(11-02-2008, 10:51 PM)CopulatingDuck link Wrote: [ -> ][table]
[tr][td]CPU[/td][td]$190[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]nicer CPU[/td][td]$550[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]CPU Cooler[/td][td]$27[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]Thermal Paste[/td][td]$6[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]GPU[/td][td]$420 ($390)[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]RAM[/td][td]$138 ($108)[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]Mobo[/td][td]$215[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]Case[/td][td]$140[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]PSU[/td][td]$240[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]DVD Drive[/td][td]$28[/td][/tr][/table]
190 (550) CPU1 or (CPU2)
027
006
420
138
215
140
240
028
===
1404 (1764)
There's a suggestion. Feel free to ask questions. I didn't recommend any sound cards/monitors/etc because I honestly don't know the first thing about picking decent ones, so feel free to run with whatever. If you want to spend more... Well, honestly I wouldn't know what else to spend all the money on.
First CPU is a bottleneck, and at this point, a bad buy regardless of system (E8500 is same price, cooler, more energy efficient, and runs just about the same. Other, more expensive processors are better. Old chipset is old). The PSU is INCREDIBLE overkill for that system with no second video card, as well as being a randomly picked OCZ model that's not even modular for that price. Case is overpriced for what it is, you can pick up a Centurion 534 for half the price and it's the exact same case. Also, OCZ RAM is not generally worth it. Great stuff, but a LOT of problems with stock mobo settings, and for a novice comp builder, not the best route to choose.
This cart is a good choice for a system with your money limitation in mind. However, I honestly feel that buying a ~1k system is always the best route to go. It's arguable, and based on preference. Think of it this way. If you buy a 1k computer now, smartly, it will run all your games with minimal upgrades for the next 3-6 years easily (maybe 1k more if you upgrade a lot, 500 more if you only do it when necessary). If you buy a more expensive computer, it will last you longer, and you won't need the upgrades that most people would need with a 1k system, but for that reliability you've paid double the price they have in the end. Also, can you depend on every part in your system to last through wear and tear for those 5+ years? It's a computer, and unless you are INCREDIBLY understanding of everything about it, and attentive to care above that of a normal person/gamer, your parts are eventually going to burn out. They might take 5 years, they might last 10, but something is eventually going to break, and possibly take other parts with it, and you've already paid way more than the guy with the cheaper computer did who's still chugging along fine because his comp got upgraded slightly after 3 years.
Even ignoring all that, systems and standards change. Imagine being someone who paid 5000$ for a computer right before PCI-E was standardized. Wouldn't you feel like an ass when you went to upgrade your comp a few years down the road, and instead of dropping a few hundred bucks to get back on the top you're throwing down for a whole new system. Same with the people who started the SLI/crossfire e-peen growing right before the 8 series/DX10. WHOOPS!
Anyways, tl;dr version, he's a gg cart for way too much money. If you want I'll do another cart with a cheaper system that will be just as reliable without the extra few thousand dollars. I assumed you wanted to be able to play Bluray since you had it in your last thread. Hope you're dropping a few thousand on a monitor too or Bluray vs. DVD isn't going to make any difference on your PC. =\
Cooler Master Stacker 830 - Huge case because huge system. Good airflow/etc., not much to explain here other than it's efficient for your system. Make sure not to be rough with the mobo tray, the only real complaint this case gets is mobo grounding problems, and these occur due to a bent mobo tray. Make sure it's not bent on arrival either.
Multi-Fan Power Port - You're going to have a shitton of fans in this case unless you go the water cooling route (and since you're a novice comp builder and water cooling is a huge hassle anyways, you shouldn't and I'm not going to go into wc systems), so this is a power splitter specifically for fans, so that you don't have to buy a crapton of molex splitters.
Acrtic Silver 5 Thermal Compound - Arctic silver, nuff said. Use rubbing alcohol and a q-tip to remove the paste from your CPU cooler if it has any on it when it arrives. Then apply Arctic silver to the CPU carefully and according to the directions on the Arctic Silver site. It's very simple really.
Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 - It's compareable to Zaleman's, no reason to go up 20$ for one. (Not that it matters in your case)
ASUS Striker II Extreme 790i Ultra - Used in most professional overclocking/SLI setups. While it did have some problems, most everything (BIOS/drivers/etc.) has been fixed at this point, the varied ratings are a result of that, pay them no heed. As long as you know what you're doing or get help from someone who does, you're fine. Dual Gigabit LAN, SLI setup, etc. Lots of room for expansion and overclocking, which you damn sure better be doing down the road if you're dropping this much on a system.
Intel Q9650 - The performance increase for a QX9650 is not worth 500$, no matter what your budget. There is almost NO DIFFERENCE. If you INSIST on buying retarded parts, then get a QX9770, but you will see no performance jump until maybe 6 years down the road when they're all outdated by everything out on the market then anyways.
Seagate 7200.11 500GB - Anyone about to suggest Raptors, shut up now. Unless you like your HDDs dying way too early and losing all your data constantly. Also, pick up however many of these you want, or up it to 1TB/etc. Just make sure you throw your boot on a seperate partition than your other media, best way to set up a computer in case there are complications in the future and formatting would cause you to lose ALL your data with one big partition as opposed to a seperate boot partition.
Mushkin DDR3 1600 2x2GB sticks - Great RAM, mushkin is a less heard of pro for what they do. Great timings, and excellent out of the box performance. You may need to tweak your voltage/timings a bit, but that is to be expected from ANY RAM that is this high performance, and better it be with Mushkin that can generally be used out of the box rather than OCZ where you'll more than likely end up RMAing parts 2 or 3 times before finding out it's some incredibly stupid problem that is common of people building with their RAM. Because srsly, OCZ has way too many issues that you have to spend too long figuring out. =\
EVGA GeForce GTX280 1GB (x2) - Hot. Also, SLI them babies. Their performance is supposedly worse in some games with an SLI, but that doesn't really matter since "worse" refers to 150fps vs. 200fps. It's not humanly possible to see a difference, so you know. The reason you'll get the SLI is for the sake of longevity. Also, the SLI performing worse in some situations is due to drivers, not the hardware, so as soon as nVidia gets their ass on fixing it, performance will be higher across the board. Again, stressing the fact that the performance drop will not matter and will be fixed eventually, long before the performance of SLI'd GTX280s matters.
ENERMAX Galaxy 1000W - I am NOT going to spend time going over power supplies and what you want to look into for them. Long story short, YES, it's worth that much if you're intent on putting money into a system. If you do more than glance over and pick a big number for wattages, there are almost as many factors into what makes a good power supply as to what makes a good computer. The number of 12v rails, for instance, is a big thing that many people do not know about. Wiki/google will teach you about power supplies if you're interested in learning. If not, this is a pro power supply and will be fine for this system and any possible upgrades, including triple SLI/etc.
LG 6x Blu-ray Drive - Blu-ray player/DVD/CD burner. I think it might also burn Blu-ray, not really sure, I didn't bother to read, I just picked what I could find that would read Blu-ray as well as burn DVDs/DL DVDs. There are very few out now that do all of it apparently.
Omega Striker 7.1 Sound Card - As per most hyped things, the X-Fi are not as good as they're made out to be. Granted, they're great, and most other cards, including this one, perform about the same. However, the X-Fi cards are notorious for having a bloatware feeling to their drivers/etc., and the Omegas fix that. Also, this card is like 10-30$ cheaper than the X-Fi cards.
Grand Total: $3,242.05 shipped
That is the best system I could build without just getting stupid. Anything more than this and your system is going to perform almost exactly the same and you're just throwing money away, literally. If you'd like a cheaper build, let me know and I'll put something together. Any questions feel free to ask.