First-Person Shouter

Look at this list. Even if its origin is an odd site, in my opinion it’s really good: http://img4.myimg.de/pcguide50ce8.png

According to it your choices are ok.

For the price you’d be much better served by a Radeon 5850

And um, ignore the “AND NOW GET THE FUCK OUT”-part.

ATI’s new 5870 is actually as good or better than the 4870×2, while being a little cheaper.

http://hothardware.com/Articles/AMD-ATI-Radeon-HD-5870-Unquestionably-Number-One/?page=14
More often than not, the single-GPU powered Radeon HD 5870 is faster than the Radeon HD 4870 X2, depending on the game engine and resolution; 3DMark Vantage, ET:QW and Left 4 Dead ran better on the 5870, while the cards split victories in FarCry 2, and the 4870 X2 finished out in front in H.A.W.X. and Crysis. The GeForce GTX 295, however, was a bit faster than the Radeon HD 5870 overall. The performance deltas weren’t very large though, the Radeon consumed far less power, and it isn’t plagued by the issues sometimes associated with multi-GPU solutions.

It’s a waste of money to go with the 4800 series GPUs now that the 5800s are out because they’ll be obsolete the minute you hit “Submit Order”. Games are going to be made in DX11 and only the 58xx GPUs are DX11 ready. While the 5870’s horrifically overpriced, the 5850 is less so, and yours for $270 (which I am also against, but purchased anyway).

Hard drive wise, it’s silly to get anything less than a 500gb drive with the prices the way they are. You can get a fucking terabyte drive for $90. Personally, I went with a 750gb Seagate for $70. You can go multiple on those if you really like although that’s a fuckton of space for me.

Memory wise, I went with 8gb only because I’m going with a 64bit operating system which can recognize it. DDR2 is balls cheap and I bought 8 gigs (2 sets of Corsair XMS2 2×2GB kits) for $150, which is still a bit much when there are 4×2GB kits out there for $100. I’m not sure what latency they’re at though, but the Corsairs are at 4-4-4-12 which is superb.

I’m sure the CPU’s fine, however I went AMD and actually stuck with a dual core design, the new Athlon II X2 250 @ 3.0GHz. If you read reviews, it actually holds its own quite well even against the Phenoms with their L3 cache. Quite cheap as well.

Last thing, if you’re planning to Crossfire two high performance GPUs, make sure you get a beefy power supply. Something along the lines of 600+ watts. The newer cards (4870 likely included) take two PCI-E plugs EACH, so you’ll need a PSU that has 4 PCI-E plugs. Far from every one out there does. I just bought Corsair’s 750TX which goes for $120 on Newegg with a $20 rebate, as well. Not cheap, but not expensive, either.

Cruddy I’m afraid!

Start looking at something like:
CPU- Intel i7 920
Memory- 6Gb
GPU- ATI 5870
HDD- 1Tb Samsung F3 + SSD boot drive
Sound Card- Asus xonar anything

Ok, so it’s not that crummy - but Core 2 duo/quad processors are being replaced now so aren’t something to be buying into.

The ATI 5870 gives about the same performance as 2 ATI 4870’s but with only the power usage and noise of a single ATI 4870.

For the hard drives, I think a single 1Tb Samsung F3 drive wouldn’t be noticeably different in performance to RAID’d drives - but it’d be cheaper and cause a lot less headaches. Getting a SSD boot drive would make for a real quick computer, but it’d cost a lot.

Processor:go quad (or better yet, I5/I7) if you can splurge a little.
Memory:you’re set if you’ve got XP, but if you’re getting Vista, hold off on turning quality up until you upgrade to Win7.
GFX: Wait until christmas to upgrade on this. ATI just announced their new cards, and Nvidia should soon as well. And new cards = price cuts on old cards.
HD:IMO, RAID = suck. You shouldn’t need that much room anyways unless you put EVERYTHING on there. Or, of course, if you’ve already started Concerned 2…
Sound Card: Good if you want it, but only if you’re actually gonna use surround sound.

P.S. im amazed just how many people have posted in ten minutes -_-…

A i5 is better for a little more money: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115215

Check iBuypower.com
That’s where I plan to get my new gaming rig and it’s gonna cost a good bit less than $600. So yeah. Oh yeah, it also allows you to customize it, which is, in my eyes, a good deal.

All things considered, that’s still a mighty impressive setup by normal standards. I doubt you’d have any kind of trouble running new or recent games with those parts.

Still, it doesn’t hurt to shop around for a better deal.

Also, don’t forget about the cost of a motherboard. That can easily eat up a large chunk of cash if you want it to support the fancy new CPUs, have Crossfire support, etc. I’m not aware of any i7/i5 boards that are DDR2 compatible, so I’d probably rule that out and just stick with the older CPUs. DDR3’s a ridiculous waste of money for performance that is negligible AT BEST.

And browse eBay. You can find ridiculous deals out there. Case in point: I found an ASUS M2R32-MVP, a Crossfire AMD board that retailed for ~$150 (now $300 on Amazon for whatever reason), for $40 stupid bucks on eBay.

Better than mine and I’m able to run all the new games.

Maybe you just need a fresh install of windows?

