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21st Aug 2008, 16:53
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Recommended Computer Parts Guide 2: ATI Recuperation Appreciation Station Rather than make tireless edits to the old one, I've decided to draft a new guide to picking out parts for a new computer. A lot has changed since the writing of the old guide: namely, Intel's launched 45nm quads, AMD's still failed to launch anything spectacular, nVidia's overstayed its welcome launching the low price/performance GTX 200 series, and ATI has responded by again becoming a competitive force in the GPU market. I'll quote the beginning of the old post. Quote:
CPU Best deal: The E8 series, or “Wolfdale”. Believe it or not, these are still the best deal on the market. The E7200 crushes the AMD Athlon 6000, and both the budget 7200 and its big brothers, the E8200, E8300 (rare) and E8400 beat out AMD's chips. Don't get the 8500 - it has a very slim performance benefit over the 8400, even though it's been lowered to around $20 over the 8400 you can make up that clock speed difference in thirty seconds in the BIOS. Same with the E7300. Now that we have 45nm quads that are affordable, it's time to think about quads a little more. The lowest cost 45nm quad, the Q9300, is not a bad deal. But it still has the inherent problems with quad-core processors. It's much harder to overclock to a reasonable margin than the 7200 or 8XXx (due to the lower multiplier, higher heat, and other factors), and you will not see substantial performance increases in any games. Lost Planet (well, UT3, but LP made a lot of optimizations) and Supreme Commander are the two games that use quad-threading extensively. I'm not sure anybody actually *plays* Lost Planet, and Supcom runs well on dual-core computers anyway. The only reasonable argument seems to be the "future-proof" defense, but here's a little story to illustrate why this might be a fallacy. Back in the Pentium 4 days, Intel was getting a little cocky. Ignoring the relatively inefficient, power-hungry NetBurst architecture, they triumphantly claimed they could get their chips to 4GHz, eventually getting up to 6GHz with the same architecture farther down the line. Well, this didn't work out so hot, but it was a harbinger of half-assed attempts at extending the life of the architecture. In an effort to preface the dual-core revolution, Intel introduced hyperthreading on some of the faster, later released P4s. Hyperthreading was essentially supposed to turn the single-core P4 into a sort of hybrid dual core, sending instructions to the CPU when it was idle (like on a cache miss).The problem was that the benefits were slim - gains were shown mostly in synthetic and mathematical programs, and some applications even ran slower. In an attempt to drag NetBurst out as long as possible, Intel ended up creating a technology that was much more of a fancy name to put on a processor than an actual performance booster - and not until Nehalem would they attempt to implement the "two thread a core" system again. The point is that predicting the future like this is generally short-sighted. So, you have two extra cores, and so does Nehalem, except for the most budget of processors. So what? The architecture is completely different, the front side bus is gone..who knows what other sort of improvements and changes will exist? Why make current purchasing decisions based on incomplete crystal-balling? Hindsight is 20/20 - foresight is legally blind, especially in the computer industry. Do remember that the CPU is not a "bottleneck" in most situations. The CPU largely just does physics and AI. The former is going to be usurped by the GPU. So a E7200 system with a 8800GT is going to beat out a E8400 system with a 9600GT or 3850 or a 8600GTS or something. Speaking of the 7200: it's $130. It's not an expensive processor by any means, and I don't suggest going to a Pentium D or something from it (the E2xxx series, at least some of them, are decent, but it's still quite a jump). If you have less to spend, you may want to wait or critically consider the rest of your components. You might consider waiting for the E5200 to launch- high multiplier, 45nm, decent performance. But it's still a Pentium D, with all the things that come with that. AMD also doesn't have too bad of offerings in the low-end. As for high-end, the Extremes are still really really expensive and really really powerful. The QX9770 and QX9650 are both excellent..but..do you really want to spend 1K on a processor? RAM Good old DDR 800, oh how I adore you. Still. The majority of DDR1066 is just rebranded DDR800. Make sure it's manufactured by a good company, and is dual-channel (80% of the RAM you'll find is good memory, just watch out for SuperPowerMemorySpeedClockPC's VALUEMAX 