supply - SLI Ready
POWER PROTECTION: OPTI-UPS ES1500C 1400VA/980W UNINTERRUPT POWER SUPPLY
MOTHERBOARD: (Recommended!)ECS PA1 MVP(2.0) ATI RD400X CrossFire LGA775 1066FSB DDR2/667 Dual PCIE SATA RAID w/GbLAN+10/100LAN, USB2.0, 2xIEEE1394, &7.1Audio
COOLING SYSTEM: CoolerMaster Liquid CPU Cooling Fan System Kit + 2 EXTRA CASE FANS
MEMORY: (Req.DDR2 MainBoard)2GB (2x1024MB) PC5300 DDR2/667 Dual Channel Memory (Corsair XMS2 Pro High Performance Memory w/ Heat Spreader & LED Lights)
VIDEO CARD: NEW!!! NVIDIA Geforce 7950 GX2 1GB 16X PCI Express Video Card
VIDEO CARD 2: NEW!!! NVIDIA Geforce 7950 GX2 1GB 16X PCI Express Video Card
PHYSICS PROCESSING UNIT: ASUS PhysX P1 Card powered by AGEIA PhysX processor 128MB PCI Card
HARD DRIVE: Single Hard Drive (750GB SATA-II 3.0Gb/s 16MB Cache 7200RPM HDD)
Data Hard Drive: 750GB SATA-II 3.0Gb/s 16MB Cache 7200RPM Hard Drive
Optical Drive: (Special Price) 16X DVD±R/±RW + CD-R/RW DRIVE DUAL LAYER (BLACK COLOR)
Optical Drive 2: COMBO DRIVE (16X DVD-ROM & 52x32x52 CD-RW) (BLACK COLOR)
SOUND: HIGH DEFINITION ON-BOARD 7.1 AUDIO

Plus all the other junk (wireless k/m, Win XP Media Center, etc.)

$4119.00
(before all applicable rebates)


That price is actually much cheaper than I've seen at other online build-your-pc sites.

Why don't you buy a top of the line computer just with a decent graphics card...and then next year just upgrade your graphics card...

The direct x 10 cards will be ridicioulsly expensive when it first comes out...and you will have to wait about a year for more than just a few games to take advantage of it.

 

[anachronous_one]

Why don't you buy a top of the line computer just with a decent graphics card...and then next year just upgrade your graphics card...

... or just spec out the system you want now, except for the vid card, then wait until next year when Vista hits and buy that same system for about half as much as you would be paying now. Then add in your DX10 card of choice at that time! Viola!