[Carbon]

Recommended Computer Parts Guide 3: Nehalem Nihilism

Guide #3 and not much has changed. The GTX series is better priced (and worthy competitors to the 4870 and 4870X2), AMD's launched a pretty good budget processor, Intel's launched a pretty mediocre processor, and ATI's got a pretty decent budget alternative to nVidia's 8800GT rehashes.

I'll quote the beginning of the old post.

Note: I'm using dollars, not pounds. Halving my dollar totals should give you a similar amount in pounds, but there may be a difference due to inflation so you should check your local site or retailer's prices on anything I say here. It may be different in the UK, but most of these trends will be universal. Another note: This is a gamer-oriented guide. While I have a budget section, that's more oriented towards budget gamers than people who just want to surf the Intertubes and play Texas Hold'Em.

Of course, the halving thing is hardly fair anymore, one dollar is now 0.6GBP (enough to throw it off), and UK prices are still much higher than here. I recommend Brits aim for "one step down" in the recommended builds at the end.

CPU

The E8 series, or “Wolfdale”. Still the best deal on the market, for most users. The E8500 is usually the better buy over the E8400 now: all E8500s manufactured use a new "stepping" that improves overclocking, "E0", while only some E8400s have this. If you're paying this much for a processor, you might as well pay the extra $20 and get the E8500. It's not a big deal either way, but why not? Don't worry about anything above this: the E8600 is $100 more for 300mhz more, and the E8700 will launch at 3.5ghz but probably be pretty expensive. Perhaps once the E8700 launches, the E8600 will come down, but for now the E8500 is fine.

I'm going to quote the old spiel about quads in a second, but let's sum this up quickly, as I'm sure everyone has seen the i7 launch.

Do you work with professionally, plan to work with professionally, or heavily use as a hobby multi-threaded software like video rendering, computer-aided drafting programs like AutoCAD, or 3D modeling applications?

If the answer to this is "no", do not buy any quad core processor. Don't consider any of them: i7, Phenom II, the old Core 2 Quads, 45nm and 65nm. Just get an E8500. Now here's why: feel free to skip this if you don't care about why and just want a recommendation. The "45nm quad" phrase does apply to i7 and Phenom II as well. They are all in the same bucket.

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.

The only game that will give you serious gains with a quad core processor is GTA4, because it is one of those Bad Console Ports. Any processor that plays it really well (a 45nm quad of some sort) is more than the cost of an entire Xbox/PS3 and a game. So don't buy them.

Now, if you are one of those rendering professionals, you have a lot of options. You likely don't care too much about budget. If you do, you can pick up a Phenom II, but you're probably not going to be buying a graphics card and therefore the most important thing here is going to be (guess what) the CPU. Pick up an i7: the most expensive one you can afford (they all are about the same price/performance wise). Then grab 6GB of DDR3, an X58 board of your choice, and the normal other stuff (PSU, etc).

Okay, back to dual-cores. 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. So spend most of your money on the GPU, not the CPU!

So what if you want to follow this advice and get a killer GPU and a 'good enough' CPU? You have two options: AMD's 7750+ Black Edition, and Intel's E5200. Both are great processors. The 7750+ is cheaper, though, and can overclock to an insane degree to beat every other processor up to the E8400. It's my budget choice.

RAM

DDR2-800 is fine for everybody. DDR2-1066 is fine for overclockers. You cannot lose either way and most 800 can overclock very well. If you just want to get to 4ghz, you can probably just do it on 800. Memory speed itself does not matter at all, so if you're not overclocking 1066 won't give you a speed boost. If some is cheap, though, give it a shot!

Just 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). If you multitask a lot, RAM is cheap. Get 4GB at least for any system (even budget), and 8GB if you feel like it.

DDR3 boards are expensive (as is DDR3 itself), and DDR3 shows hilariously small gains over DDR2. This is probably "too much money/too little sense" trap #1, so don't fall into it. Buy DDR2, put your money into price/performance efficient things like a GPU. The exception, of course, is if you have an i7 and X58 board (remember what I said above: if you're a gamer, Don't Buy These), and in that case make sure you buy it in sets of three, not two. 2GB, 4GB, 8GB sets are made for the people in the aforementioned trap with Core 2 systems and may even damage the CPU as they're set to run at higher voltages. So buy 3 or 6GB.