4000 stuff). Do consider buying a large amount of RAM (~6-8GB), because of its prices. I'm changing my recommendation from DDR3 for the reason that speeds right now aren't what they should be. If you buy DDR3 right now, it's unlikely you'll be able to use that low-speed stuff in the future. So what gain do you get out of it? High-speed DDR3 is prohibitively expensive - so overclockers with too much money are the only people I'd recommend it to right now. This can change, however, and since the X58 board was announced with DDR 1600 we know what kind of DDR3 is going to be the best to buy. If prices are good, go ahead. If not, don't bother. Latencies and speeds don't matter too much. Should you run your RAM at the rated speed (or higher) and timings? Sure. But don't spend any money on "low latency" RAM. OCZ Reaper, for example, is standard 1066 RAM with some nice heat spreaders and low timings, but it's $40 more than the equivalent. Is your RAM _really_ going to get that hot? Hard Drive Hard drive prices have ran into the ground over the last eight years or so. One can easily pick up a terabyte of storage for under $250, an amount of storage large even for a server at the start of the millenium. All that needs to be said is this: pick a reliable brand, and more cache is better – almost all hard drives are 7200RPM, which is the recommended speed. Most people feel Western Digital is one of the most reliable brands, mixed opinions about Seagate, Hitachi, and Samsung, with IBM and Maxtor at the bottom, but this is largely situational. If you're paranoid about faiure, and if you have the money, is to purchase more than one hard drive to minimize problems if one goes dead – setting them up in a RAID setup will allow you to “mirror” the disks. While your drives will fill up faster, capacity is so cheap that most will never run into a problem. Even if you don't decide to do RAID, putting one on the network, being able to format the OS disk and work with your data on another computer at the same time..all very advantageous. Some of the 10K RPM drives are being tied or beaten in speed tests by 7200RPM drives (Samsung F1 for example). I recommend checking out prices and seeing if the 10K RPM drives are within a price margin you like. Don't buy SSD. Just don't. It's not worth it unless you carry your tower around when you go on errands and frequently drop it. Motherboard Best deal: The PX5 and PX1 lines have done well - P45 and P41 are both excellent choices. Make sure to pick something that supports a FSB of 1333 (most can), this will allow you to use the 45nm Wolfdale chips discussed above. FSB 1600 doesn't matter, unless you're running some crazy $1.5K processor. The P45 chipset is great, continuing the rock solid stability and performance of the P35, no bells and whistles. Note that if you are considering a high-performance system and still want a P45, the 9800GX2 is not a bad idea. Despite its price, it is essentially a 8800GTS SLI setup in a box. However, it's usually cheaper and better for performance to get a real SLI/Crossfire board. You can also run Crossfire x8 x8 on the P45, which doesn't limit performance too much, but still might not be worth it. Your call. The Intel X38 and especially X48 chipsets have matured. They are no longer as hot and have much better BIOS. If you are looking to do Crossfire (which looks a lot better now then it did in the nVidia days), and don't care too much about them being old, this is the best choice. As for SLI, there are two chipsets that'll support them (besides the old 650i and 680i). The 750i chipset, at least some versions/boards, can handle full x16 SLI (do NOT settle for x8 x8 or x16 x8 if you really want to do SLI!). The 780i has been plagued with issues, making it not the best pick right now. This may change in the future. P43 is the best budget board right now. You could also pick up a P35 board, but the P43 is superior in essentially every way. Future prospects? It's likely the 780i will get better, but the X48 & P45 are pretty well ironed out at this stage, and ATI is coming back from the dead. I wouldn't hesitate. Video Card Best deal: This is the big news of the last couple months- ATI is back, in full force. nVidia had been dominating the high-end market for a significant amount of time (since the 8xxx launch), then flooded the mid-range market with a bunch of excellently priced but oddly named cards. The 9600GT, 9600GSO, 8800GT, 8800GS, 8800GTS 320, 8800GTS 640, and debatably the 8800GTS 512 are all mid-range and they all perform similarly (the 8800GTS 320/640 are at a disadvantage due to their older G80 chipset, though). ATI had competed for a while in the (relatively mediocre) mid-range market by challenging the overpriced, largely worthless 8600GT/8600GTS with their HD 3850, but the 8800GT's release, then the even cheaper 9600GT's release, nipped that in the bud. Not anymore. Since there's so many different cards on the market right now, here's how they break down: BUDGET: 8400GS/8500: These are not for gaming, they're for doing things that require a discrete card but not a powerful one. Under no circumstances for a gaming build. X1950/8600GT: Perform similarly, though the 8600GT's drop to around $50 has challenged the ATI low-end market. The 8600GT ranks about equal with the X1950 Pro. Still, they can't match the mid-range cards. MIDRANGE: 8800GTS 320MB/640MB (G80): These cards are outdated and not worth it for the price. They were great a year ago, not so much anymore. 