It’d be an excellent rig if you already owned it, but there’s no point in buying it new now.

yeah, I don’t like the raid 0 option. It’s a minimal performance boost in most circumstances, and it compounds your chance of HD failure. if you want the extra retrieval speed, splurge on a small SSD for your OS and whatever you are currently obsessed with, then use standard drives for storage (RAID 1 if you are paranoid like me).

Instead of the quad core, get an i7 quad core, they are better!

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115214

(Zomg they can run Crysis at max settings! And you said your next computer wouldn’t be able to)

But ya, I would say just change the CPU to an i7 of some kind, and you would be fit for a few years.

As mentioned here, the setup you gave will make a great gaming rig, but you’ll get better value if you grab a HD5870 and an i5 processor (with corresponding motherboard).

Note that Crossfire needs game support in order to work correctly, so a single card is always more stable.

An HD5870 is quite a big card (physically) so be sure to have a big tower case.

And RAID is a waste of money.

I second the “reinstall windows” comment. If it works, great, if not THEN look at upgrading.

RAID 0; Not a good idea. Splurg a bit for 2 larger HDs, then set em up in RAID 1. It’ll still give you a good speed boost, without the soulcrushing pain that accompanies RAID 0 failure. I can attest to RAID 1 saving my arse on at least 1 occasion.

That’s actually… about like my computer, and I can run almost everything in nearly full settings with decent frame rate. I, therefore, cannot complain about your system.

CPU: Q9400 @ 2.66Ghz.
GPU: EVGA GTX 260 Core 216, 896MB.
RAM: 4GB DDR2 1066Mhz.
HDD: 500GB Western Digital Blue Caviar 7200 RPM.

… it does more than what I need it to. And: Batman: Arkham Asylum on max settings.

EDIT: I’m going to fix an error: “I, therefore, judge that system to be pretty good”.

There really isn’t any reason to get a dedicated sound card if your motherboard has on-board sound.

I would also go core i7. Four cores, triple channel memory, &c.

If Crossfire’s anything like nVidia’s SLI, avoid it like the plague. Causes so many compatibility problems, and ultimately it’s a lot more noise and heat with less up-to-date chipsets.

Chris, Getting a 5850 or a 5870 like mentioned is better than getting two 4870s, cheaper, and doesn’t need a big power supply. I would not reccomend getting an i5 processor like some people said BECAUSE most of the p55 boards “cheat” on their PCIE lanes, and if you, in the future, want to buy a second video card, the cards will be crippled by slow performace. i7 or Phenom is the way to go.

Buying those hard drives for raid zero is a waste of money. Get 3 or four 1 terabyte drives in raid five instead.

What resolution do you play at? If it is 1920×1080 or 2560×1600, then you want the 5870. If it is 1680×1050 or lower, you will do well enough with the 5850.

I’m going to echo the concerns about Crossfire. I’ve stuck with one giant bastard card and it’s treated me VERY well. Additionally, I’d bump up the HDD size and lose the RAID. Additionally, you’re not gonna notice a huge difference with a dedicated sound card, and you can save a ton of money by going with an onboard.

You thought about overclocking? I bought my parts taking into consideration how much overhead I had in overclocking. There are a bunch of resources for that kinda stuff (plus more helpful commenters like us!).

I agree with the “reinstall Windows” comments. Your setup is better than mine, and I’m able to run everything that isn’t ZOMG GRAFFIKS. i.e. The stuff that’s fun. Arkham Asylum ran on max settings on mine, with a 2.5GHZ Core 2 DUO and a GeForce 9800. Your computer is probably just bogged down. Windows just does that.

Go for a core i7 build.
I would recommend:
Case: any, lots of good choices
AsRock Extreme X58: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157163
Core i7 920: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115202
OCZ Gold 6GB: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227365
500GB HDD: any, lots of good choices
HT STRIKE OMEGA: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16829271001&Tpk=HT%20STRIKER
2x GTX 260s: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130434 (or your choice of the equivalent radeon cards)

you could save some money by going with a dual core instead of quad. Most games don’t take that much advantage of quad cores vs dual cores. I have a single 4870 512MB, and it’s good enough to run any game out today, crysis, whatever. Crossfire doesn’t give much useful performance boost and you’re paying the energy bill for that extra 200W card. Speaking of which, remember to buy a good power supply.

Also if you feel confident you could try overclocking an old e8400 or e8500 dual core. That also’s great performance per $

I’d say go with the i7 920. It’s fairly cheap and plenty powerful. And to be safe, get the Intel mobo to go with it. Most i7 non-Intel boards use double channel RAM, but the i7 is configured to work with triple channel RAM, so you will get the best performance from the Intel board.

Also, the i7 FSB speed is 1066, so there’s no need to get faster RAM, and DDR3 RAM at that speed is surprisingly cheap. even for 2GB sticks.

Processor:

Mobo:

RAM:

This is, of course only if you’re planning on kicking some serious ass. I did see a PC offered from Newegg that ran an i7 and the entire thing was only $1,000, but i don’t have the link for it.

Ugg.. screwed up the html tags. I’m used to xhtml 1.0 strict.

IT
_
IS
_
GOOD

:)

Quick thoughts:

You didn’t post a budget so I’m not sure how much you’re willing to spend. I decided to go with a “Sweet spot” build and try to balance price and power.