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.

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. The best HDDs around now are the 500GB Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 and the Western Digital 640GB Black. The 500GB is faster, the 640GB has a little better price per GB. Either one is fine. Any other HDD, especially TB HDDs will be extremely slow. Pair up two or three of these: you won't spend any more money and they'll be a lot faster.

One of the mistakes I made in a previous guide was that you should use RAID. You should not use RAID in any home environment. If you want to backup drives, back them up onto separate drives or DVDs and throw them in the closet. RAID 1-5 are horrible backup solutions and RAID 0 is Too Much Money Too Little Sense Trap #2 in that it provides imperceptable speed gains and doubles the risk of hard drive failure.

Don't buy SSD. It's not worth it unless you carry your tower around when you go on errands and frequently drop it. Cheap SSDs are slower than the aforementioned regular HDDs, expensive ones are, well, expensive.

Motherboard

For Intel processors, the PX5 and PX3 lines have done well - P45 and P43 are both excellent choices. FSB speed doesn't matter, unless you're running some crazy $1.5K processor, and yes, you can run DDR2-800 on a motherboard with a FSB of 1066, 1333, or anything. The P45 chipset is great, continuing the rock solid stability and performance of the P35. The P43 is the better budget system buy, paired with a E5200 it's cheap and just as solid. Most P45 boards are only a little bit more expensive though. Check out the EP45-DS3L and EP45-UD3P, the latter being the best motherboard per dollar at the moment.

Don't buy any nVidia chipset (750i/780i/790i), P35, X38, X48, or X58 boards (except in the latter's case where you have an i7 processor). They are all either outdated or unstable and too expensive. Motherboards based on P43 or P45 are the only ones you should buy.

For AMD, there's a lot of options. 780 boards are good, 790 boards are good (but overpriced), and there are a lot of other chipsets available as well. I would simply look for good-reviewed boards that support the original Phenom (the 7750+ BE is simply a Phenom with two cores).

Video Card

Not much news here. nVidia's GTX line has come down in price a lot. At budget, ATI is still winning, with the new 4830 (think of it as the 9600GT to the 9800GT: slightly worse, but quite a bit cheaper) at $100 and the 4850 at around $125. Most people with monitors that aren't huge (anything 1680x1050 or below) can go ahead and buy a 512mb 4850 or 4830 and be satisfied.

At 1920x1080 or 1920x1200, things get a little hairier. The 4870 and GTX 260 216 (the 260 with 216 stream processors, make sure to check this in Specifications on NewEgg or the equivalent on your retailer of choice!) are the contenders here, and you should essentially buy whatever's cheaper. Right now that's the GTX 260 216. The old 260 has pretty much dropped off the face of the earth. New 55nm 216s exist, but there's very little if any difference. As usual with video cards, unless a card is very badly or not reviewed, pick the cheapest card of that series available, as both ATI and nVidia let other companies make their cards and those vendors will frequently compete with each other. However, if you see a factory overclocked card or one with an aftermarket cooler (usually if the cover is off or the fan is very large) for very little or no money more than another, go for it!

A note: Brand loyalty here is dumb. There is nothing intrinsically better or worse because the design was made by nVidia or ATI. The only thing that the brand influences is drivers. I think most people think nVidia's drivers are better - they seem to be released a bit slower but tend to be more stable and work better with multi-card configurations. This shouldn't impact, say, the decision between a 9800GTX+ or 4850 or anything, but it's just a heads up.