9600GT/9600GTO/8800GS/HD 3850: All of these are about the same performance-wise, but the 3850 is more expensive. 8800GT: This one performs pretty similar to the above. Was the best buy for a while. Do not get the 256MB version. Ever. 8800GTS/9800GTX: These two are basically the same thing, with only minor differences and therefore minor performance differences. In fact, neither provide too much of an increase over the 8800GT, but their prices are so similar it's not a bad idea to pick one of these up. Or at least wasn't, until.. MID-HIGHEND: 4850/GTX 260: The former is the best deal on the market now, the latter probably the worst. The 4850 performs within 10% of the 8800GTS/9800GTX in some tests, and over 50% in others. And it's about the same price: $175-$200. The latter costs $100 more. 4870/GTX 280: Same thing as before. Massive markup on nVidia's offering for no real difference. The 4870 is an excellent high-end card. If you have the money, go with it. In summary, nVidia is no longer price/performance king. If you have the money for a 4850 (and I personally hope you do: this is the most important part of the build!) buy it! If you have enough for the 4850, buy it! If you don't..see if you can shave anything off your other purchases. Power Supply: *spark* "OH GOD MY GRAPHICS CARD JUST GAINED SENTIENCE" I love this section, because it allows me to discuss one of the craziest markets in PC parts. Despite its relative simplicity (AC mains power in, DC power out) PSUs are one of the most, if not THE most, important things to criticise in your build. The PSU market is the gamiest show in town: there are bad manufacturers, misleading wattage totals, and cheap capacitors everywhere. If you want to see why a budget PSU is a bad idea, check out this. Yes, the best case scenario is severe, likely fatal, and widespread hardware damage, and the worst case scenario is sparks and a big black mark on your wall. If given a choice between two newbies to building, one with some $9.99 950W PSU and a 9600GT and E8400, then another with a Corsair or PC Power & Cooling or Corsair 650W and some worthless 8400GS and Pentium D or something, I would infinitely prefer yelling at the latter about his poor choices than getting hit by liquid heavy metal capacitor death-spit flying into my vulnerable upper torso. I've had enough of that in chemistry classes. Most of the time if a PSU goes bad, it'll just go ZAP and die, but overall it's not a risk you want to take. Modular cabling is a good thing. Modular cabling means that you don't have thousands of unruly power snakes blocking your fans, impeding airflow, eating your mice and all that stuff snakes do, except this time with ELECTRICITY running through them. In seriousness, it means you only have to plug in what you need - ATX, 4 pin, PCI-E, SATA, maybe fans on the molex connectors. However, think of this in the terms of a Venn diagram. The big red circle on the left is modular PSUs, the tiny dot on the right are quality PSUs. If I had to hit the intersection of the two in a darts game, I'd probably walk out. It's that small of a subset: you really need to be even more vigilant looking at modular PSUs than the standard. Luckily, there's a few bright spots in this polluted sea of failure. Corsair has recently moved on from making mediocre memory to making about the best power supplies in the business, not only in reliability and power but in price. Granted, they're mostly a front for Seasonic as an OEM, but who cares? Let's use their 450W PSU as a way to explain why shopping around based on wattages alone is not a good idea. Corsair's 450W, along with some other good brands' 500Ws, can easily power a quad-core CPU, 4GB of RAM, and a 4850. You might be wondering why this is so: for example, the 700W OCZ GameXStream is a big seller, for nearly double the (without rebate!) price of the 450W Corsair. The answer is that wattages are nothing but a convenient but overly general yardstick that has been hijacked by poor manufacturers. Let me explain how this works. Without getting too technical, the wattage rating of a PSU is based on the amount of amps it