hey guys, im just thinking of upgrading most things, would this be crap/good do you reckon?

Intel CORE 2 Q6600/2.4Ghz/2x4MB/1066FSB/LGA77
Asus P5Q ExpGATE S775 P45 DDR2 FSB1600 PCIE RAID 2xGBLAN 2x1394a ATX
Corsair DDR2 Twin2X (2048MB Kit) 6400C4 2048Mb (2X1024MB)
Asus EN9600GT 1GB DDR3 PCIE2.0 HDTV 2xDVI-I HDMI HDCP
Samsung 2233BW 22 inch Wide 5ms Tilt Gloss Black VGA DVI
LG H22NS30 SATA 22X+- Super Multi DVD Rewriter Black with Software
Creative I-TRIGUE L3800 2.1 Speakers Black
Thermaltake Xaser6 MX VH9000SWS Silver case(NO PSU)
Antec NeoPower 650W Blue ATX Ver2.2 & EPS12V

$1459
from umart with the computer package thing

or something for around a budget of 1500 needing a case, psu, mobo, ram, monitor, speakers - possibly soundcard, cpu, dvd drive and video card

seems expensive for that system with a s*** video card

Samsung 2233BW 22 inch Wide 5ms Tilt Gloss Black VGA DVI

Why that monitor? What makes it special and worth the $275 compared to the 22" BenQ T221W at $219?


EDIT: Also what are you using the computer for? As that CPU isn't so good with gaming applications for example.

last edited by Tollaz0r! at 07:17:41 29/Sep/08

what video card would you recommend spook

well i wasnt sure about the moniter, basically a combination of having to buy a dvi cable for the benk, design, and i wasnt sure about the quality of benq's - is there much difference or would i just be wasting $40

yeah i would be using it for gaming and dual monitor working

last edited by Spock at 09:22:10 29/Sep/08

also if i already have a thermaltake soprano, should i bother with a case...hmmmm

As that CPU isn't so good with gaming applications for example.

Are you on crack?
I have one in my gaming rig an it runs just fine... Admittedly, I have it OC'd @ 3.2
With the board your getting, OC should also be easy (I have P5Q Deluxe, virtually same BIOS)

having to buy a dvi cable for the benq

More crack :) All new LCD's should ship with a DVI cable

wasnt sure about the quality of benq's is there much difference or would i just be wasting $40

Samsung s*** over BenQ for quality. Outside the 14 days of purchase if you have 1 or more dead pixels anywhere on the screen they will replace it, that along with the overall superior image quality, win hands down.

BenQ have a 2 bright, 3 dark allowance outside of the 14 day

If your going to go with the 9600 then a Soprano is all its worth putting in ;)

All new LCD's should ship with a DVI cable

yeah should but they don't. Installed 2x20in Benqs for a mate of mine recently, no DVI cable supplied. Luckily i have a bucketload of spares.

^ Really?
Wow, just checked an your right!
Definately a big FukU BenQ then

yeah should but they don't.

A while back I made lots of noise on whirlpool about the lack of BenQ DVI cables (when the product webpage said it's included) .. so much noise that the product manager or whatever contacted me and sent me a couple by post, then ninja-edited the website to remove all references to "included DVI cable".

Oh and BenQ sucks. I'm typing in front of one of their monitors right now.

Intel CORE 2 Q6600/2.4Ghz/2x4MB/1066FSB/LGA77

Might want to look into a dual-core that has a faster clock, unless you plan to do lots of parallelised video/image/audio processing. An E8500 will be roughly 1/3 faster than the quad-core for regular programs (which is what you're running 90% of the time), on par with it for most multi-core apps, and only worse for the remaining 1-5% (very generous figure) of programs that have very mature multi-core support.


last edited by parabol at 09:47:01 29/Sep/08

i'd go for the 2ms samsung lcd rather than the 5ms... umart site says they are out of stock but msy has 'em for $269. you'll get a dvi-d cable with the monitor usually.

I have a samsung printer and their warranty service is EXCELLENT. If I have a problem, a technician is out within 24 hours to fix it and has basically given me a brand new printer.

I'll always be buying Samsung brand from now on based on their exceptional warranty sercie support. I believe their monitors have 3 year dead pixel support or something?

All my Benqs had dvi cables... Including the 24" I got 4 weeks ago. Shame the stopped doing it ... stupid profit margins :/

I went a Q9400 instead of a 6600.
And honestly ... the 4850 I got, rapes my 8800gtx ... sad but true.

