My own "I need help for a new PC" Thread

**Aristocrat** · October 21, 2006, 01:28 AM

Ok, I've helped enough with other people's threads but now I need a little guidance from the other resident tech heads.
I need to know whether I should start from scratch, or upgrade (decisions decisions...).
So first, my current system:

Motherboard: Asus SLI deluxe (s939)
Cpu: AMD 3500 (now @2.6 ghz).
Video Card: Leadtek 6800GT 256mb PCI-express
Ram: 1gb Corsair (top of the line stuff....forget the exact name...XML XLL or something).
Sound Card: Creative Sound Blaster Zs

Now this is a fairly recent system (well...that depends on your point of view I guess), in that it is only about 1-2 years old (probaly closer to 2 now), so I'm fairly certain I could get another year out of it (or more) by throwing in more ram, a new cpu, and a second 6800GT.
But, considering Id be upgrading the three most important parts anyway, I thought heck why not build afresh and give this one away as family christmas present, thereby saving me the hassle of actually having to do any christmas shopping.

So, for a new system, I have general ideas, but I want the opinions of TWC's techy elite (basically Incinerate, Hadrian, Pyrrhus, OTZ, and co....and even myself).

Motherboard: No idea really, Im thinking of building intel dual core so suggestions more than welcome.
Cpu: Intel Dual Core, Something that will hopefully last me longer than the current cpu, which was more a choice of necessity than an actual choice.
Video Card: Indeed....Beyond a 7900GT I have little knowledge of the best card currently out.
Ram: This will depend on whats available here in Australia, but I will be getting a 2x1gb kit....of what I dont know, but it will be good.
Sound Card: I will see what happens here, it will be a creative, and it will be better than the zs, other than that not sure.

However, if people also have suggestions for upgrading that are basically as good as a rebuild I am very open to suggestion. (The AMD dual core is what worries me though... :/ )

Price range: Well for an upgrade I'd say about 1 pay packets worth and place it at the $1000 Australian mark ($1500 tops).
For a new build, I'd hope to keep it within 3-4 grand....mostly because Ive been eyeing an xbox360 and a high def tv for after christmas sales :tooth:

Edit: IF I were to upgrade, I want opinions on the following processors.
This one, which is obviously very pricey (but still...I want opinions.
This one .
Obviously the first one is expensive, it is a dual core FX, what I want to know is the difference in performance.
I'm off to look at reviews on the Toms Hardware site.

**OTZ** · October 22, 2006, 07:43 AM

With 3-4K, the sky is the limit! My suggestion though, is to wait until the new year once nVidia has had a chance to ramp up the production of their Dx10 cards. We should also know more about ATI's Dx10 cards by then...buying a brand new system on the cusp of a new era of GPU technology (and CPU if you count imminnent the launch of quad cores) is not worth your while.

What you have now should be able to hold you over until then - although I know how anxious one can get when they "want" something right away. Patience is a virtue...

**shenmueguru** · October 22, 2006, 11:12 AM

Originally Posted by OTZ

With 3-4K, the sky is the limit! My suggestion though, is to wait until the new year once nVidia has had a chance to ramp up the production of their Dx10 cards. We should also know more about ATI's Dx10 cards by then...buying a brand new system on the cusp of a new era of GPU technology (and CPU if you count imminnent the launch of quad cores) is not worth your while.

What you have now should be able to hold you over until then - although I know how anxious one can get when they "want" something right away. Patience is a virtue...

What about the "if vista upgrades, you must upgrade the video card as well?"

**Incinerate_IV** · October 22, 2006, 01:01 PM

You system is still really high end. The only thing that can be improved is the video card, and maby another gig of ram for Vista. The new DX10 nVIDIA 8 series is coming out next month, so I suggest you wait a little while, and pick up one of those beasts.

**AlfonsoVIII** · October 22, 2006, 01:50 PM

I agree with Incinerate_IV, even though I am not elite enough. Your rig is definitley worth keeping / upgrading. I would only do the video card and save your money, but tell me how well can you play the demo maxed out. My rig is at 20 fps max and very playable. It goes to 86 on all minimum with 1024x768x32. Adding another gig of RAM will improve non M2TW performance for the moment. I still have to test things out. Good luck, and if I am a tech nerd, here is a

that is going up my

**PyrrhusIV** · October 22, 2006, 02:33 PM

Wow...

If you spent 3-4k on a system in December... wow, that could be amazing

But, as everyone else has said, i'm anxious to see the Geforce 8 Series of Cards, they should be very, very promising. Your Mobo is fine (Socket 939 maxes out at FX-60 but...) and honestly, I have a 939 dual core (4800, 2.4ghz) and I'm running all games out right now fine. oblivion, fine, MTW demo, fine etc.

1GB of RAM is fine...to be honest, the "weakest" link is probably the video-card, and the 6800 series are still very, very respectable video cards. So yeah, wait till december (or mid-late november) and give us a budget.... wow.....

Course right now, Intel-ATI is the way to go... though i'm guessing it will soon be Intel-Nvidia with the newest series..

