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#1
25th Mar 2009, 10:37
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Hello. So I'd like to swap out my motherboard, processor, video card, memory and possibly a new hard drive and sound card.
Here's what I got in the computer (minus board, process, vc, and memory): A) Windows XP Professional B) Western Digital Caviar SE WD3200JB 320GB 7200 RPM 8MB Cache IDE Ultra ATA100 Hard Drive - OEM C) NZXT LEXA-NP Black/ Silver Aluminum Construction Plastic Front Panel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case D) Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeMusic 7.1 Channels PCI Interface Sound Card E) ZALMAN VF900 - CU LED 2 Ball VGA Cooling Fan/Heatsink F) APEVIA Chameleon ATX-AS550W-BL 550W ATX12V v2.03 Power Supply I also have this in a box but its probably pretty outdated: EVGA 256-P2-N584-AR GeForce 7900GT 256MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16 SLI Supported KO Video Card - Retail So I'd like to spend $1000-$2000 for the board, process, memory, and video card. I'm going for at least quad core with 4gbs ram. Mainly going to be used for gaming and video/photo editing. Any suggestions or advice on what I should get would be awesome. Thanks in advance. I've also considered getting a solid state drive (is this practical/possible?). I have an Asus netbook with solid state and it seems to start up fast and I've been told files permanently delete with one which would be nice if I ever sold it. Any help would be great. |
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#2
25th Mar 2009, 10:51
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Give this a skim and let me know if you have any questions after that.
As for SSDs, the good ones are very expensive (around $500-$600): if you're willing to spend that much on them, they can have very good read times, but most HDDs are pretty fast now.
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"I loved the P182 so much that, when my wife's system was all noisy and needed all sorts of cleaning, I bought her one. Then, when I wanted a cat, I bought a P182. The P182 is not a cat per se, but it's still an excellent buy."
My System: 日夏子
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#3
25th Mar 2009, 13:54
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Hey great guide and suggestion. So one of your suggested builds included:
Quote:
Everything looks good but if you might be able to answer some of the following, it would help tremendously: A.) Is my PSU sufficient or should I include the Corsair? B.) Will this be compatible with my case? C.) If I get a better processor/motherboard, which should I get? I'm willing to spend $300-650 for both. Should I definitely not get the quad-core for gaming/video editing (I'm not doing rendering/3D/etc)? I'm not completely convinced it wouldn't be good for the future proof thing but I don't know. D.) Could I step that memory up to 8GB of ram? E.) Should I get the optical drive or a better one. $24 for it just makes me a little nervous. F.) In 4-5 months after the build can I add a second of those Sapphire video cards? Thank you so much! BTW, 850W PSU seems like quite a bit of energy. I'm just wondering if that is necessary. It just seems weird because my mac mini is 110W and I leave that on 24/7..no sound or heat, my MBP is 85W and my eee pc is 36W. |
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#4
25th Mar 2009, 14:16
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Real time video editing is solely predicated on the speed of your video card, so the quad-core processor won't make a difference. If you do a lot of exports and conversion afterward, it will, but unless you do it a lot it's throwing your money out the window.
You should definitely buy the Corsair. APEVIA is a very low-tier PSU brand. You could also get the Corsair 520HX, because you're correct that even high end builds fail to use very much power and it's modular. I only say the 850TX because it's a very high quality unit, but the 520HX is just as good. Should fit in your case fine, though it might be a little tight. Optical drives are all the same as far as price. If you do Blu-Ray etc ripping or something you could get one of those but $20-$30 is the market standard for DVD burners, it's not "budget" or anything. Crossfiring another card will be largely useless - by the time you want to put another one in, a single card solution will beat them both. A 4870X2 should be easily enough for maxing out everything until then. If you want a new sound card I'd say go for it - the X-Fis are okay but if you have nice speakers or headphones you may want to look at HT's stuff which use nicer chipsets. I did say to buy two of the 2x 2gb sets so it would be 8gb :)
__________________
"I loved the P182 so much that, when my wife's system was all noisy and needed all sorts of cleaning, I bought her one. Then, when I wanted a cat, I bought a P182. The P182 is not a cat per se, but it's still an excellent buy."
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#5
25th Mar 2009, 15:55
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Ok sweet thanks so much for the help, I'll probably be able to order that and still have enough for a new hard drive and a second screen (I can run two off that video card I assume).
So the only thing left is for me to figure out exactly which dual core processor I should get. I have the dual core 2ghz in both my macs and I'd like something much faster because they seem to slow down quite a bit at times. I'll get that video card but I need to check if it works for 2+ screens and I was wondering if I should consider one with hdmi imputs (I didn't check if that one had any...) in case I run it to a TV at some point. Thanks again, you saved me about 5 hours of researching each component. |
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#6
25th Mar 2009, 15:58
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also, I don't really know anything about overclocking it but I guess I can just read up on that.
Thanks again. |
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#7
25th Mar 2009, 16:09
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DVI is HDMI, so it's not a big deal to get one with HDMI out. 4870X2 will run 4 monitors at once.
The E8500 will be substantially faster than any laptop CPU.
__________________
"I loved the P182 so much that, when my wife's system was all noisy and needed all sorts of cleaning, I bought her one. Then, when I wanted a cat, I bought a P182. The P182 is not a cat per se, but it's still an excellent buy."
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#8
25th Mar 2009, 17:11
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Ok thanks again. I'm ready to order everything so I'll get on that. I guess the only thing is deciding on E8500 for $179.99 or E8600 for $269.99.
I've already got 2 DVD drive is it so I guess I'll just keep them if they're mostly the same. Maybe I'll switch out the fans too...I remember one of them was whining (haven't used it in awhile). Thats awesome it supports 4 monitors, I might have to consider that. I appreciate the help. |
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#9
25th Mar 2009, 17:58
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Fans are cheap, I recently ordered some nice Yate-Loons from Petra's Tech Shop and the shipping was really fast and I even got a note in the box. Their prices are pretty good too.
You should definitely go with the E8500, the difference is like 160mhz between the two. E8400 -> E8500 might net you a E0 stepping, E8500 -> E8600 gets you nearly nothing for $90.
__________________
"I loved the P182 so much that, when my wife's system was all noisy and needed all sorts of cleaning, I bought her one. Then, when I wanted a cat, I bought a P182. The P182 is not a cat per se, but it's still an excellent buy."
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