Since there's so many different cards on the market right now, here's how they break down (categories/cards now rated as far as usefulness!):

BUDGET:

8400GS/8500/9400/9500: 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. The 9500GT is a little better but not worth the money. (all 0/10)

X1950/8600GT/4550/4570: Perform similarly, though the 8600GT's drop to around $50 has challenged the ATI extremely-low-end market. The 8600GT ranks about equal with the X1950 Pro. Still, they can't match the mid-range cards in price or performance. (X1950 and 8600GT 2/10, 4550 and 4570 3/10)

9600GT/4650/4670/9600GTO/8800GS/HD 3850: These are better budget cards than the cards above, but they're still not that great as far as price/performance. If you're stuck here, you're paying too much for your processor. The 4670 is the best here, but move up a notch and you'll get a lot more bang for your buck. (all except 4650 and 4670 4/10, those two 5/10)

MIDRANGE:

8800GTS 320MB/640MB (G80)/8800GTS/9800GTX: These cards are outdated and not worth it for the price. They were great a year ago, not so much anymore. (all 2/10)

8800GT/9800GT: Old cards that keep getting rehashed, will be rehashed once again as the GTS 250 or something pretty soon. Not worth the price either, with better ATI cards at nearly the same price point. (all 4/10)

4830: This outperforms the 8800GT/9800GT and is around $100. If you can't afford the 4850, this is a great card. (8/10)

9800GTX+/4850: These two compete..sort of. The 9800GTX+ performs the same or worse as the 4850 and is at least $30 more expensive, while the 4850 is the mainstay of the midrange line. Unless the 9800GTX+ has super-huge price cuts, the 4850 is the best deal on the market today. (4/10 for 9800GTX+, 10/10 for 4850)

MID-HIGHEND:

GTX 260/4870/GTX 260 216: The regular GTX 260 is pretty much outdated. It's not any less expensive than the 216 anymore, so we can pretty much just throw it out. This is the only market segment in which both ATI and nVidia have viable head-to-head cards. Both cards are great, but nVidia typically has better drivers and as of this writing (surely will change) has the price advantage. NOTE: When buying the GTX 260 make sure the one you select has 216 shader processors!

GTX 280/GTX 285: Best single-GPU cards you can get. Pretty minor differences over the GTX 260 though, so you're probably better off getting one of those and overclocking it. (all 7/10)

GTX 295/4870X2: Either is fine, but just as before unless you are trying to spend money, you may want to just get a 216 or 4870 and save your money. (all 7/10)

In summary, midrange ATI, high-end nVidia! 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 a larger monitor and enough money to buy a 260 216 or 4870, buy it! If you don't..maybe 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 this out. Yes, the best case scenario is popping, a dead PSU, and sparks, and the worst case scenario is a "boom" and widespread hardware damage. If given a choice between two newbies to building, one with some $9.99 950W PSU and a 4850 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. It means you only have to plug in what you need - ATX, 4 pin, PCI-E, SATA, maybe fans on the molex connectors. They also tend to be expensive, though, and therefore out of range of most budget builds.

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. 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 at one voltage. Hold onto that for a second. There are three voltages that a PSU outputs: +3.3V, +5V, and +12V. Back in the day, everything 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 one 12V rail. 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. So what's the conclusion?

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. 350W will be fine for a single card setup, 600W+ is recommended for SLI or crossfire.

Some recommended units are the 370W Silencer, 400CX, 420W Silencer, 450VX, 520HX (modular), 610W Silencer, 650TX, 850TX, and 1000HX in order of price. Buying any of the first four is fine for a budget setup, the 520HX, 610W Silencer or 650TX for a high end setup, and anything higher if you want to show off or something.

There are other brands out there. But they can't touch Corsair or PC P&C. 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. Some other units are just as good but overpriced (Earthwatts), but most are mediocre (OCZ, Thermaltake), and some are just bad (Coolermaster, Rosewill). So stick with the aforementioned good brands and you'll be OK.

P.S.: If it has LEDs, run.

Monitors:

Monitors are relatively simple. There are three main price points to look at: up to 22", 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. 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.

Recently launched have been 21" to 22" 1920x1080 monitors - these are relatively small in size but boast the capability to do native 1080p. These are absolutely great buys if you have the hardware to support them, and cost $50 more than regular 1680x1050 22" monitors. I don't recommend buying those anymore because of this. These are the sweet spot for monitors - you get a higher res at a discount price.

