1 x Intel S775 Core 2 Q9400 Quad-Core CPU
1 x ASUS S775 P5Q-SE-R Core 2 Motherboard
1 x DDR2 4GB Geil 800MHz Dual Channel DDR2 Kit
1 x 640GB Western Digital AACS 7200rpm 16M SATA HDD
1 x Gigabyte GTX 260 OC 896M PCIe Video Card GTX260
1 x 22" (55cm) Samsung 2243BW Widescreen LCD Monitor
1 x Antec Nine Hundred Two Black Case (No PS)
1 x OCZ 600W Power Supply
1 x FDD/Card Reader Mount 3.5" To 5.25" Black
1 x Logitech EX-110 Cordless Desktop
1 x LiteOn 20x DVD Writer SATA Black
1 x Integrated Sound Card
1 x Logitech X-530 Speaker System
1 x Integrated Gigabit Network Connection
1 x MS Windows Vista Home Premium 64bit OEM
1 x Internal All-in-1 Memory Card Reader Black

I would say so

$ ?

$2200 - Although that doesn't indicate whether it's an above average gaming PC...

If its gaming ditch the quad core and just get a dual core, no use for a quad core on games, it wont use it. The E8500 intel is probably the best value at the moment.

You could get a system *slightly* less powerful for about half the price. That's if money is a concern.

Also, if your only going 4gb, 64bit isnt needed and will be more pain than its worth. YES YES you have 64bit for years and it works fine, but I gaurantee you will find at one point there is an app that you need to use and it just doesnt work on 64bit.

paging jim

slightly

Also, if your only going 4gb, 64bit isnt needed and will be more pain than its worth. YES YES you have 64bit for years and it works fine, but I gaurantee you will find at one point there is an app that you need to use and it just doesnt work on 64bit.

That's what virtual machines are for.

but why bother at all with 64bit? what are you gaining?, and dont say it uses more of the ram, cause with 4gb it doesnt make any difference.

The real question is what do you lose by using 64-bit. And the answer to that is nothing. Unless you are planning on using extremely old apps/games.

Yeah, but OTOH if he decides to upgrade and go past 4GB, he'd be up for a reinstall on XP64 anyway.

I thought I needed 64bit to address all 4gb of ram? What's the deal with that? and...

You could get a system *slightly* less powerful for about half the price. That's if money is a concern.

I don't believe you. Show me.

If its gaming ditch the quad core and just get a dual core, no use for a quad core on games, it wont use it.

Hands up who use their PC entirely for games? They don't do word processing, spreadsheets, video encoding, music playing etc etc... Sheesh, why use dead technology, it's not like it'll hurt!

If its gaming ditch the quad core and just get a dual core, no use for a quad core on games, it wont use it. The E8500 intel is probably the best value at the moment.

what?

You are informing this guy to ditch a quad core 2.66ghz processor for a dual core 3.16ghz.

Did you understand that when you commented?

Not even to mention that crysis and alot of newer games coming out are going to take full advantage of the quad cores. It seems pointless to me to choose a dual core over quad cores.

last edited by eP at 21:42:29 21/Feb/09

last edited by eP at 21:47:29 21/Feb/09

Ditch the card reader, such a s***ty POS item that can bring down a whole system. Pity CA will never get rid of them.

Not even to mention that crysis and alot of newer games coming out are going to take full advantage of the quad cores.

Crysis is s*** and barely any games take advantage of the extra cores, even a lot of the upcoming releases. In fact, it's better in the majority of games due to the higher clock speed.

YEAH STICK WITH THE OLDER TECHNOLOGY IT'S BETTER MAN

yes for heaven's sake don't get anything new

Well, I didn't go for the i7, I heard Commander Keen doesn't take advantage of its features...

Yes it's an above average gaming machine. Slightly.
It's exciting, I'm gearing up for another system soon (It's been 5 years) :)

The 896mb ram on the video card will be enough for gaming in the 1680 x 1050 LCD res. 512 mb cards suffer in high res's.
Everything there will enable whatever video card you put in well.
Have you considered ATI? They have some great cards out atm in both performance and price.

but why bother at all with 64bit? what are you gaining?, and dont say it uses more of the ram, cause with 4gb it doesnt make any difference.

Should I buy LCD or plasma?

Whoops, wrong thread... again...

Yeah nice rig with some longevity - I'd go dual core as well instead of quad core but sif you'll even notice the effect.

I would say yes.

Mantra do you have personalised plates? that are mantra or manta?

just pirate xp until windows 7 comes out imo

Have you considered ATI? They have some great cards out atm in both performance and price.

^ Seconded. I've recently gone back to ATI when I got my 4870x2 and I'm really happy with it, more bang for buck than I could have got from anything nvidia had on the market and it runs absolutely anything I can throw at it.

quad core ftw. my q9300 is oc'ed to 3.3ghz atm and its great for games. 2 cores for games (4 for the ones that support it) and 2 for background stuff. I rarely see 100% usage, this is great for multi-tasking which I do a lot of.