I have 2 PCs
the Q9400 with 4850 (both bog standard) rape my E6850 (oc'd) with 8800gtx (oc'd).
Thats in WoW, EQ (lawls, but it actually eats cpu more then modern games go figure) and Quake timedemo demo1(tho with 87932463894712369 fps its a bit hard to notice any difference).
My new PC actually runs 4 sessions of wow on a 24" better then my old one running 1... (dirty f***en multiboxingscumzomg)

Jets'n'Guns Gold runs equally well on both.

I bought a BenQ FP22W 22" for my second machine so I could multibox in WoW and the picture quality is f***ing ass. That's running thru a 8800GT and a 3gig Intel. Maybe the next models up are better but I would stay the hell away from this one. It was cheap so I guess you get what you pay for!

I have no idea about LCD monitors, I was asking out of curiosity.

As that CPU isn't so good with gaming applications for example.


Are you on crack?

OK, I should have written: That CPU is wasted on a gaming machine, as very few games take advantage of multi-core CPU's and there isn't much noise about doing so in the near future.

You are better off buying a different CPU, the E7300 would probably perform very similar and be much cheaper.

The q6600 truly shines when using applications that support multi-core processing, usually video/audio/image editing software.

The q6600 truly shines when using applications that support multi-core processing efficiently

Fixed.

A quick look at benchmarks shows that quad-cores only beat faster clocked dual-cores (both at the same price) in only a handful of applications (3dsmax, Premiere, etc). Most of the time the similarly priced dual-core still blows the quad out of the water due to the faster clock. Anyone who claims the quad cores are better hands-down for everyone .. is being silly :)

Antec Sonata III MiniTower Case - Piano BlackW/500W PSU $187.00
Samsung 20xDVD -/+R/RW Dual Layer OEM Black (SH-S202J/RSBN) $25.00
Logitech X-540 5.1 Speakers System $85.00
Kingston DDR2 4(2x2G)PC6400 800Mhz HyperX(KHX6400D2K2/4G) $99.00
Asus P5Q P45 M/B $155.00
Sapphire HD4870 512M GDDR5 PCI E TVO $335.00
Intel CORE 2 QUAD Q9400/2.66GHz/6MB CACHE $330.00
Samsung 2233BW 22 inch Wide 5ms Tilt Gloss Black VGA DVI $275.00
Total $1491.00

There you go, from the umart site, and it will crap all over the other system. Even left the sammy monitor in for you. The Antec case is beautiful and quiet.

first thing, obligatory plug to go to MSY coz they're cheaper

2nd. I have a samsung 2253bw and originally I believed it was a pretty damn good screen (colours etc). I just recently purchased a dell 24" for 315 and having them next to each other the difference is night and day, the dell just has so much better colour output and its even more evident while playing games. I guess this could be attributed to them being diff panels /shrug

Intel CORE 2 QUAD Q9400/2.66GHz/6MB CACHE $330.00

Again with the quad..

I was once anti quad... but honestly the price difference being so little... why the f*** not

The Antec case is beautiful and quiet and extremely poor airflow for such a high temp card.

Fixed:
All too often I see high end cards stuffed into poorly considered case choices cause the want it "quiet"

High end cards and quiet systems just don't go together (unless water cooling is used).

Sure, they might work for a while, then your just gonna be putting yourself through the misery of waiting for a replacement card from warranty ~ which can be between 2 & 6 weeks, sometime more (I have seen 3 months and not a damned thing could be done about it) depending on the supplier should the retailer not have any buffer stock left.

Funny cause I've had my 8800GTX running in one of these cases for over a year without a problem.

if i didnt get that antec piano case, and didnt have to get that thermal case is there a better one hermitech?

also is there much difference between sapphire and asus Asus EAH4870 HTDI 512M RV770PRO DDR5 PCIE2.0 DVI HDTV HDCP and Sapphire HD4870 512M GDDR5 PCI E TVO cards

last edited by Spock at 14:06:28 29/Sep/08

2nd. I have a samsung 2253bw and originally I believed it was a pretty damn good screen (colours etc). I just recently purchased a dell 24" for 315 and having them next to each other the difference is night and day, the dell just has so much better colour output and its even more evident while playing games. I guess this could be attributed to them being diff panels /shrug

my results were exactly opposite :/ cept my samsung was the earlier 226bw panel. my work dell 24" (which is newer but i can't remember the model) seems very bland in the colour & has far less colour contrast than my home samsung lcd. the contrast is particularly easy to notice coz i use 3 pastel colours as background colours coz they are still legible when printed on a b&w printer. on my samsung monitor these 3 colours are easily distinguishable at any view angle... on my work dell yo gotta be looking at just the right angle or they all look the same!@#

color image of the colours used...
http://dem0n.qgl.org/images/temp/colours.jpg

Demon ... those colours ... how the mighty have fallen ...