can put out. There are three main types of current that a PSU outputs, at separate voltages: +3.3V, +5V, and +12V. Back in the day, everyone was happy living on the +5V rail. However, there was trouble in Olde Motherboardland, as when Intel decided to introduce the power-hog Pentium 4, everything began switching over to +12V. PSU manufacturers had a problem - most of their amps were on a +5V rail, so GPU manufacturers began overstating their wattage totals to make sure people wouldn't try to run +12V heavy graphics cards on +5V heavy power supplies. This is no longer the case. What you want to look for is not the total wattage. Use it as a benchmark. Dodgy PSU manufacturers will play the old game of putting more amps on the +5V rail, which is useless for your gaming setup. So what you want to do is see how many of the rated watts are derived from the +12V rail: Corsair's 450W can put out 33A on it. This is pretty good. The GameXStream, by contrast, has four +12V rails only rated at 18A. While if you add these together it sounds lovely, it's not - there is no possible way to balance components across these rails satisfactorily. This is bad. You'll also notice it puts out 36A on the +3.3V rail and 30A on the +5V rail. The +5V rail is commonly eaten up by lower power devices such as USB. So at least your flash drive will still work as your SLI setup chokes on dust.  A colleague of mine at the Steam forums put it this elegantly: Quote:
Look for more than 25A on single-rail systems and 20A on dual-rail systems. Avoid quad-rail systems like the plague. Or, if you don't want to get technical, just buy a Corsair or PC Power and Cooling PSU. 450W will be fine for a single card setup, 650W+ is recommended for SLI or crossfire. There are other brands out there. But they can't touch Corsair, and they can barely touch PCP&C (who has been not up to snuff since OCZ bought them imo). When in doubt just buy them. I may look like a fanboy here, but they have probably been the best thing to hit this market for a while. P.S.: If it has LEDs, run. Monitors: Monitors are relatively simple. There are three main price points to look at: 19", 22", and everything over 22". Despite the sage "look at reviews!" advice, essentially the biggest deal here is resolution. A long time ago, computer monitors did 800x600 and 1024x768. Now, the smallest real LCD resolution that's worth it is 1440x900. 22" monitors should be 1680 x 1050 if at all possible - there's really no reason to get a few more inches if you're not getting a resolution upgrade. The highest that's affordable is 1920x1200, which is only available at over 22". For gaming, you want to make sure you 1. run at the ideal native resolution of your LCD and 2. have the hardware to support it. Higher resolution and anti-aliasing both take up a lot of VRAM, and if you're running 1920x1200 you might seriously want to look into Crossfire or SLI. Games these days will run OK on single-GPU hardware at that resolution, but once the gap between "everything but Crysis" and Crysis starts getting filled by games with middle-of-the-line requirements, you might be hurting with the bottleneck. A note about HD video. Monitors have been doing what is now called "HD" for a while now. 720p, which is the lower tier of "HD", is 1280x720, which is slightly lower than the first non-WS monitors output after 1024x768 stopped being standardized. The number of horizontal to vertical pixels is called the "aspect ratio": non-widescreen, like 800x600, is called "4:3" and matches what normal standard TVs use. You can easily independently verify this - divide both sides by 200. HD content bound for TVs, which run at 720p (1280x720) or 1080p (1920x1080), is at a different aspect ratio: "16:9". As the CRT dies, LCD manufacturers are switching to widescreen aspect ratios. There's a slight problem however - LCDs use the WXGA, WSXGA, and WUXGA formats, which are actually 16:10. So your 1080p video at 1920x1080 on a 1920x1200 screen might slightly be stretched vertically. There are a couple solutions to this problem - black bars, for example, which was common to accommodate regular TVs, and also vertical stretching. So here's the deal - if you want to view 720p content but don't care about 1080p, a 19" monitor with 1440x900 will work well. If you want 1080p content, you're best getting a 24" 1920x1200 monitor. Anything lower and you're downscaling. A 20-22" monitor at 1680x1050 will also work reasonably well, but you may get some blockiness. Other numbers to look at:
Sound Cards: There's not too much to talk about here. Creative Labs is the largest manufacturer of audio stuff and has been for some time. Other companies have tried to break into the market but their stuff tends to be mediocre. The Asus Xonar isn't too bad, but has some issues. Software emulated EAX is buggy, it requires front panel hookup (why???), it has serious problems with positional sound. The Xtremegamer from Creative is often around $50 with mail in rebates, topping at about $80. Why should you spend anything on a sound card? Onboard is decent, and a lot of it supports 5.1 out of the box. Midrange sound cards are all trash (Audigy SE, etc), mostly because standards on onboard audio are getting better. However, when you play Battlefield 2 or a good quality MP3 with one, you will definitely tell the difference. They also offer surround 3D effects if you have a 2.1 speaker system (which are remarkably realistic), and stuff like the Crystallizer that is pretty useful. I'm one of the people that thinks a nice mouse (MX518!), sound card, and keyboard (Saitek Eclipse!) are just as important as a lot of other choices in your build, especially with 6600GTs running 60fps in CoD4. Do consider these things. Not only will you do better in games (positional sound, better footstep hearing, sensitivity settings for better sniping), you'll just be more comfortable. Cases: I don't follow this too closely, to be honest. A good smaller case is the Antec Three Hundred, a good larger case is the Antec Nine Hundred. If you like other designs, go wild. Aluminum is light, steel is heavy, alloy is mixed. Coolermaster is a decent brand too. Speakers/Headphones: 2.1? Z-2300 (I have them, they're nice). Room for 5.1? Z-5500. I haven't found any better speakers. As for headphones, Sennheiser's are the best. HD280 is pretty cheap, great sound. Headsets with very good quality sound really don't exist, unfortunately. Most also break easily. I suggest a desk or clip on mic with a good pair of headphones. If you can't do that, the Creative HS-900s are okay, I guess. Steelseries aren't too bad either, just pricey. Heatsinks/Fans: Xigmatek HDT-S1283. Less than $50, one of the best if not the best coolers. AC7 Pro is good too, but this is better. Get it! RECOMMENDED BUILDS BUDGET - AMD CPU: AMD Athlon 64 X2 5400+ (2.8ghz) ($87) Motherboard: MSI K9N2G Neo-FD($84) Video: ZOTAC 9600GT ($95) RAM: G.SKILL 2GB DDR2 800 (note the AMD combo deal, could get a 6000+ if you're so inclined as well, also set memory voltage to 1.9V) ($44) PSU: CORSAIR CMPSU-450VX 450W ($55) Optical: LITE-ON Black SATA ($24) HDD: Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 250GB ($60) Case: Antec Three Hundred ($59) or COOLER MASTER Centurion 5 CAC-T05-UW ($50) TOTAL: $504 ==== BUDGET - INTEL CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E7200 ($120) Motherboard: BIOSTAR TForce TP43D2A7 P43 ($80) Video: ZOTAC 9600GT ($95) RAM: G.SKILL 2GB DDR2 800 ($44) PSU: CORSAIR CMPSU-450VX 450W($55) Optical: LITE-ON Black SATA HDD: Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 250GB ($60) Case: Antec Three Hundred ($59) or COOLER MASTER Centurion 5 CAC-T05-UW ($50) TOTAL: $537 ==== MIDRANGE: CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E7200 ($120) Motherboard: ASUS P5Q Pro ($140) Video: SAPPHIRE 100242L Radeon HD 4850 ($160) RAM: G.SKILL 2GB DDR2 800 ($44) PSU: CORSAIR CMPSU-450VX 450W($55) Optical: LITE-ON Black SATA ($24) HDD: Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD6400AAKS 640GB ($84) Case: Antec Nine Hundred ($120) or Thermaltake Armor Series VA8000BWS ($120) TOTAL: $748 ==== HIGH-END: CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 ($120) Motherboard: ASUS P5Q Pro ($140) Video: SAPPHIRE 100242L Radeon HD 4850 ($160) RAM: G.SKILL 4GB DDR2 800 ($80) PSU: CORSAIR CMPSU-750TX 750W($100) Optical: LITE-ON Black SATA ($24) HDD: Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD6400AAKS 640GB ($84) Case: Antec Nine Hundred ($120) or Thermaltake Armor Series VA8000BWS ($120) TOTAL: $828 ==== IF UNDER THIS LINE, WAITING FOR i7 ENCOURAGED ==== SUPER HIGH END #1 (XFIRE): CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 ($120) Motherboard: DFI LP LT X48-T2R X48 ($250) Video: 2x VisionTek 900244 Radeon HD 4870 ($500) RAM: G.SKILL 4GB DDR2 800 ($80) PSU: CORSAIR CMPSU-750TX 750W($100) Optical: LITE-ON Black SATA ($24) HDD: Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD6400AAKS 640GB ($84) Case: Antec Nine Hundred ($120) or Thermaltake Armor Series VA8000BWS ($120) TOTAL: $1168 ==== SUPER HIGH END #2 (DOUBLE-GPU): CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 ($120) Motherboard: ASUS P5Q Deluxe ($200) Video: SAPPHIRE 100251SR Radeon HD 4870 X2 ($560) RAM: G.SKILL 4GB DDR2 800 ($80) PSU: CORSAIR CMPSU-750TX 750W($100) Optical: LITE-ON Black SATA ($24) HDD: Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD6400AAKS 640GB ($84) Case: Antec Nine Hundred ($120) or Thermaltake Armor Series VA8000BWS ($120) TOTAL: $1288 Now you know how I feel having built my E6400 8800GTS 320MB rig last year for $1700! Even the highest-end build is under $1500!