CPU: The Core 2 series is being phased out so I think you should go with an i5 instead.

You’ll need new a motherboard and memory to go with it and I recommend this motherboard and 4GB of DDR3 RAM rated at 1333.

IT IS VERY VERY VERY VERY VERY IMPORTANT THAT THE RAM REQUIRES 1.65 VOLTS OR LESS. DO NOT GO ABOVE THAT.

GPU: This is what I recommend, wait until Nvidia releases their GeForce 300 series. ATI just released their Radeon 5000 series which from the testing I’ve seen consumes less power and makes less heat compared to the current crop of GeForce cards. I think it would be prudent to see how the next generation of GeForce cards fare before you commit. (I think they’re supposed to be released around December. Can you wait that long?)

Also, don’t go the Crossfire/SLI route. Twice the cards doesn’t give you twice the power. (It won’t even give you 1.5 times the power)

HDD: RAID 0 is a horrible idea. The speed gains aren’t really noticeable. Here’s a 500GB hard drive but I think you should jump up to a larger size. All hard drives have to fit a set size so the trick in making higher capacity drives is to find a way to fit more data into a smaller space. More densely packed data=less movement of the reading head=faster loading times.

Sound Card: If all you do regarding sound is play computer games then the sound controller built into the motherboard will be enough. Only go for a sound card if you do audio editing work or you have an amazing speaker setup.

For a new one I’d say go with 4 cores, 8 gigs of ram, and at least a a terrabyte (roughly 1000 gigs) hard drive, but maybe I’m just exaggerating over it.
I’m drooling at the specs as is anyway.

i think its fine
Could be better, specifically the graphics card and processor.
That is, of course, if you have the moneys.
If i were to upgrade i would go with basically what you have, since I do not have the moneys.
Well, with the exception of the graphics card CAUSE I HAVE A OVERCLOCKED NVIDIA GTX 260
AHAHAHHAHHHHAHAHAHAHAA

AHAHAHHAH
HAA
AHA
…
thats good right?

ALSO, DDR 3 RAM WOULDNT HURT

BUT AGAIN, THE MONEYS

LOL CAPS

RAID just means you’re twice as likely to lose everything when they fail.
Those specs are a decent balance of price/performance. I would get 1×4850 and replace it with a new 5xxx when they get reasonable in price in six months time.

“Also, don’t go the Crossfire/SLI route. Twice the cards doesn’t give you twice the power. (It won’t even give you 1.5 times the power)”

Both true and false depending. Crossfire makes a difference at higher resolutions (1900x and up). Obviously, Crossfire doesn’t mean shit if you can run Crysis at 200fps at 1024x.

http://www.guru3d.com/article/radeon-hd-5850-review-crossfire/14

@Alex
“IT IS VERY VERY VERY VERY VERY IMPORTANT THAT THE RAM REQUIRES 1.65 VOLTS OR LESS. DO NOT GO ABOVE THAT.”
Wrong. Its only important that the RAM is within .5V of the uncore domain (since the memory controller is on the processor now). This is important to know in case you plan to overclock.
Also, why wait for Nvidia’s 300 series? They haven’t even presented a working chip yet and their first silicon yields were less than 2%. On top of that, their Fermi boards were faked: http://www.semiaccurate.com/2009/10/01/nvidia-fakes-fermi-boards-gtc/ I can understand waiting for something incredible that’s on the verge of release, but seriously? Yes, Fermi will be fast, but its not worth waiting on this early. They won’t be out in December. Trust me.
The performance boost you get for SLI/crossfire depends on what game you’re playing. Sometimes it scales well, sometimes it doesn’t.
And the rest that you said was pretty much der der der.

@Sexlexia
Uh, your GTX260, overclocked or not, is no match for a pair of 4870s. Sorry buddy :(.

@Alexander
The specs you listed aren’t really very meaningful. He won’t need 8GB of ram. That’s approaching workstation levels. 4 cores? There are lots of processors with quad cores and they all perform very differently. And what will he need 1k GB of HDD space for? Unless he’s got a loott of games and movies.

It would help if we knew how much you were willing to spend, Chris :).

I have found http://www.pcper.com/hwlb.php to be a good choice.

Well, read the discussion through and should you (Chris) go with whatever MIKE says, you’ll be doing yourself a favour. He really knows what he’s talking about.

Except that, when you do have the money, buy atleast a Phenom II X3 720, not an Athlon II - I have one (X3) and it’s capable of providing quite a performance for my GPU. The one more CPU core doesn’t make that much difference game-performance-wise.

I also second all the Crossfire/SLI disprovings mentioned above. The only reason to buy 2 cards is when you can not get a similar performance from 1 card - that is not case, since we have the Radeon 5870.

Also BLAH has a point with (among other things) the new NV card. I -seriously- doubt it will be available and plentiful around December.

“The one more CPU core doesn’t make that much difference game-performance-wise.” … when comparing a triple-core to a quad-core of course.
The difference between dual and triple core is often getting very noticable.