Will be going I7 when prices drop for sure.

sure quad core is technically better, but dual core is still better for real world stuff, you mentioned crysis, how about this

linky

I might be blind but, but apart from the core 2 extreme, which no one will ever buy becuase of the ridiculous price(im pretty sure its dual core anyway), the only cpu's above the core 2 duo's are the I7. And the E8600 isnt worth the extra money for the slight performance increase.

Sure if you are going to be playing crysis and encoding some divx's in the background then get a quad core, but if you want gaming performance bang for buck, get the 8500.

Hands up who use their PC entirely for games? They don't do word processing, spreadsheets, video encoding, music playing etc etc... Sheesh, why use dead technology, it's not like it'll hurt!

Not sure what sort of leet word proccesing you are doing, but my dual core manages to keep up with the words i type in, maybe im typing too slow. Maybe some super excel formulas calculate faster on a quad core, im not gonna bother looking up excel performamce.

Video encoding, if it goes slower, then it just takes a few more minutes to encode no big deal, but with a game, if it runs slower, which quad cores do, then you get less fps, I know what i'd prefer.

I'd post some more links to benchmarks, but theres no point. Quad core is better for certain things, but games dual core is faster. And the things that quad cores do better, like video encoding etc arent realy a big deal to wait the few minutes extra.

Unless you have a specific app you want to run faster that uses quad core, like some 3d animation or something, then dual core is just better.

Anyway, if you want faster in all those things, get an I7.

just pirate use xp until windows 7 comes out imo

if you must get Vista get the quad core cpu. it'll help juggle all that overhead and run things smoother. I hope the full release of Win7 doesn't have this need. that'd be really dissapointing considering how smooth it runs atm on just 2 cores and a couple of gig of ram

Why hello there eP. Any chance of me having a computer back at work anytime soon? :P

I'd post some more links to benchmarks, but theres no point. Quad core is better for certain things, but games dual core is faster. And the things that quad cores do better, like video encoding etc arent realy a big deal to wait the few minutes extra.

Can you find a benchmark that also has a web browser, music program, virus scanner, firewall, spybot and whatever else people have running on a normal non-benchmark setup machine? Benchmarks are like statistics, only useful if used in the right context.

It's s***loads better than my machine Mantra =)

Can you find a benchmark that also has a web browser, music program, virus scanner, firewall, spybot and whatever else people have running on a normal non-benchmark setup machine? Benchmarks are like statistics, only useful if used in the right context.

What kind of idiot leaves spybot, virus scanners and web browsers going while they play games? Probably the same kind of "gamer" who only ever plays mine sweeper that's who. Real gamers disable virus scanners real time protection, close every non essential app (browsers, MSN, etc) and firewall? who the hell doesn't have a hardware firewall these days? Oh that's right, PEOPLE WHO PLAY MINE SWEEPER.

Why not get 3 hard drives as well? One for windows, one for the games to get installed on and one just for the windows swap file?

\/\/ yes, yes I am.

last edited by whoop at 01:38:52 23/Feb/09

Whoop, you're a nutbag.

By the way, the PC isn't actually for me, it's a present and he'd already expressed an interest in nvidia, and that particular case (lame neon thing).

And for whoever asked, no, I don't have personalised plates.

Not sure what sort of leet word proccesing you are doing

I lol'd ..

nothing wrong with going quad core, they're not that much more money these days
and I'll go +1 on the ati thing, I just chucked a 4870 in my box and its leet

250fps+ in counter-strike source - the only game i play, but my mrs wants to use this box for sims3 when it comes out and its a resource slut

250fps+ in counter-strike source

You know you only need 30 don't you?

yeah i know, which is why i was just laughing at the link viper just posted comparing the intels for FPS

my core2 duo (1.8ghz?) still does 100+ fps in crysis and it was purchased the day they were released in australia (afaik)
its only about 40~fps off the latest & greatest i7 cpu

not bad for something I bought like 3 years ago

What kind of idiot leaves spybot, virus scanners and web browsers going while they play games? Probably the same kind of "gamer" who only ever plays mine sweeper that's who. Real gamers disable virus scanners real time protection, close every non essential app (browsers, MSN, etc) and firewall? who the hell doesn't have a hardware firewall these days? Oh that's right, PEOPLE WHO PLAY MINE SWEEPER.

Real gamers don't need virus protection because they're too busy gaming to click 'ENBIGGEN YOUR GIRTH TODAY!' emails.

lol no minxy i am too busy trolling forums to fix your pc...

(I think its en route to you this morning)

needs an ssd

Gaming PC -> Dual
Doing encoding of any kind regularly -> Quad

Virus/spyware scanners = lol you guys suck at downloading/email opening


On the topic of Windows7 I installed it on my bro's old A8N-SLI single core 3200+ and it runs surprisingly quicker than I expected.

windows 7 pwns. Installed on my HP dv6519tx notebook and ran since release until this week. Ran smoothly 100% of the time.

On install picked up all hardware drivers.

Only issue i had was my microphone didnt work so it needed a little bit of tinkering in settings. But for an 18+ month old laptop it was 99.9 % flawless.

buy an s3

If it's for gaming I'd just go for a Phenom + good AM2+ mobo + HD4850. You'd slap a fair bit off the price doing that. Are you building this machine yourself?