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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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#2
21st Aug 2008, 17:40
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Wow, excellent post, rep added.
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Let me know what you want done with the old thread. Thanks. My System: Hybr!d
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#3
21st Aug 2008, 17:59
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You don't mention the 790i Ultra much less the new 790 they just cam out with Carbon, any thoughts on those two boards?
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#4
21st Aug 2008, 18:54
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I honestly haven't heard much about them and so don't have an opinion. I'll do a little research on them, but by and large I'm suspicious of any nVidia chipset at this point. They've always had problems, and the 780/790i have brought them to light. With ATI likely to recapture the crown with price/performance, both of Intel's major desktop lines (Pxx, Xxx) being consistently rock solid (except for Xxx's slightly warm northbridge), and the fact that Intel has already released spec on their i7/LGA1388 boards, I'm wary. Not a good idea to pass judgement before I read about them, though, so I'll get on that.
Also, on a related note, I meant P43, not P41 in the main text. Not sure where I got the latter. :)
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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."
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#5
23rd Aug 2008, 12:11
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Excellent thread Carbon. +1 Rep!
I agree with absolutely everything you suggested and it echoes what is said on many other forums. One thing I'll add is to do with the ATi 4850 / 4870 grapics cards. The ones with the single slot reference design cooler run hellish hot. Like 100 degrees C +. Supposedly there fine at those temps but I think they are just too high. Some of the cards come with better aftermarket coolers and apparently there a dual slot cooler designs coming / possibly out in some places now. I suggest you try to get one with a better cooler or get a decent after market cooler for them. With these temps, there is a lot of hot air going into the case. Good air circulation is a must!
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serverguy  My System: Eclipse
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#6
23rd Aug 2008, 12:56
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Most of that seems to be the fact that the fans are really low out of the box. Apparently they were designed to take the heat and not be noisy, but I do agree that if you can get an aftermarket cooled one that's even better.
The Zotac 8800GTs come with excellent coolers and are the same price: I haven't checked on the availability of better coolers on the 48XX series cards but I'm sure similar deals exist. Worst case scenario you can throw a Accelero S2 on there.
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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."
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#7
23rd Aug 2008, 14:05
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Yep. Heres how to turn the fan up:
Quote:
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#8
11th Sep 2008, 09:54
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The 45nm Pentium Dual Core E5200 has launched at $89.99. It is based on the same 45nm Wolfdale Core architecture as the E7200/E8400 and carries the same extreme overclockability as those two. If you're considering a very cheap AMD system, do yourself a favor and pick one of these up instead.
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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."
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#9
1st Oct 2008, 20:30
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Some news:
1. I've heard a lot of reports of flickering re: a issue with Catalyst AI, especially on the 4870X2. I would highly suggest extreme-highenders stick with a GTX 280, now that they're cheaper. Don't get a nVidia chipset, though. I just spent all night a few days ago troubleshooting a friend of mine's 680i..that was painful. 2. I've really started to like the Coolermaster Cosmos 1000 series. It's huge, it's elegant (like the P182), it's got a lot of nice features. It's also expensive ($200), but if you want a enthusiast case I don't think there's better. Lian-Li makes similar cases but the Cosmos beats them in price. 3. RAM prices are falling through the ground - I've seen 4GB of OCZ Platinum for $30 around NewEgg AR. Worth the money to pick 4GB up. 4. newegg.ca has launched.
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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."
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#10
9th Oct 2008, 07:55
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$44 4GB Corsair XMS after rebate
$69 AR for 9600GSO and 600W Thermaltake PSU Also, the dual platter 640GB WDs are even cheaper than before now. Get them over the Seagates or the larger (or smaller!) WDs. Similar deal with the 9600GTs - 9500GT is super budget $60 or so AR, but the 8800GT is only a little more than those 9600GTs (~$!00) and the 4850s are coming down to under $150 with rebates. So grab a 4850 if you can, otherwise 8800GT.
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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."
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