Probably be a better idea to go with a Phenom II or Core i7, depending on your budget, the integrated memory controller helps make the system feel more responsive. Would also probably be a better idea to go with a 5000 series card, multi-card solutions tend to be very unstable, and are only really worth it if you’re looking for high benchmark scores. RAID 0 can help with hard-drive speed, but it can be a pain to setup, and either way you should probably try to go with larger drives. I would recommend a ASUS xonar d1 or dx over the X-fi, save a bit of money and just as good quality, and they also have very nice surround sound emulation over headphones. Also worth considering is the case, as some have better cooling and more room for setting everything up. Also, don’t forget to make sure you have a big enough power supply to handle all of it.

@The Kiw, it really depends on the type of games. FPS I Think are less core intensive. RTS though, like Supreme Commander are multicore hogs.

Honestly, I personally think last generation stuff is great value for money. I would never buy the brand new latest and greatest since it’s always extremely overpriced.

A velociraptor drive doesn’t hurt much. You’ll notice shorter load times a lot more than 100 vs 90 fps.

Also consider your monitor resolution, Crossfire/SLI, while a waste of power and money does help with more when your resolution is high.

You know you should buy the most expensive stuff that is available on the market atm. Maybe adding a budget to your project?

http://games.on.net/forums/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=129047

Is a good place to start, of course you can subtract 50% from the prices being in America and all. Also looks like you’re going for uber computer and not so much value.

Yes.

1. The processor is great! It will last for a long time if im not mistaking :). But I don’t know if AMD athlon won’t be cheaper. AMDs are, however, worse than intel processors, but as I said, they should be cheaper and have almost the same parameters.
2. 4GB are good, although in like 1, 2 or 3 years, 4GB won’t be enough
3. I don’t know much about athlon graphic cards, but 1GB is great :)
4. If you aren’t downloading any FULLHD porn, 500GB should be enough
5. Any X-Fi sound card is like a diamond in sound cards. And Titanium sounds promising :)
6. Try to find a computer without windows vista in it. It eats you 1GB of RAM, so system requierments are usually 1GB higher for vista
7. Don’t buy laptop. They are way more expensive.
8.A nice thing in computer is memory card reader. It’s not very important, but if you lost USB cable from your camera, you just need to eject SD card, and put it in your computer. It really comes in handy sometimes.
9. Always buy a computer with opportunity to upgrade. If you have 4GB of RAM inside, it should be at least 8GB RAM upgradable. Also there should be slots for DVD/CD/BLU-RAY readers.
10. USB in front of computer ;)

@cixelsyD, yeah your completely right. It’s just that in my opinion, the performance difference between a triple and a dual-core is really worth the money. But I can’t really say the same about triple versus quad-cores.
Of course, should Chris have enough money, then to hell with price/perf ratio and hooray for a quad-core!

@Axinkiewicz, sorry, you’re so out of the picture in some aspects :)
AMD isn’t “worse than Intel”, a PC without Vista is not really a great idea, as DX10 and DX11 is be unavailable for XP. And since Chris is propably going for 4GB+, some 1GB of used memory will not really be much of problem :)
Also you judge a graphics card by the size of its memory, so any and all recommendations from you should be evidently avoided.

Your rig is great, it is better than mine, and mine can run pretty much anything at max graphics. I would up the ram to 1066 mhz ddr2 though (you need i7 if you want DDR3 to be practical). I might swap out the twin 4870 for a 5850 or 5870 though.

Oh, also forgot to mention, use Windows 7 x64 (much better than XP or Vista, I’ve been using it since closed beta. For me, it’s faster than XP 32-bit). 64 bit vista and xp are meh, and if you want to upgrade your ram, you’ll need 64 bit, so I would stick with Windows 7.

Heat, for me, slows things down VERY BADLY. So my advice is to buy some good cooling fans or heat sinks.

@the The Kiv
I don’t consider graphic card by the memory. I said all i knew about athlon graphics, because memory is the same in every graphic card
I heard that AMD is worse that intel from many different sources. Many people say that AMD is better but also there are a lot of people that say Intel is the best. Maybe I wasn’t very fresh on procesors :P. I use AMD64 dual-core 5000+ myself.
About that operating system I actually forgot about DX10, but I know that windows 7 also does it and I heard 7’s better so I should say that he should get windows 7 instead of vista.
Thanks for showing me my mistakes dude :)

I’m looking for components to build a new rig myself. I’m pretty clueless.

And people, Chris asked for language an idiot can undestand.

@The Kiw: That Phenom 720 is awfully attractive, and at $120 with free shipping on Newegg, not even that cost prohibitive.

The X2 250 ran $75, which I thought was decent at the time of purchase. I guess a ~$50 premium is about right for an extra core.

Still, gamewise, it’s usually worth it to spend that extra $50 on a better video card than on a more expensive CPU.

http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=296&Itemid=63&limit=1&limitstart=6

Sounds perfect..but might be pricey, unless thats just UK mans problems.

And if anyone says otherwise…they are just trying to sound intelligent.

@Axinkiewicz, yeah Windows 7 is THE choice nowadays, but it doesn’t come out until late October. Wait, that’s not so long from now. Ok, Chris, you shoul get Win 7. Not Vista, not XP, 7 is the way to go.
Ad the AMD thingy - nowadays, you get more bang for your buck when you go with AMD. Their power consumption is back in the green area, since they finally started manufacturing on the 45nm process.
However if you really wanna go super-high-end, Intel’s Core i7 is the way to go, that’s true. But who needs that much power these days?