ps. quake only went up to 15 ... heathen

hmm interesting. could be my settings on the samsung but ive fiddled for ages with it and with no result. a similar comparison i can do by eye is when i move a window between the screens. i use the "brick" colour scheme in windows and what it looks like on the samsung is more "grey" than brick in comparison to the dell.

hey obes it's a challenge to find multiple background colours that still print legibly in b&w i tells ya! :P

csirac : yeh same... in that i fiddled with colour settings on my dell to try & get it better but in the end i just set it so that i am always looking at just the right angle to get the colour contrast right. it isn't really a big deal to me... i still use a s***ty sony 19" crt as my 2nd monitor that i am typing this post on... & it's colours are completely s*** compared to either lcd monitor :P

if i didnt get that antec piano case, and didnt have to get that thermal case is there a better one hermitech

It really depends on what card you get as to which case you should put it in. The physical size of the card can be relevant as well. Spec which card you want an I'll recommend a case for you. As to the cards themselves, Saphire seem like a decent brand from what I've seen. I think price will prolly be the decider there.

Funny cause I've had my 8800GTX running in one of these cases for over a year without a problem.

Awesome! And I hope it continues to run fine for you, I really do!
I'm just commenting on my personal experiences from working at CA for the last two years as a tech. Quieter cases and poor airflow are the biggest contributors to card failure.

Just out of curiousity Mass, when was the last time you dusted your case out?

Quieter cases and poor airflow are the biggest contributors to card failure.

Surely you actually mean when dicks overclock their video card and cpu in a small case with no name psu and oem cooler.

oh im not really sure now, ill probably get a new system the way things are going, in a couple of months, by which time ill probably want different things/better too.

but right now it'd be a Asus EAH4870 HTDI 512M RV770PRO DDR5 PCIE2.0 DVI HDTV HDCP

yeah, i wouldnt want to overclock unless theres next to no difference in heat/lifetime use

Yea I'm looking at the 4870 atm too, Tho the 1gb version instead as I like to play in 1920x1200 just because I'm lame :P Unfortunately that brings it up to $453 from $365(512mb) but reports indicate its a great card and dam worth it..
Unless I can get a 8800gt or better in AGP ?? :P

And honestly ... the 4850 I got, rapes my 8800gtx ... sad but true.

I have an old 8800GTS 640Mb would it be worth upgrading it to the latest offering from ati? How much of a performance increase did you get over yours? I was looking at them and the ones I looked at were PCIE 2.0, I'm pretty sure my oldass motherboard is only 1 so I'm guessing an upgrade of that would be in order too?

edit: hermi: I'm coming in to see you & buy stuff, gimme a discount :p

last edited by whoop at 04:07:12 26/Jan/09

Samsung sources different manufacturers for it's panels, meaning that image quality can vary widely from one product to the next. On the flip side, they do have probably the best warranty/replacement policy from what I've seen.

When I last went searching for the best monitor features/response/cost wise, the best I could come up with was the benq g2400w. There were some other really good panels I was looking for, one of which had excellent response times. But I was unable to find any sellers for these panels in Aus, and couldn't be bothered trying to find a place to ship it international (old screen was dying and needed fairly quick replacement.)

Should be able to get one for about $370 or so, if you can afford that. Then again, the samsungs have come down a bit since I last looked so they are a good option too.

High end cards and quiet systems just don't go together (unless water cooling is used).

Generally high end cards are dual slot and have plenty of cooling (and a fairly noisy fan when running at max) right out of the box, so they don't really suit a quiet case if you want quiet all the time.

last edited by icewyrm at 11:02:03 26/Jan/09

Surely you actually mean when dicks overclock their video card and cpu in a small case with no name psu and oem cooler.

I assure you he's talking about running @ stock.

how're the ATi cards going these days Hermi? They were still heaters when I left..