New PC specs (2 Viewers)

[Jayphen]

You can get GTXs for as low as $640 retail.. SLi em', give them a minor OC and combine that with your 3800+, you'd be looking at around 14,000 3DMarks for 05.

What's Leadtek like?

at my local store, it's either
256MB Leadtek 7800GTX PCI-E VIVO - 665
or
256MB MSI NX7800GTX PCI-E VIVO - 660

 

[Collin]

F.E.A.R for an absolutely superb single-player horror FPS experience. AI is the best ever for a first-person shooter (not disputed anywhere), and the firing mechanics of this game is simply amazing. The firefights feel just right. Most reputable places who has reviewed this game has given it a 90+ score (PC Gamer, Gamespot etc.)

Battlefield 2 for the addictive multiplayer experience. Has better longevity since obviously it's based on multiplayer. One of the best multiplayer-focused FPS currently available.

Personally I'd get both.

Both Leadtek and MSI are reasonable brands. A GTX for around $660, you couldn't go wrong.

 

[Jayphen]

hmm but what's NX7800GTX mean?

I think I'll go Leadtek

 

[Collin]

Nothing, no idea why MSI adds the NX tag at the front.

 

[Roguedeth]

here are my specs for my comp they cost about $2100 get these they should fit you right.


Case: Antec P180 $215
PSU: Antec Truepower 2.0 550w $160
Motherboard: MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum $200
CPU: AMD 3500+ venice $315
Ram: 2x Corsair 1Gb DDR400 PC3200 $320
Hard Drive: Western digital 200GB 7200 RPM $130
GPU: Sparkle nVidia 7800GTX 256Mb $660
Optical:
Samsung 16x DVD ROM (black) $40
Samsung 16x DVD Dual Layer Burner (black) $67

 

[samuelblayden]

u will need a lot of moeny

 

[Ragerunner]

I got fear waiting to just as soon as my last exam is over.

Played the demo, was awesome, but then again, usually halfway through most fps games it gets repetitive/boring or too scary to play.

*remembers playing doom 3 and walking into the toilet room where each light turns off one by one until complete darkness then get smashed by some alien*

actually getting scared by a game sounds embarrassing but awesome at the same time

 

[Jayphen]

here are my specs for my comp they cost about $2100 get these they should fit you right.


Case: Antec P180 $215
PSU: Antec Truepower 2.0 550w $160
Motherboard: MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum $200
CPU: AMD 3500+ venice $315
Ram: 2x Corsair 1Gb DDR400 PC3200 $320
Hard Drive: Western digital 200GB 7200 RPM $130
GPU: Sparkle nVidia 7800GTX 256Mb $660
Optical:
Samsung 16x DVD ROM (black) $40
Samsung 16x DVD Dual Layer Burner (black) $67

Nah I'm pretty much set on what I'm gonna get.

Next week I'm gonna buy the a8n-sli premium, amd64 3800+ and the 6600 256mb. Then later I'll sell the 6600 and buy a 7800 GTX

should end up costing me around $1200

 

[Jayphen]

One other thing..

I can get an AMD64 (939) 3700+ for $320, and an AMD64 (939) 3800+ for $400

is it worth the extra $80 to get the 3800?

Or I could get a 3500+ for $250..

 

[Jayphen]

bump.. :$ I'm going to buy it tonight, so I wanna know what I should get asap

 

[darksbane]

Well, theoretically, the 3800+ will last you the longest, but its an $80 price jump from the 3700+ which will probably perform pretty close to the 3800, so I would probably go with the 3700+

 

[Jayphen]

I've actually heard that 3200's have great overclockability, and you can about 35% more out of them on stock cooling alone.. I will be getting a Thermaltake Big Typhoon so could probably push it a little further.. And save myself around $300 in the process

 

[Collin]

If I was on a really tight budget, I'd go for a 3500+ Venice core, and proceed to OC the crap out of it.. as for 3700+ vs. 3800+.. like darksbane mentioned, the 80 dollar jump in price probably isn't worth the performance increase it boasts.