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 21-22" 1920x1080 or 24" 1920x1200 monitor. Anything lower and you're downscaling. And if you don't care about video, get the highest you can afford. The GPU and monitor are the best bang for your buck for gaming.

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. ASUS has the Xonar, HT has some audiophile stuff. If you need one consider the Xonar and Xtremegamer.

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 probably tell the difference (the former on about anything, the latter on good quality speakers or headphones). 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 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:

Cheap ones: Centurion 5 is the best here. Antec 300 is okay but a relatively poor case overall, its only real redeeming feature is the price.

Medium-priced ones: Coolermaster 690 is a good midrange case, probably the best. The P180 is the best case out there as far as price/features, but pricey.

Expensive ones: Coolermaster Cosmos 1000/1010 is good, as are Lian-Li cases.

Stay away from any numbered (300, 900, 1200) Antec cases.

Speakers/Headphones:

2.1? Z-2300 (I have them, they're nice). Room for 5.1? Z-5500.

Headphones..depends on how much you want to spend. "Gaming headphones" tend to be pretty terrible, if you have a lot to spend on these grab HD555s or Audiodynamics A700s. HD280s aren't bad either, but a little punchy as far as bass goes and not as high quality for nearly the same price as those two.

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 okay, but this is better. Get it! Alternatives include the Sunbeam Core Contact and basically any "heatpipe direct touch" cooler. When mounting these, don't forget to grab the backplate kit and apply your thermal paste (included) to the gaps between the heatsinks (not all over) for maximum effectiveness.

RECOMMENDED BUILDS

There may be better/cheaper alternatives in the same series for video cards, etc, so do check around, and feel free to mix and match motherboards and other parts from similar sets (UD3P to UD3L or UD3R, 500GB 7200.12 to 640GB WD or back, cases, PSUs, etc). Most are only included because of their price now, which may change drastically. The RAM is a special case as it was $50
for DDR2-1066: if it goes above this price, grab DDR2-800 for everything up to High-End. "FS" denotes free shipping, "R" denotes rebate.

BUDGET

CPU: AMD Athlon 64 X2 7750+ ($70) (FS)
Motherboard: ASRock A780GXE/128M AM2+/AM2 AMD 780G ATX AMD ($80)
Video: MSI R4830-T2D512 OC Radeon HD 4830 ($90) (R -$10)
RAM: G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1066 ($50) (FS)
PSU: PC Power & Cooling Silencer PPCS370X 370W ($50) (R -$15)
Optical: LITE-ON Black SATA ($24) (FS)
HDD: Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB ($65) (FS)
Case: COOLER MASTER Centurion 5 ($55)

TOTAL: $484 before $25 in rebates = $459

====

MIDRANGE:

CPU: AMD Athlon 64 X2 7750+ ($70) (FS)
Motherboard: ASRock A780GXE/128M AM2+/AM2 AMD 780G ATX AMD ($80)
Video: ASUS EAH4850 TOP/HTDI/512M Radeon HD 4850 ($145) (FS) (R -$30)
RAM: G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1066 ($50) (FS)
PSU: PC Power & Cooling Silencer PPCS370X 370W ($50) (R -$15)
Optical: LITE-ON Black SATA ($24) (FS)
HDD: Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB ($65) (FS)
Case: COOLER MASTER Centurion 5 ($55)

TOTAL: $539 before $45 in rebates = $494

====

MID-HIGH END:

CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 ($165) (FS)
Motherboard: GIGABYTE GA-EP45-UD3L ($99)
Video: ASUS EAH4850 TOP/HTDI/512M Radeon HD 4850 ($145) (FS) (R -$30)
RAM: G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1066 ($50) (FS)
PSU: PC Power & Cooling Silencer PPCS370X 370W ($50) (R -$15)
Optical: LITE-ON Black SATA ($24) (FS)
HDD: Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB ($65) (FS)
Case: COOLER MASTER RC-690 ($80)

TOTAL: $656 before $45 in rebates = $611

====

HIGH-END:

CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 ($188) (FS)
Motherboard: GIGABYTE GA-EP45-UD3P ($135) (R -$20)
Video: EVGA 896-P3-1255-AR GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 ($230) (R -$30)
RAM: G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1066 ($50) (FS)
PSU: CORSAIR CMPSU-520HX 520W ($110) (FS) (R $-15)
Optical: LITE-ON Black SATA ($24) (FS)
HDD: Western Digital Caviar Black WD6401AALS 640GB ($80) (FS)
Case: Antec P182 Gun Metal Black ($130) (FS)
HSF: XIGMATEK HDT-S1283 ($37) (FS)
HSF bracket: XIGMATEK ACK-I7751 ($9) (FS)

TOTAL: $993 before $65 in rebates = $928

====

SUPER HIGH END #1:

CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 ($188) (FS)
Motherboard: GIGABYTE GA-EP45-UD3P ($135) (R -$20)
Video: ZOTAC ZT-X28E3LA-FCP GeForce GTX 280 1GB ($335) (R -$30)
RAM: G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1066 ($50) (FS)
PSU: CORSAIR CMPSU-850TX 850W ($110) (FS) (R -$20)
Optical: LITE-ON Black SATA ($24) (FS)
HDD: 2x Western Digital Caviar Black WD6401AALS 640GB ($160) (FS)
Case: Antec P182 Gun Metal Black ($130) (FS)
HSF: XIGMATEK HDT-S1283 ($37) (FS)
HSF bracket: XIGMATEK ACK-I7751 ($9) (FS)

TOTAL: $1178 before $70 in rebates = $1108

====

SUPER HIGH END #2 (DOUBLE-GPU):

NOTE: GTX295 is sold out everywhere. Check into it later, guys, but as of this writing good luck getting a hold of one. 4870X2 until then.

CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 ($188) (FS)
Motherboard: GIGABYTE GA-EP45-UD3P ($135) (R -$20)
Video: SAPPHIRE 100251SR Radeon HD 4870 X2 2GB ($430)
RAM: 2x G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1066 ($100) (FS)
PSU: CORSAIR CMPSU-850TX 850W ($110) (FS) (R -$20)
Optical: LITE-ON Black SATA ($24) (FS)
HDD: 2x Western Digital Caviar Black WD6401AALS 640GB ($160) (FS)
Case: COOLER MASTER COSMOS 1000 RC-1000-KSN1-GP ($200)
HSF: XIGMATEK HDT-S1283 ($37) (FS)
HSF bracket: XIGMATEK ACK-I7751 ($9) (FS)

TOTAL: $1393 before $40 in rebates = $1353

As always please report any dead links, corrections, etc. Feel free to post threads if you want advice or a final check on stuff

[Hybr!d]

An excellent guide as ever Carbon, stuck, thanks!

[philthomas]

Nice update guide .... good job

[serverguy]

Awesome stuff.

[4D(Fordy(Ford) Ollie]

Originally Posted by Carbon

one dollar is now 0.6GBP (enough to throw it off)

In the current financial situation I don't think you need to do anything to the dollar really...


EDIT:
Actually I just checked - it's 0.7 now must have gone down a bit.. but it's hellish compared to what we're used to..

[Carbon]

Hello friends! I figure I should post some good deals as well as some little changes that have gone on in the market. NewEgg just sent me their "Hunting for Festive Deals" newsletter, which celebrates the Christian time of year when Jesus was resurrected from the dead to put together a sweet gaming rig for everyone in Nazareth and beat Pontius Pilate's clan "ROMAN PWNERS" 5-3 in a game of Counterstrike 1.6 on de_dust. Well, that's the only explanation for offering sales on stuff at Easter, so I'll permit a bit of historical revisionism.

First, general stuff:

- The GTX 260 and 1GB 4870 are ridiculously cheap now. You would be insane not to buy a high-end 1080p+ gaming system now, unless of course you bank on further decreases. Remember, the GTX 260 retailed for a while after launch for over $300, and that was the 192SP version. Now it's factory overclocked for $160 AR, 216SP at 655MHz (!). The 4870 is the same price but runs a little hotter: these cards both do well, though I tend to favor the 216 as of the games that aren't a tie the 216 usually wins in performance and the manufacturers tend to do better with cooling.