**Shaun** · October 22, 2006, 03:48 PM

Originally Posted by Aristocrat

Ok, I've helped enough with other people's threads but now I need a little guidance from the other resident tech heads.
I need to know whether I should start from scratch, or upgrade (decisions decisions...).
So first, my current system:

Motherboard: Asus SLI deluxe (s939)
Cpu: AMD 3500 (now @2.6 ghz).
Video Card: Leadtek 6800GT 256mb PCI-express
Ram: 1gb Corsair (top of the line stuff....forget the exact name...XML XLL or something).
Sound Card: Creative Sound Blaster Zs

Now this is a fairly recent system (well...that depends on your point of view I guess), in that it is only about 1-2 years old (probaly closer to 2 now), so I'm fairly certain I could get another year out of it (or more) by throwing in more ram, a new cpu, and a second 6800GT.
But, considering Id be upgrading the three most important parts anyway, I thought heck why not build afresh and give this one away as family christmas present, thereby saving me the hassle of actually having to do any christmas shopping.

So, for a new system, I have general ideas, but I want the opinions of TWC's techy elite (basically Incinerate, Hadrian, Pyrrhus, OTZ, and co....and even myself).

Motherboard: No idea really, Im thinking of building intel dual core so suggestions more than welcome.
Cpu: Intel Dual Core, Something that will hopefully last me longer than the current cpu, which was more a choice of necessity than an actual choice.
Video Card: Indeed....Beyond a 7900GT I have little knowledge of the best card currently out.
Ram: This will depend on whats available here in Australia, but I will be getting a 2x1gb kit....of what I dont know, but it will be good.
Sound Card: I will see what happens here, it will be a creative, and it will be better than the zs, other than that not sure.

However, if people also have suggestions for upgrading that are basically as good as a rebuild I am very open to suggestion. (The AMD dual core is what worries me though... :/ )

Price range: Well for an upgrade I'd say about 1 pay packets worth and place it at the $1000 Australian mark ($1500 tops).
For a new build, I'd hope to keep it within 3-4 grand....mostly because Ive been eyeing an xbox360 and a high def tv for after christmas sales :tooth:

Edit: IF I were to upgrade, I want opinions on the following processors.
This one, which is obviously very pricey (but still...I want opinions.
This one .
Obviously the first one is expensive, it is a dual core FX, what I want to know is the difference in performance.
I'm off to look at reviews on the Toms Hardware site.

My suggestion is that you dont go AMD anymore. Any good AMD is a ****ing fortune, I almost spat my beer all over my keyboard when I seen 1300 AUS dollars for an FX-60, which isnt even the newest Althon, the 4600 X2 you listed was far better value for money, although prices may not concern you.
I would say that you could easily find a good Conroe mobo and an E6600 (which is slightly better than an FX-60) for less than the price if the FX-60 alone, although this will mean DDR2 RAM, do you have DDR2 RAM already? If so, this wont be a problem, another gig should be sufficient.
So my opinions on the CPU's is that they are all overpriced and perform worse than thier cheaper Conroe counterparts. I aint very knowledge able in mobos so cant recomed you an exact model (I got the MSI 975X Platinum which supports crossfire and up to 8GB DDR2-800 RAM, thats the only one I really know of), but if you are willing to pay 1300+ AUS Dollars for a CPU, then the Core 2 6800 is about that price and currently the fastest consumer CPU out. So get that instead of the equally priced but worse performing Athlon.

Now, on to the GPU. I would have to recommed high end ATi's instead of a high end nVidia, they are cheaper, have a better image quality and generally perform better, except in HL (which apparently plays better on ATi) and FEAR. The X1900XT is a good card, it comes in every so slightly behind the 7900GTX and costs £100 less! I cant recommend the X1900XTX anymore as the X1950XTX's are ever so slightly more, infact some times cheaper, and the higher memory speeds and bandwidths give extra performance, so if you want the fastest go for X1950XTX, then get another for Crossfire, oh and by the way X1950XTX crossfire beats quad SLI (2x7950GX'2) and can be cheaper.
The first DX10 cards will be buggy as hell and suck up a lot of juice, you may want to wait until games actually use DX10 untill you go 8 series, plus there is a lot of rumors around that you will need to buy a new GPU every time there is a DX10 update. I would wait untill these are proven false before buying.

RAM, well get the best that you can afford, or if you are getting more RAM to go with your current RAM then make sure they are the same speed.

Do you really need a sound card? All good mobos come with built in sound which have a good enough D to A converter and 7:1 surround sound, can you really hear the difference with a sound card?

**Aristocrat** · October 22, 2006, 05:55 PM

Originally Posted by Shaun

Do you really need a sound card? All good mobos come with built in sound which have a good enough D to A converter and 7:1 surround sound, can you really hear the difference with a sound card?

I like to think I can, but who knows, I havent had a mobo with onboard surround sound yet, I'll go by the reviews of the next mobo I get.

