Posted: 10/11/2006 4:10:18 PM EDT
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I'm putting together a new computer. I thought some of you could give me valuable input on my selection of components. Is this a decent set up? Did I make any mistakes? Make/Model Price Total Price $1,561 CPU E6600 $315 Motherboard ASUS P5W DH DELUXE $260 RAM Corsair DDR2 800 PC2-6400C4 2X1GB $277 Video Sapphire Radeon X1950XTX 512 $420 Power Supply Cooler Master RS-600-ASAA $120 HDD 1X WDD SATA 3.0 GB/s 320 GB 7200/16MB $100 Keyboard Logitech Media $24 Case Cooler Master Centurion Black $45 I already have a 22" LCD monitor, an Audigy sound card,... I went to the DELL web site and pricesd out a comparable system. Good grief!, it was almost $4k. |
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Why Seagate instead of Western Digital? At Tom's Hardware Guide the WD beats Seagate by a wide margin in interface performnace and inthier price/performance categories. They don't assess reliability. I wish they did, as this is CRITICAL to me. Why a 7950 GT instead of a X1950XTX? At Motherboards.org they show Oblivion frame rates at 43 fps and 67 fps, respectively. They show Doom III rates as 108 and 120, respectively. At Tom's Hardware Guide they show 43 fps versus 58 fps, respectively for Oblivion. |
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Ive got a 6800GS that I just replaced with a X1900XT. Although the card was a great bang for the buck at the tme, there were some minor issues with it in some games. Before that, I had used ATI cards for the last several years...never had any driver issues whatsoever, and the only performance issue I ever had was the inability to do fog in the Combat Mission series. Other than that, the ATI cards I used were absolutely care free. Check your power supply...that card is a BEAST when it comes to power consumption. They recommend 30a on the 12v rails for my 1900XT...lord only knows what your card needs. I just got the card on Wed...but it wouldn't run with my measly 430w PS, even thought the 6800GS ran fine with it. So, I ordered the Fortron 250w GPU PS...it should be here tomorrow, hopefully, so I can get the 1900XT up and running. Your system should scream...but I don't see any optical drives listed. Don't forget a DVD burner! |
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Thanks for the input, guys. Heh, heh, look carefully, one item in my list is a 600W power supply. I have everything else I need, including two dual-layer DVD burners and a 22" LCD monitor that just showed up on my doorstep today. One guy suggested I buy a backlighted keyboard for when playing games in the darkened room. It's hard to type, "<t> wtf?" in a room that's too dark. LOL! 
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So, I finally got around to assembling the components. It went together without a hitch - not even one. The first game I loaded was HALO. I didn't play on line, as it's not yet connected to the internet. What a difference. The old machine was good but wow, the Flood don't have a chance against me now. I will report back when I get on line. I suspect the data latency of my DSL is a big limiter of on line performance. Data rates are not a big driver in game play, HALO runs at only about 60 kbps (long-term avaerage). The lag is caused by the data latency (latency = ping + a lot of other stuff). There are several configurtation options for the memory. One gives max performance, the other offers redundancy, another offers,... It was like reading about a RAID array of HDD but it was about the RAM. I learned something reading about that. It made me want to buy another set of 2GB DIMMs - in keeping with the best traditions of ARFCOM, "Buy both". 
Heh, heh!  The card and the mother board both support Crossfire. Should I buy a second card and cross-fire (cross-link) them? Hmmm,.....? |
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I've been playing the new system for about two weeks now. It has proven to be rock solid so far. It boots quickly and shuts down quickly. Everything runs smoothly. I've played Battlefield: 2142 several times and have not had any hint of the crashing others are reporting. The thing is, the differences and improvements are subtle. Everything just runs. There's never any click and wait. It's click and go with no hint of waiting for the machine. HALO online is still plagued by data latency issues but machine-induced game lag is non-existent. I'm also playing OBLIVION with all settings maxed out. It just runs as smooth as silk. It is several years old, so it may not be the most taxing software out there. Anyone have any games they think will tax my system? If so, let me know. I'd like to try them. I like the 22" ACER monitor. I don't like th e keyboard that much. I think I'll try different one. Any suggestions, anyone? |