- For those of us still stuck at 1440x900 or 1680x1050, the 512MB 4870 is $159 but hey, who cares if you can get a 260 for the same price? Your choice is that or a IceQ 4850, on sale with rebate this week for $120 and free shipping. Obviously for the $40 you're getting a hell of a deal on the 260, but the 4850 is a better deal if you're concerned about heat (for example in a small case). Beware, it's dual slot though.

- There's supposed to be a $30 MIR on the 550VX, but it's failed to show up. If it does, though, tack another $5 off by using promo code EMCLRLV34. Probably not a bad time to note that Corsair has rebates on all their PSUs now, in particular interest dropping the 400CX to $39.99, especially because PC P&C seems to have figured out they were selling their 'Dell Upgrade' 500W Silencers at like $30 below what they wanted to and have messed up our fan favorite budget PSU.

- I guess there's a 2TB hard drive out now but who's going to pay $300 for a 5200RPM 2TB drive that could die when they can get much more capacity with data spread across a bunch of drives? Skip it, but it's at least there to come down.

- Do you hate the color orange? Just despise it? Do little bags with power supplies in them make you fly into a murderous rage? Skip the Corsair 750TX and get the PC P&C Silencer 750W which is certified orange-free. Well, except on the cables. It is the exact same unit as the 750TX, and you can knock another $10 off it with promo code EMCLRLV35. Most of the time if you're spending this much on a PSU, you can just get a modular 520HX which does everything a higher wattage PSU does except with modular but I hear there's audiophile-esque PSU snobs that thumb their noses at modular PSUs because they think the power is trapped which makes colder sound and causes molecular vibrations to distort the oxygen-free gold cables or whatever crazy nonsense they come up with so if you are one of those people or just need a ton of amperage for some crazy reason I guess this is a good buy!

- Are you an~*~xxXx]tremegamer~*~? Do you need ~*~XXTREME RAM for your XXTREME GAM1NG L1F3STYLE (XTREME HEADSHOT CLAN 4 LIFE 2 KILLERNICS SLI)~*~? Or do you need to pick up some DDR3 for your i7 workstation and are slightly embarrassed by those who share your purchasing decisions but for the entirely wrong reasons? Check out this 6GB DDR3 set by OCZ which is $90 with free shipping AR, and should be a pretty good start to an i7 build that, I hope, is sensible given your usage pattern.

- Just need to play some movies? I don't think you can beat this for a HTPC build, $25 each with rebate and it says if you buy more than four you can apparently save $3.55 on each. If you want to be the most xtreme gamer around, you could buy like 6 of these and put up a really crazy room with 12 40" HDTVs: AND SAVE TWENTY ONE DOLLARS. What a steal!

[4D(Fordy(Ford) Ollie]

You must have been in a particularly jolly/just generally amusing mood when you wrote that last post

I think I may just have to top you and have a room with 12 40" monitors, saving a whopping FOURTY TWO DOLLARS!

[Carbon]

Here's how the new 4890/GTX 275 goes down in the recommended graphics:

1440x900, 1680x1050: 4830, 4850, 4870 512MB
1680x1050, 1920x1200: 4870 1GB, GTX 260 216
(new) 1920x1200: 4890 1GB

The GTX 260 216 is better than the 4870, imo, but the 4890 blows the 275 out of the water, not because of performance but because of the card's features and price ($25 less AR). The 260 216 at $175-$200 is now easily deemed 'midrange' and so it's not a bad move to get it for 1680x1050 or whatever if you have the cash.

4890 is definitely a worthy step up from the 260 if you have the budget, it is price/performance king at 1920x1200 and $225 so go grab the damn thing if you're doing a high end build.

[Razer]

Reading that power supplies bit has well confused me.

Been looking at the StealthXStream PSU, 600W I think. Seems like overkill, you tell me what the best PSU I can get is for running a 4870 1Gb (Sapphire) and Q6600? Will post full specs if you like =) thanks

[Carbon]

Finishing up #4. This one's 4941 words, and the new one's 6267 words and growing, expect it to be up today, tomorrow, or the next day.