@Mike, yeah, the Athlon won’t hurt, but I’m pretty sure it will slow down the grapics card. It will still be pretty fast, but a 5850/5870 Radeon with a Phenom II will be significantly faster in some cases.
(By the way, the 5870 is practically the most expensive card on the market right now, so there’s no way you can spend 50$ more, unless you’d buy one in Turkmenistan and pay the shipping bills :))

That’s just the thing though. The $50’s an arbitrary figure, but games aren’t limited by CPU in high resolution/graphics candy situations. Even at 1280x with settings jacked up on Far Cry 2, an X3 720, X4 940, and i7 920 all produced the same FPS, which indicated that the system is being bottlenecked by the GPU at that point, and CPU is irrelevant.

The point is a good video card carries most of the grunt on its back, so a super expensive CPU usually just isn’t worth it.

You can see this very clearly here, as well:
http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=323&Itemid=63&limit=1&limitstart=7

At 1680x, a fucking quadcore Phenom produces 38fps in Crysis, a single frame higher than an Athlon II X2 250. Where’s the value? Why waste the money?

Everything is decided by money in the end, so if Chris sees fit to spend the extra cash on a Phenom, that’s his prerogative.

That is actually kinda weird, because I recently switched from an Athlon X2 5000 to Phenom II X3 720 and (even in Crysis) I got much bigger differences. And I only have a Radeon 4770, with a better card, the differences would be bigger. Just check out these graphs:

http://nasatlupa.wz.cz/fotoalbum/kristalova/new_unreal.jpg
http://nasatlupa.wz.cz/fotoalbum/kristalova/new_crysis.jpg

Of course, there are games, like Fallout or Stalker: Clear Sky, where you hardly see any difference at all, but the UT3 and Crysis games still see a considerable increase in fps.

The Crysis results at benchmarkreviews can’t be taken absolutely, because they were testing with 8xAA. Of course, that’s a GPU-limited situation, but why not too many people play with 8xAA on. It’s still a bit demanding, especially in Crysis.

@Axinkiewicz
“because memory is the same in every graphic card”
Um, no. Nvidia is still using GDDR3 while ATI has been using GDDR5 for a while. How that affects performance is up to debate…

@Mike
You’re underestimating the importance of having a strong CPU. Yes, GPU bottlenecking is more important at high resolutions, but is he going to be running games at 1680x? If so, then maybe he should spend more in the graphics department. If not, having an i7 over a phenom could offer significant improvements. Not to mention other applications will be relying more heavily on the CPU and future applications will lend themselves more and more to multi-threadedness. A dual core will perform well now, but will it keep up in the near future? No, most definitely not.

Long time reader, big time techy, so I figured I’d throw in my 2 cents.

I’m currently running largely the same setup that you’re thinking about, save for one detail; dual video cards are somewhat problematic. A lot of software doesn’t support it, or support it well, so I’m personnally hesitant to use dual cards. My semi-old GeForce 8800GTX, with pretty much the exact same hardware (only difference is I’m using an AMD processor, same speed) and it runs everything on the market quite well. Even Crysis on very high settings I rarely go below 30fps. However, I’ve got a relatively small monitor, so I’m only running things at 1280×1024.

I see little benefit in getting bleeding edge GPUs if you’re still on a dinky 17″ panel running 1024x.

@Blah: I’m a simple user. I surf the web, check email, write Word documents, listen to music, and occasionally play a game or two. I’m not running 8 VMs at once. Hence, I have little use for quad core CPUs. I’m not against excess (I bought 8 Goddamn gigs of DDR2, which nearly everyone would call overkill), but I am against overpriced excess. With my use (and I am more than likely one of MANY similar users), I simply will not notice the difference between my cheap little Athlon 250 and an i7, much less while playing games, which is what Chris’s build is for in the first place.

@ Mike
Of course you want to back your dinky Athlon 250, but it just can’t compare with an i7 or any quad core. Have you used both i7s and dual cores extensively and been able to compare the performance of both? I’ve worked on computers with dual harpertown E5450s and 16GBs of RAM down to year old machines with dual cores. At high settings, no matter what GPUs you’re running, you will get significantly higher performance with an i7 over your cheap and comparatively crappy Athlon 250 (http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=3641&p=7). True, you can overclock it and get a lot of value out of it, but in the future, apps will only get more multithreaded, and your Atholon 250 will fall quickly behind. Not to mention your 8GB of “insane” memory? With the basic applications you’re running, you’ll never use up 8gigs in RAM. There’s a difference between getting something for your money (even if the value gained diminishes with each additional dollar) and getting nothing at all, which is what you did. With the parts Chris posted, its obvious he’s prepared to spend a sizable sum of money. Why build a 1.5k+ computer and put a dual core processor in it? It makes no sense.

Wow. That is a whole lotta info to process and collate. Thanks for all the advice! You guys are wicked smart. Looks like I’ve got a project on my hands.

I don’t see why we’re resorting to hostilities all of a sudden.

