Hi, remember me? It's your friendly neighbourhood kyle90.

Anyways I'm sick of this piece of crap computer and I want to build a new one.

I have a case, monitor, PSU, hard drives, etc. so I'm just looking for the essentials: motherboard, processor, RAM, video card. Budget is probably around $1500 or so. Considerations: I like gaming, and watching HD movies, so a good graphics card is a must. I'd like to have lots of SATA connectors on the motherboard. As far as cost goes, I'd rather spend a bit more on components that will be upgradeable in the future rather than save money buying things that I'll be stuck with (I made this mistake last time I bought a computer; got a motherboard with AGP instead of the then-new PCI-E).

Some questions:

dual-core or quad?
SLI or no?
how much RAM?
which OS?

Anyways it would be nice if I could get at least a preliminary list of parts and prices so I can start figuring out how I'm going to pay for all this, haha.

Oh, another thing that I didn't mention is that if there's some reason to wait say a couple of months before buying, like if there's something new coming out, or a price is going to drop substantially, then I would probably prefer to wait.

Quad core.
SLI.
8GB RAM.
64-bit Vista ultimate.

$1500 is a lot...you could save a ton of money if you wanted to - it's entirely up to you. My E2180 @ 3Ghz / 4Gb / 9600GT runs everything I need, and it was fairly inexpensive. If you want to drop $1500, you can have a killer machine...but here's a few parts to consider.

Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 ST3500630AS 500GB Serial ATA 7200RPM Hard Drive w/16MB Buffer - $69.99 + shipping (32mb cache available for $15 more)

If you want to overclock, consider the E7200. However, with your budget, you might as well go for a high-end quad...easily afforded with your price range.

4GB GSkill DDR2-1000 - $89.99 or 4Gb Mushkin Redline DDR2-1000 - $79.99 after rebate / after coupon EMCAFACAC

IRG - why burn money on Vista Ultimate?

Quad, if you plan on serious gaming, dual if its just a home pc
SLi if you plan on extreme gaming
3 gigs with a 32 bit OS, as much as you can possibly get with a 64
Vista ultimate, it comes with 32 and 64 versions.

Absolutely no reason to buy 3Gb of RAM with the budget he has. At least run 2x2Gb.

Well yes, but a 32 bit os has that retarded limit, i thought it was around 3.5 gigs total ram (Video card and system)? I also stated that if you do go 64 bit then get as much as you can.

What would it take to run Crysis at 1920*1200 with all settings to max and maintaining >30 fps? Let's make that the baseline.

Also, watching 1080p movies fullscreen without having to worry about shutting off other processes or messing with the priority in the task manager.

I suppose I wouldn't be averse to having good video editing capabilities as well, but that's secondary (and would probably be implicit in the first 2 conditions anyways).

Crysis at HD with all max?
Maybe like, 4 9800 GX2s, 8 gigs of ram, and a q9600.

(32bit) Windows will recognize 3.25Gb. That doesn't mean you can only install 3Gb. With 4Gb kits well under $100, I can't figure out why you'd want to stuff a 1Gb DIMM (or 2x512) in there.

Windows can use 4GB - n where n is video memory and probably some other stuff related to PCI devices. Other people have gotten 3.5 GB and other values, because you only get 32-bits for addressing all memory.

So i was mostly right.

Your computer right now must be fairly poor if you can't already do that. My C2D E4300 can do this just fine. My Athlon XP 3000+ could do it, sort of, some times.

Yes it is, hence wanting to replace it

My 4800+ and old x1950 pro could do that. My new 8800 GT can also do that.

Dude, get a dell.

But seriously, I'd wait for the 9800GT (or whatever the equivalent may be) to drop before getting a video card and do an SLI setup with them--dual SLI is doing really well right now (they've done wonders with the drivers). If you're not willing to wait, the 9800GTX isn't a bad card at all. I'd also say go quad-core, 4gb of RAM, but get some decent performance RAM. That way, in the future, you can overclock when you find your computer doesn't meet the needs you're looking for.

