AMD vs Intel

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That's a great system, at a good price. I have one of the higher end Gigabyte mainboards and the onboard audio is OK, but nothing special (I think it's Realtek). I'm still considering adding an SB Audigy 4 SC (about $70.00). I have an old SB Live X-Gamer, and while it sounds different than the Realtek, I don't think it is that much better than the Realtek (more high end, but higher distortion, at least to my ears), so I left it out when I rebuilt my rig. But I'm really looking for a better sound solution; one that would be compatible with newer and older games, but doesn't cost a whole lot.

 

Sounds great to me, good price too. Unlike Chandos I wouldn't bother with a dedicated sound card. I have always been fine with onboard and if it hasn't bothered you thus far, then you probably wouldn't notice too much of a difference anyway.

 

I think you be better off going with the AMD and just getting a better video card. The 7300 basically runs the same as the 6200....and same goes for whichever ATI cards are equal to those two. Their main cards(x1800, 78-900) are the better way to go because those are generally the only ones as fast as advertised.a friend of mine has a 7300 and tbh my dads 6800GT runs better.

@ chandos
For soudncards look into the Creative Xi-Fi series. Don't know if you want it for music or for games but my cousin has one and it's amazing. Kind of expensive but still an option. Kind of hoping thats my main christmas present this year

@Ballrock
You might want to upgrade your power supply if you plan on eventually using SLI. 450 will do it but it will be really hot. you can get a 550-600 watt for and extra $30-40

 

Thanks for all the replies, I am still in the hunt, and I am listening to all the advice. Haven't decided on weather or not to go SLI yet, I may just opt for one good card. I will have to look into power supplys.

 

Basically Sli isn't really worth it with cheaper cards - a single higher performance card will out do it and probably be cheaper. Using two high end cards will give you a huge increase performance, but this will be essentially esoteric with todays games (as your eye won't be able to see any difference between 40 and 80 frames). Also given the rapid increase in graphic card technology it would probably end up running slower than a single similarly priced card 18 months later. Hence buying one card now and replacing it 18 months down the track (when you can no longer run all games at the highest settings) would probably be better. The final option is the one I have already mentioned whereby you get one good card now and a sli mobo. Then when you need the performance boost, say 18 months later you can buy anther card at a much cheaper price. The failing in this at the moment is the introduction of directX 10. The only cards to support this at the moment are the 8800GTS and GTX and by the time you want to get that second card and run in sli it may be that you really want to be playing directX 10 games (like Crysis).

Other down sides of Sli (in addition to the cost of the cards themselves):
-requires a more expensive mother board
-requires a more powerful power supply
-produces more heat in your case, hence you may need to invest more into cooling

Because of this and the 8800 I would suggest not going with sli at the moment and instead think about getting a directX 10 card in perhaps 18 months time.

Also how urgent is the computer - after reading reviews of the 8800GTS and GTX I would perhaps advise you to hold off until say the 8600 is released. The 8800GTS beat the dual core 7950GX2 (almost as fast as two 7950's in sli) in all tests despite costing only 3/4 of the price. The margin wasn't that spectacular in the synthetic benchmarks (3Dmark05 and 06) but it positively thumped it in Half Life Lost Coast (getting almost double the number of frames) and Company of Heroes (tripling the average number of frames per second). Given this I'm expecting big things from the mid-range cards.

 

Make sure you buy a trusted brand, like Antec or Enermax, and don't be fooled by wattage. A cheap 500 W PSU actually will dish out probably just as much as a 350W Antec would. Antec PSUs also have two fans, and the second fan kicks in when it gets too hot in there, so it's a relatively quiet PSU. Antec also make excellent and very quiet cases. In fact, my X2 is an Antec Sonate case, and it runs so quiet I practically don't hear it at all.

 

Next questions for the brain crew. Seeing how I have a set budget in mind, I am wondering where to spend the most money. Should I go all out on the CPU, and just good on ;the graphics, or should I go just good on the CPU, and max out the graphics card. Or should I take middle of the road with both?