As for the rest of the advice from everyone, thanks.
I wasn't aware quad cores and the NVIDIA 8 series were as close to release as they are, so I may as well wait.
To be honest this as all brought on by the M2TW demo, and the fact that I couldnt max it out and have it run smoothly, and then I took another look at the next gen games around the corner and though "heck...if I cant run a strategy game at max, how the heck will I do it for them".
I'm like that see, I want the best gaming experience I can get, I don't seem to enjoy it as much if the settings aren't at the best they can be....maybe theres a mental condition I should read up on :hmmm:

But I'll wait and see then, it couldn't hurt me that much to play a game at less than max settings again.

On that FX chip for s939, I laughed so hard at the price I nearly gave myself a hernia, especially after seeing that the extra grand bought me a whole 9 fps in FEAR, and it still got beat by a cheaper chip by Intel.
Intel aren;t exactly guilt free either, their top chip the EX6800 only marginally outperforms the EX6700, yet due to the word extreme, it's price is a lot higher.

Oh and the price tag will probaly be a little higher than I though, considering I'll be wanting the lot, case, parts, peripherals, and screen (can anyone say widescreen?).

**PyrrhusIV** · October 22, 2006, 06:19 PM

My suggestion is that you dont go AMD anymore. Any good AMD is a ****ing fortune,

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819103733 Which for you, is about, 84.5 GBP. Pretty good deal, considering it can run all games on highest now, considering DDR2 and Dual-Core technology.

Almost all AMD's on the market now are still a bargain. AMD hasnt come out with a new chip since, May-June of this year, and all those chips (And most Socket 939) can easily run current games on max settings. I Admit, the Core 2 Duo is a better deal at the moment, it is newer, and therefore, considering intel, cheaper and surprisingly offering better performance. I am an AMD person, just like you are and ATI person, and would never pick the competition.

although this will mean DDR2 RAM, do you have DDR2 RAM already?

If he is using Socket 939, he doesnt use DDR2 RAM

Now, on to the GPU. I would have to recommed high end ATi's instead of a high end nVidia, they are cheaper, have a better image quality and generally perform better, except in HL (which apparently plays better on ATi) and FEAR. The X1900XT is a good card, it comes in every so slightly behind the 7900GTX and costs £100 less! I cant recommend the X1900XTX anymore as the X1950XTX's are ever so slightly more, infact some times cheaper, and the higher memory speeds and bandwidths give extra performance, so if you want the fastest go for X1950XTX, then get another for Crossfire, oh and by the way X1950XTX crossfire beats quad SLI (2x7950GX'2) and can be cheaper.

I would Reccomend he waits till the 8 series cards are released, then we can see if they are better than ATI currently. True "Quad" SLI would be 4 cards

... the 7950GX2 is just two cores in one card (though technically two cards attached together) using the Same PCI Express 16x slot, so, for Quad SLI, you would need 4 PCI-E slots.

Still though, Crossfire/SLI is still, overkill, and not worth the 5-6% gain*.

* Most of the time.

**Frost, colonel** · October 23, 2006, 12:15 PM

Originally Posted by Shaun

Do you really need a sound card? All good mobos come with built in sound which have a good enough D to A converter and 7:1 surround sound, can you really hear the difference with a sound card?

I was under the impression that a decent dedicated soundcard like the Creative XiFi helped quite nicely with the old FPS.
I mean why worry about the best Ram you can afford, but then let the system down with onboard sound????????

I bought my Creative XiFi OEM for £50(just the soundcard in a plain brown box) and downloaded the drivers(or a mate did because I'm not on the net at home)
I do dislike anything on a decent Rig, which is a weak link!

**Shaun** · October 22, 2006, 06:10 PM

Aristo, quad cores will be of no benefit to gaming untill devs start threading their code. So you might as well get the EX6800 if you can afford it, ir if you cant get the E6600 like me, its inly marginally slower and half the price.
And I cant really advise getting one of the very first DX10 cards, they will be full of bugs, would you fly on the very first plane, or would you wait until they fully tested it? I advise that you get the X1950XTX, I did and got it for a good price, its currently the best consumer card avaliable.

**Peter** · October 22, 2006, 11:47 PM

The G80 from Nvidia is rumoured to do 12k in 3dmark 06 at stock speed thats a good videocard i would wait for it considering it is released pretty soon

**UnderdawgIV** · October 23, 2006, 01:12 AM

Get a Core 2 Duo Set-up.

An e6600 is faster than the FX-62. At stock settings. And then the overclocking possiblities....... 3.6ghz e6600 anyone?

**krazykarl** · October 23, 2006, 01:08 PM

this is why 7 slots in the ATX form factor just arnt enough. Most high end graphics cards have multi slot cooling solutions, with 2 of those there are 4 slots gone right there. then try to cram in a sound card, physics card, NIC (like the Killer) and a RAID controller and presto you are totally over the alloted number of slots. Not to mention that most motherboards put the PCIe X1,X4,X8's right by the X16 slots and now you cant use them because your gfx card takes up 2 slots.