Also, there's a review for a new silent cooler coming out on [h], it seems pretty dank. Check it out.

Good luck

DELL??

Hahahahahahahaha

Anyway, give me your old computer kyle. i need something good,

if(getThingFlags(source) & 0x8){
  do her}
elseif(getThingFlags(source) & 0x4){
  do other babe}
else{
  do a dude}

I think ATI's next gen comes out in a week or two, but i could be totally wrong. If it is, it's probably worth a wait.

I doubt it, but we'll see. ATI's been disappointing lately.

No
No
No
No

Get a dual core, not a quad core. The E8x00 series is faster in nearly every application than the quad cores, because of the higher clock speed. There just isn't enough software that is built for 3+ cores, especially games.

SLI is still a waste of cash. It's a much better idea to save the money, buy one really fast card, and later on buy a replacement. You'll save money in the long run, you'll still have plenty enough performance for any gaming, and you won't have to deal with the bugs of SLI, which contrary to Yoshi's statement is still enough to be annoying. It's not nearly as bad as it used to be, but there are still many games that break SLI, or issues with monitor setups, and more.

2GB is good enough for the most part, but if you want, go ahead and get 4GB.

32-bit vs 64-bit is an issue. 64-bit is doing pretty well now as far as new hardware, but a lot of older hardware simply won't work. Also, you have to deal with the inability to run any unsigned drivers, which is incredibly annoying (basically eliminates beta drivers).

Definately do not waste cash on Ultimate though unless you absolutely must have everything that Business and Home Premium offer together. Home Premium is perfect for just about any situation.

I hear you can only password protect folders in Ultimate.

But he's looking to future proof this setup, is the thing. While it may not be feasible any time soon, I'd say it's a decent idea to go quad core.

[quote=Cool Matty]SLI is still a waste of cash. It's a much better idea to save the money, buy one really fast card, and later on buy a replacement. You'll save money in the long run, you'll still have plenty enough performance for any gaming, and you won't have to deal with the bugs of SLI, which contrary to Yoshi's statement is still enough to be annoying. It's not nearly as bad as it used to be, but there are still many games that break SLI, or issues with monitor setups, and more.[/quote]
He has enough cash to blow on SLI is the thing, and considering he wants to future proof, why not. Also, there are bugs, but SLI support's getting better all the time, and Vista drivers are getting better at an almost exponential rate. They're able to pump Crysis up to almost max on a 3x SLI setup, which is actually pretty impressive. There are still bugs but it's just not a bad idea to future proof your **** if you're not looking to drop more money in the next year or two.

[quote=Cool Matty]2GB is good enough for the most part, but if you want, go ahead and get 4GB.[/quote]
Future Proofing. I'd almost say get 8GB but RAM's cheap enough that it shouldn't matter.

The quad cores are arguably more future proof, since applications, especially games, will start to become more multithreaded, starting this year, maybe even 2007 games have it to a certain extent. I know Alan Wake's developers have said it probably won't run on less than 2 cores and will take full advantage of 4 cores.

Not only that, but multitasking. You may think 2 cores is enough for multitasking, but I'm willing to bet kyle90 can throw enough at his system that it'll start to matter. Kyle also mentioned video editing, and I'm pretty sure any video editing software worth its salt will multithread heavy tasks like rendering.

I'm still recommending dual cores, even if you consider "future proofing". I don't consider 1 or 2 applications of 3+ core support to be a real necessity, and seeing the massive benefits of dual core over quad in every other case, you'd almost be current-limiting yourself for the "future proofing".

Also, just because you have a large budget doesn't mean SLI is a good idea. It's more or less throwing money away, the performance benefit doesn't warrant the major cash needed. In almost every case in the history of SLI, using one really fast card always outpaced 2 previous-generation cards in SLI. This is why I say it's smarter to go without.