 

Ordinarily I would say the graphics card, but with the success of the Core2 Duo and the powerrices we're currently getting I would probably go for a slightly more expensive cpu. This will all probably change with the next generation of graphics cards - as I said in my last post, the 8800 is awesome and is likely to result in a drop in current prices as well as a killer range of mid-priced cards.
What you posted before sounded pretty damn near perfect for the price right now. The only issue I have is directX 10. There are currently no games that use it and there isn't likely to be for a while, but when they do you might just want to be playing them.
Again how important is it that you get the comp now as opposed to say a couple of months (after ATI and nVIDIA release their mid range directX ten cards)?

 

This is the system I am saving my money for:

Case: Raidmax Smilodon (Way cool case IMO)
Power Supply: Ultra 700 watt XVS
CPU: AMD Athlon 64X2 4600
Freebie: Age of Empires III
Cooling: Heatsink w/ fan and 2 extra case fans
MB: Gigabyte GA 555sli w/ (AM2) socket
RAM: Corsair XM52 Xtreme with heatspreader 2 GB
Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce 7900 GT 256MB
HD: 160 GB 7200 Rpm
DVD r/rw and also a DVD rom
7.1 onboard sound
Professional wiring throughout
Win XP home

Gand total 1242.00 plus tax.

I think I'll like it!

 

Looks good, Brall. The X2 will have power aplenty to deal with your tasks, and at a reasonable price.

The only thing I would switch is the power supply... the power loss caused by a cheap PSU means that your PSU will dish just as much current as a more high-end one would.

Basically, power losses will be much less significant with a higher-end power supply.

I'd swap the one in your kit for either an Antec or Enermax.

 

Wow 2GB of RAM. Does having that much RAM make much difference to anything?

 

I wanted a large power supply so I can do the SLI thing down the road, and so it has good upgradeability. I will also be adding my current 80 Gig HD as a slave drive.

As for the RAM, all the reading I did pointed that 2 Gig was the way to go.

@DoTW, I have no memory, and thought that Ultra was one of the power supplies that you had mentioned. I did some research and Enermax seems the way to go, and I went with a 535 Watt. Lowers the price to $1227.00. My plan is to buy something that will be upgradeable, but wont need to be for a while.

 

535 W should be more than enough to handle SLI.

Here is an online tool that can tell you how much wattage your comp is pumping out:

Link

 

Allright, my tax refund is due back shortly so I am really getting down to business. I think this build sounds pretty awesome, except the video card, which I will wait to spend my money on a new DirectX 10 capable card when it gets here.

Case: RaidMax Smilodon Med-Tower 420W Case w/ Side-Panel Window
CPU: (Sckt775)Intel® Core™ 2 Duo E6600 CPU @ 2.4GHz 1066FSB 2x2MB L2 Cache EM64T
Mainboard: (Quad-Core Supports) MSI P6N SLI-FI nForce 650i SLI Chipset LGA775 FSB1333 DDR2 Mainboard
Memory: (Req.DDR2 MainBoard)2GB (2x1GB) PC6400 DDR2/800 Dual Channel Memory (Corsair XMS2 Xtreme Memory w/ Heat Spreader)
Video Card: NEW !!! NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GS 256MB PCI Express x16 Video Card
Video Card 2: NONE
LCD Monitor: NONE
HARD DRIVE: Single Hard Drive (80GB SATA-II 3.0Gb/s 8MB Cache 7200RPM HDD)
Data Hard Drive: NONE
Optical Drive: (Special Price) 18X DVD±R/±RW + CD-R/RW DRIVE DUAL LAYER (BLACK COLOR)
Optical Drive 2: NONE
Sound: 3D WAVE ON-BOARD 5.1 SOUND CARD
Price: $1100.00


So what do you all think? Mind you I'll be upgrading from a P4 1.6, 1 gig PC2100 Ram, and a Geforce 5700 LE 128 MB GPU that is crippled by my 4x Motherboard.

 

Get a bigger HD, with only a few bucks more you will get a 250 GB.

 

I agree - 80GB is not enough for gaming. 250GB would be much better but even 120GB HD would probably be just a couple of dollars more and yield a 50 percent gain in real estate.

 

Help me with my ignorance, if I only half fill my current 80 gig HD, how will having a bigger HD help me? Does the extra space make things run better? I thought that if you didn't fill your HD, it wouldn't slow down. Keep in mind that I will be putting my current 80 gig HD in as a slave drive, if it makes any difference.