First of all, I had no intention of spending anywhere near $1000 on my build. And I didn’t. If I didn’t go for a new 5850, my build would have cost about a bit over $500. It’s silly to think one needs to spend $1000+ to get a perfectly good gaming rig.

I haven’t had any hands on experience with i7’s and merely go off of benchmarks. In terms of gaming, one only needs a CPU that is fast enough not to hinder the GPU, no more and no less. As far as bang for your buck goes, the Athlon does that admirably. Why should I spend $300-$600 for a CPU (not to mention the ridiculous money I would need to spend for a compatible mobo and DDR3) to get game performance that would end up being decided by the GPU anyway?

As for your article, you really find a 7-15 fps difference “significantly higher performance”?

http://www.overclockersclub.com/reviews/phenom2×2_athlon2×2/13.htm

In the above test, you’ll see that the X2 250 managed 70 fps in Fallout 3 @ 1680x (running with a GTX 260 as opposed to the GTX 280 in your i7 comparison). Obviously, if both setups ran a 280, the Athlon would be even higher. You’re basically arguing that 15 fps is worth anywhere from $200-$1000.

I gotta side with Mike again, i7 for gaming is an insane overkill. Not to mention that in many, many cases it’s actually slower than a Phenom II or Core2Quad. The only thing, where i7 shines is when you’re using some insane high-end crossfire/sli setup. There you’ll see, that other CPUs really hinder the GPUs. But that’s propably not going to be Chris’s case.

The main thing is, that whenever i7 gives you a smooth framerate (providing you have a powerful enough GPU), a triple-core Phenom II will do THE SAME. I’m not saying the same framerates, but always a very, very smooth framerate. And in an insane amoutn of cases, so will a dual-core.

The truth is, however, that Chris propably won’t want to upgrade his rig anytime soon, so buying a quad-core, or atleast a triple-core will make him happy for a longer time. But he will do more than fine with an Core i5 750 or some highly-clocked Phenom II. There’s no need for an i7.

@Mike
LOL was my first response.
First of all, the numbers in that link were the results of overclocking (hint, the website was overclockersclub). Overclocking brings in a whole new world of performance in which the i7 920 shines like none other (in fact that’s part of the reason it’s so popular). Second of all, you seem to have done your subtraction incorrectly. The i7’s performance compared to the fastest dual core in that bechmark was on average a ~40fps difference. Significant, yeah, pretty much. If you scrolled down, the patched version of FarCry which brings in multi-threaded support (you looked at the benchmark that didn’t have multi-threaded support… yeah, obviously more cores or hyperthreading isn’t going to help.), was TWICE as fast on the i7. You’re picking your benchmarks to favor your CPU. Gaming performance is NOT decided by only your GPU. That’s a n00bie mistake people make. Sorry if I’m being hostile. You’re just not the brightest crayon in the box.

I’m not saying he should get an i7. What I’m saying is that he should not get a dual core. The i7 920 is just a common point for comparison. Phenoms, i5s, and core 2 quads, are fine. Each one occupies it’s own price range and can be appropriate for a variety of builds. What would be stupid is spending an disproportionate amount on graphics and having them bottleneck through a crappy CPU. Not only do you want your computer to perform well now, but you want it to perform well in the future. Fanboy’s x2 250 isn’t cutting it.

I have to agree with Blah. And he is right, you can’t pick your benchmarks, Mike. Comparing hyper-threading quad cores with OCed dual cores on apps without multi-threaded support is obviously a stupid comparison.

My apologies. I didn’t notice that the test was not using stock clockspeeds.

I’m not arguing that an i7 is not better performing (and in certain exorbitantly expensive models, faster) than an X2 250. For the money Intel wants for them, it fucking better be. However, I play at high resolutions where the CPU simply does not factor in anywhere near as significantly as the GPU does. I got by cheap to the fine line where even an i7 would likely produce the same results as an X2 (i.e. the GPU’s bottleneck). In other words, I got the CPU with the minimum performance necessary to support a high end GPU effectively.

@Mike
Yes, definitely, I agree. In your case, the X2 250 was a great choice.

Btw, don’t worry about building the computer Chris. After you’ve decided which parts to get, it’s as easy and as fun as putting together a LEGO set on Christmas morning.

Sounds pretty good, but I’ve heard that Sound Blaster has no Customer Support or something, but I’m not sure.

Sounds fine to me, but I’d just be wary of the price of something like that, as most companies like to charge a lot for a completely built machine.

New TF2 posts

http://www.teamfortress.com/1308.htm

Found it!

Here

In reference to the thing Norman Black found above:

If you do decide to get that Chris, heed the reviewers warnings. They say it lacks proper cooling. So you’ll need to buy some more fans, or something.

It sounds good. Should be powerful enough to play anything for a while. However, your hard drive selection confuses me. You go with such expensive parts for everything, then only choose 2 250 GB SATA hard drives in a Raid 0. Yes, you get fantastic performance with this, but raid 0 is something I tend to avoid since you double the chances of hard drive failure. (And therefore losing data.)