And while it may seem like a good idea to get quad for video editing, that all depends on what kind of editing he is doing.

In closing, even Anandtech still recommends dual core processors for gaming systems.

What about multitasking?

Currently. A lot of games are going multi-core usage (SupCom being the ideal example here, Starcraft's going support multi-core, source, crysis, etc etc. Lots of games are getting into multithreaded apps). While you might limit yourself minorly now, to be honest it'll be more than fast enough stock to do pretty much anything you want gaming-wise, and with a bit of overclocking you should be fine.

Basically, I think you're stuck in the 2005-6 mindset. SLI has come a long way since it's inception, and I've heard a lot of really good things about it in the last few months.

Also, SLI isn't THAT bad of an option with video cards at the prices they are now. Dual 9600GT's is a great solution and costs about as much as a 9800GTX while outperforming it. You might get some bugs but those can and will be worked out in time.

Well we're on the topic of quad cores,
Intel quads vs AMD quads.

AMD is worthless right now.

Really? Why?

Supreme Commander isn't a great example, nor is Crysis:
http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=3293&p=8

I'm not stuck in a 2006 mindset, I'm stuck in a "this is how it's been since ever" mindset.

Thats what all proponents against the civil rights movement used as a basis for all their arguments.

(I couldn't resist dude, sorry)

... I'm not even going to comment on how little that applied to what I said.

This is how it's been forever?

Come onnnn. It isn't even that much of a stretch!

Yes, because the Q6600 is obviously the best that intel has to offer right now. That review is OBVIOUSLY not dated, and not pitting one of the first quad core processors (which was admittedly rather lame for all intents and purposes) against the rather more capable iterations of the C2D's.

Oh, wait...

Also, it manages to keep up even with a MUCH lower clock speed rather well in SupCom and Crysis (2.4ghz as opposed to 3.0), and obviously clock speeds have gone up quite a bit and overclocking is always an option (albeit you do want to try to get the best stock deal you can). I'm just saying it's a more intelligent idea now to get the quad core, because the differences in performance aren't that great, and the price is right, so that you're going to end up getting more out of it in the long run if things continue as they have been with multithreading becoming a more popular trend.

Finally, interestingly enough, UE3 (one of the premier engines out right now) seems to perform best on the Q6600.

Huh.

Since when is a 2 week old review dated? And let's not forget the price difference. If you want to go all out with the "best", then look at the e8500, which is even faster than the listed dual core CPU.

And I hardly believe 10fps difference to be "keeping up" when the difference is between a smooth 60fps or not. Oh, and not to mention that the dual cores overclock better and easier, they're cheaper, and quad core isn't exactly necessary for multi-tasking. Anandtech even details how the performance improvement from 1, to 2, to higher cores drops exponentially.

Since they didn't offer the best out there and instead went for the low-end version of the quad-core series?

And 50 is smooth enough for me, with a higher clock speed you'll hit 60 easily I'm sure (as it goes up to 2.66 and the quads are notably more efficient on Crysis and Supcom, not to mention you completely ignored my comment about UE3 and how UE's been one of the most licensed engines ever, both the first and second iterations), and you're looking for, wait for it, FUTURE PROOFING.

Games are obviously going multi-core, it's stupid to buy a dual core now and hope it keeps up later. If he wasn't looking for future proofing, matty, I'd 100% agree, a quad core would be a waste. But, with his funds and what he's looking for it makes sense.

Read my edit.

The problem with your reasoning is that you're not taking into account the fact that kyle90 is not an average computer user. He could probably use four cores for heavy multitasking, video editing, or some other fiendish thing.

Kyle90's porn is likely so hardcore it needs to run on it's own core.

Actually I wouldn't doubt he has an extensive 1080p collection :p

I did take that into account, about 4 posts ago. It all depends on what kind of video editing he is doing, and based on the kind of PC he had before, I don't think it's the kind of editing that would benefit from multi-core.