 

[Jayphen]

Well, I'm really glad I called my mate who knows nothing but computers.

He referred me to the site http://www.staticice.com.au/ and I shopped around a bit and came up with a much better setup.

He told me that he clocked his Venice core (the other cores aren't as good apparantly) from 2.0 GHz flat to 2.6 with stock cooling. I should be able to pull around 2.8, which will probably equal the performance of the 2800+ anyway.

So this is what I'm getting now, for a grand total of $748.

$230.00 Athlon 64-AMD-3200+ Box Socket 939 (Venice Core)
$239.00 Asus A8N-SLI Premium Motherboard
$175.00 128MB Forsa Nvidia Geforce 6600GT PCI-Express Video Card (yeah, getting a GT instead of standard)
$49.00 THERMALTAKE 430W PSU
$55.00 Thermaltake Big typhoon

Should perform well at least until the 7800GTX drops in price a bit. I don't think I wanna spend $660 on a gpu.

 

[Collin]

If you can afford it, jump 3700+ or even X2 3800+ now. Why? Because you say you're gonna get something high up like a GTX eventually, so this 6600GT is only a 'buffer' card till you've got more cash right? Remember the 3200+ would severely bottleneck the GTX, so you might aswell spend an extra few hundred now for the CPU rather than having to buy it anyway later on (well you don't have to buy a new CPU for the card.. but I know I wouldn't get a GTX right now for my 64 3200+ unless I was also willing to shell out for a better CPU).

 

[Jayphen]

hmm I didn't realise the cpu would bottleneck the GTX if it were overclocked. Would overclocking not make a difference?

Maybe I won't get the GTX for a while yet.. Or I'll just SLI another 6600GT instead.

The 3200+ clocked to 2.7GHz outperforms the 3800+ pretty easily

 

[Collin]

Yes, but that's if you get that far. A guy I know did some CPU scaling tests and concluded the 4800+ still bottlenecked the GTX to a minor degree. So yes, the 3200+ Venice OCs well, but then imagine a 3800+ Venice. It won't OC as well, but it'll certainly cut down on that bottleneck factor once you get your shiny Geforce 7 (should you get it).

 

[Jayphen]

hmmmm decisions decisions.

I think I may just stick with the 3200 and the 6600GT.

I need to buy a car soon

Why is it that none of the computer stores around me stock arctic silver 5 thermal compound .. grr

 

[darksbane]

Probably the same reason none of the ones here stock it...They suck.

The 3200's do seem to have a reputation for overclocking, but so do the 3500's and as JKDDragon pointed out, thats if you get a decent overclock, there are a great deal of instances where you can't get a very good overclock, a good example is my AXP 2800, yes its a different era and architecture, but its the same principal, lots of people got great overclocks on it, but the best I've ever been able to get mine to is the equivelent of a 3200, and it was unstable, even at speeds equivelant of a 3000 it was unstable, I think the heat and my RAM may have had a factor in that, but still, I know I'm not the only one who couldnt get a decent overclock on it. There are always dud CPU's in the overclocking department that perform perfectly at stock settings but just won't overclock well. Basicly what I'm saying is, while the chances of getting a good overclock are high, don't base your system around the possibility as it is only a possibility until you actually get it and try it out.

 

[Templar]

Overclocking an Athlon64 to 2.8GHz requires far more than simply increase a particular parameter. It actually require some technical know how, unlike Pentiums, where you just lift the FSB.

Arctic Silver 5 is a very high end thermal paste. Just as not all your car dealers stock high performance vehicles, most of your local computer stores will not have Arctic Silver. I assume that you're building it yourself. If not, I really don't trust computer stores to use Arctic Silver for the thermal paste, they probably use some generic stuff and pocket the profit, except with big name stores like AusPCMarket and Pluscorp.