I know a way to make your computer run perfectly. NONDRICK UPDATE

I’m probably at the same computer knowledge as you Chris, but a good piece of advice I can give is make sure all the components you want to buy actually work together! I bought a new swanky GFX card for my PC which was supposed to work with my current setup, but it turned out (after alot of digging around) that my motherboard model had been made with two different chipset types, one was intel that would work with my new card, the other was a shitty make that I cant even remember the name of now. I was lucky enough to have the latter model.

CPU choice generally comes down to price range. AMD is better for budget machines, Intel does better in benchmarks but are expensive.

The only problem I see with your current specs is the Core 2 and DDR2 800 ram. Those are fine part, except you are building a machine that is already nearing the end of it’s production life. Intel is moving past the Core 2 processor (which uses socket LGA775) and on to i7 and i5. New motherboards require DDR3 ram, which is quickly becoming the new standard.

A Core 2 is a very nice processor. You can upgrade that to a Core 2 Quad or even an Extreme. The problem is you won’t be able to upgrade past that.

I suppose it comes down to using a proven technology that works very well or jumping onto the new technology wave and reaping the benefits down the road.

Yeah, that’s my main concern too. I’m sort of using some of the custom-build PC sites to cobble parts together and make sure they all work together, then seeing the price differences between buying the PC from them vs. putting it together myself.

I meant to say that CPU BRAND choice generally comes down to price.

Audio - I’ve not been impressed with Soundblaster cards. They seem overpriced for the hardware. HT|Omega cards look to be very well made and extremely capable. They are also the top cards by rating on Newegg.com - which is quite impressive.

You forgot to mention a media drive. Not a big item but it’s the little things that start putting you over budget.

When pricing a system out don’t forget about the CASE, POWER SUPPLY and MEDIA DRIVE. I suggest you find a case with free shipping. It can be expensive to ship something that heavy.

Check Tiger Direct or Newegg for barebone kits, Chris. They range from the cheapest to the bleeding edge and have everything you need to be on your way, and take issues and worries of compatibility out of the equation. The best part is you can customize them to your specs and budget if you want a quicker processor, a higher capacity drive, etc.

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=5214778&Sku=B69-0122

That’s a nice cheap kit that I was looking at for a while. You don’t even need to buy a GPU immediately because it an IGP already onboard.

Well, it looks decent enough. You might be able to get a different GFX card though. I have a Radeon HD 4850 that I got for $110 on Newegg, and it runs pretty much everything at maximum settings–UT3, Assassin’s Creed, Oblivion, TF2, etc. I can even get Crysis up to medium settings–it’d probably be higher but my processor isn’t the greatest. Just saying it might be a cheaper option.

I think quad-core CPUs, multiple video cards, and RAID systems are all past the knee of the bang-for-buck curve. Myself, I’d get a cheaper dual-core CPU, a single midrange video card, a single HD, and spend the money saved on software, a nice monitor, or an Intel SSD. Besides giving you more for your money, such a system would have some upgrade headroom for the future.

Well, I don’t know a whole lot about computers, but in my honest opinion I’d suggest maybe trying a console for a week or so, no system requirements there!
Have to admit though, the online experience is FAR better on the PC, I only use the 360 for the games that won’t run nicely on my laptop (eg, anything after about 2008).

^ What he said. Perhaps the only area where a gamer on a budget should splurge is on a video card. That upgrade alone has brought my computer up to par twice: first with the Radeon 9600XT (back in 1867) and then with the Radeon X800XT. Both managed to handle the newest games of the day despite my blistering 1.7GHz P4 and whopping 768MB of PC2100.

Western Infidel, I mean.

Hey, Tyler Here.

Why go with the Q9650? It’s an older model Quad-Core that costs $350. Get a core i5 for $220 or the new i7-860 for $320.

Don’t get the 1366 socket I7’s. They have some useless features you don’t need, and the 1156 sockets have automatic overclocking and a very nice Turbo mode.

Turbo Mode is where if you aren’t using a certain core, it will send power and voltage to the core(s) being used. So for applications that only use 2 out of 4 cores (Like WoW), this resulted in a huge FPS boost (80+ %) compared to other Quad Cores (The 1366 socket, for example.)

The Crossfire 4870’s is a good deal. They are really cheap atm.

However, for the i5 go with some DDR3-1600 or something along those lines. Not too expensive, even for 4gb or 8gb.

Note: The i5 series does not support triple channel. So it can only support 1 stick of ram, 2 sticks, 4 sticks, etc.

New Freeman’s Mind, Chris.

I agree with tyler the 9650 is a not a good choice of cpu.
with intel I would go with i5-750. If I were doing a budget build I would go with an amd 720.

I would also go with an ati 5850 as it will be more consistant and not rely on constant driver updates also it will use less power. I don’t know how the price stacks up is the US but here its not much more expensive than the 2 4870s

Careful with the XFire. Things may have changed by now, but every game I’ve tried to play that was seriously sponsored by NVidia fails to work after a few minutes of gameplay. I am sorely disappointed in you, Mirror’s Edge.

Definitely go quad-core. There are so many price range options for quads that any arguement for dual-core is silly.

DDR2 memory is stupid cheap even for 4GB. So if building a sub $700 rig is what you’re after, DDR2 IS the way to go. Actually, a decent Core 2 quad processor on a socket LGA 775 motherboard complete with 4GB of DDR2 RAM can be had for the proverbial song. It is possible to build a decent gaming rig around these three components that will play anything up to (but not including COH and Crysis at high settings) for only $500. This doesn’t include the operating system, natch.

Having said that, I’d recommend an i7 quad, even though you’ll have to use a motherboard that requires DDR3 because the prices for DDR3 are finally getting reasonable. Why i7? Because it is sooo easy to overclock even the mid-range ones. Want 3GHz+ performance on the cheap? i7 is the way to go.

Just remember, the first big decision is the processor. Once you’ve decided on that, it will determine the range of motherboards (gotta match the socket type of course) available and the type of RAM (DDR2 or 3) that you can use. The remaining components (hard drives, video card(s), optical device etc) are pretty much up to how much you want to spend on the rig. Finally, look at the power consumption of your components to determine the power supply wattage you’ll need. Give yourself about 150 watts “headroom” to allow for possible upgrades.

A few notes on the operating system. If you buy an OEM rig (an assembled computer right off the shelf) the OS is on discs at the retailer (in most cases) and if your system nukes itself, you pretty much have to go back to them to pay to have it reloaded. This is why I prefer to buy my own copies of windows. If you have an “Oh F***!” moment, you can just format and reload windows yourself. Also, be aware that todays applications and games are pushing past the 4GB mark for “recommended”. Use to be that 1GB was the average and 2GB was the “recommended” for high-end apps and games. Not so much now. The problem is that a 32bit operating system will only recognize about 3.6GB of your system’s RAM. (Microsoft says that XP and Vista actually uses that extra .4GB to load itself and temp files in, so it’s not really going to waste.) But if you want a 6, 8 or even 12GB RAM setup (quite possible on today’s dual and tri channel mobos) then you MUST use a 64bit version of the OS. Vista 64bit is FINALLY stable now due to the service pack, but with Windows 7 arriving, there’s really no reason not get it instead. The nice thing is that W7 has both 32bit AND 64bit versions in your retail copy. No need to worry whether you’re buying the right one or not. Finally, you only need to buy Home Premium of Windows 7. You would only need to buy the next higher version if you were running a server (I mean a major server, not just a home server) out of your house.

The only suggestion I can make is a quad-core, if you can afford it, and maybe find a good fan system.

Also, have you tried cleaning out your computer? Like, literally.
Heat causes problems, and dust blocks heat and mucks up thermal compound.
Get a can of air, if you haven’t already and blow that mofo out.

^ Take the following along with what CON-Troll said: you don’t necessarily need a quad core CPU if your motherboard has support for both dual and quad. For instance, the M4A79 Deluxe, a popular AMD board, has support for both the dual and quad core Phenoms, so even if you went dual core, you could always upgrade later. It’s just nice to have that luxury and not be forced into spending money for the sake of compatibility. At the same time, you’re not forced into DDR3, either. AMD CPUs are also perfectly capable of stable overclocking, assuming you’re into that.

You probably got some bad programs installed on your computer after playing that Evony game.

Let that be a lesson to you. Moreso than having to play that game in the first place.

Do yourself a favour and buy the i7 920. You won’t regret it, its much faster than the Core 2s. You might as well get 2x 500gb for the hard disk and run it in RAID 1 as well, since the prices of HDDs is fairly low now. If you’re getting a 64 bit OS you might want to get more RAM, but it’s totally optional. Helps with games like GTA4 that absolutely hog memory.

Might also be a good idea to get a DDR3-capable motherboard, but then you’ll have to pay more for the ram, and you might not notice the performance difference.

Is it just me, or is Tom Francis’ blog gone?

Off topic I know but…
“Half-Life’s hero, Gordon Freeman, the victor in an epic battle”

Dude…you lost. Earth’s enslaved.

I didn’t know where else to post that.

OH, load up STEAM and you’ll see what I’m talkin’ about.

In context, I think they meant that the steam community should MAKE him the victor in an epic battle. (refering to the charachter contest).

Woo! 100!

On another note, ignore my previous post - my 360’s just red ringed itself.

Yes, JackBurton, the battles on the Half Life series are not as nearly as exciting as Link’s fights. Which consist up to the exciting number of 4 enemies on the screen. Wow!

Come back Tom all is forgiven.

Alternatively pay your darn bill already.

oh jeah I totally forgot that
I have beaten your doodlejump record.
I´ll twitterthat to you in some days :D
have you got a new record? You know we are in a doodlewar now! :)

You bastard! No, I haven’t beaten my own record yet.

Pentadact has been suspended? Egads.

Pentadact gone… to be deleted in 10 days…

My heart stopped a moment. We must embark on an epic adventure of love, betrayal and explosions to reclaim the blog!

I’m thinking movie deals, endorsements, the works.

Having the blog back would be nice too.

Computer only able to reliably run games from a few years back, hmm? How about fucking OBLIVION!?

I second what Microwavabilty said!

Or just record your thoughts as you play it and post the audio file.

Holy shitmonkeys I have no life.

Chris, will you post about your new computer once you get it? Just wondering, because these days you don’t post much (though you do blame your current machine).

Someone mentioned it, but here’s the link to Freeman’s Mind Episode 16
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqURJ0dw9EY