14 replies to this topic

[NC Derek]

after the argument between second shadow and monster, im just curious what the best computer would be. i plan on building my friend the best computer(under 3000) once he has the money bc hes loaded, and myself a super computer (probably around 2000) in a year or so. just out of curiousity, what would the best one be? i know there was a similar thread like this. but this one is different. i dont want a 50000 cancer research computer designed. im talking about 1 video card, 1 hard drive. none of that over done stuff. just the best computer if i was to just use it for games. so best card...best proc...best ram setup...best motherboard....and so on. price too. i was looking on tiger direct and new egg at parts, but i dont know whats the best and whats compatible with what.

this probably will be ovrelooked and not responded to by a lot of you guys, but to some of us this might be interesting for those who keep up with hardware.

[DarkShadow]

Get an AMD 64... an ATI card... an asus mobo, some corsair or kingston ram... antec PSU, there u go.

No more nVidia talk or I kill you fags, new ATI will kill their peice of sh*t 7800

[Massacre]

Get an AMD 64... an ATI card... an asus mobo, some corsair or kingston ram... antec PSU, there u go.

No more nVidia talk or I kill you fags, new ATI will kill their peice of sh*t 7800

How much would that stuff cost because Im getting a new comp soon too? any advice would be helpful.

thx

[Einhorn IS Finkle...]

Im runnin on a 925X chipset by intel with all the dolby digital onboard sound..it also has a built in raid setup for SATA hard drives...im running two 7,200 RPM SATA's which makes loading time so much less, but ya ATI graphics card and good ram...you should be all set...i didn't even come close to spending 3 grand i think this setup was like 700, i already had monitor etc obviously....In my opinion SLI setups are probably gonna go obsolete soon cause they just keep comming out with better cards ( for a single setup )...its not economical for companies to market dual card setups....so if u get a REAL good motherboard u can spend like under 200 for that...the big killers are the chips price wise, and the graphics card...its a waste to spend a ton on the best graphcis card out right now cause its priced hundreds more than one almost as good as it....so get the model below it, thats what i did, saved 200 bucks and i still run these games perfect

[keira]

cpu: athlon fx-57 (1,000)
x2 4800+ (900)
x2 3800+ (350) best bang for the buck, highly overclockable

memory: TwinMOS, OCZ, Samsung TCCD, Mushkin LevII (great
overclocking, low latency, about 150-200 for a gig)

hard drive: WD Raptor 10k 70+ gig s-ata (roughly 175)
I recommend scsi ultra320 but that becomes quite
pricey.

motherboard: DFI Lanparty SLI-D (if you go the vidia
route)(roughly 200)

[CakeCutter]

cpu: athlon fx-57 (1,000)
x2 4800+ (900)
x2 3800+ (350) best bang for the buck, highly overclockable

memory: TwinMOS, OCZ, Samsung TCCD, Mushkin LevII (great
overclocking, low latency, about 150-200 for a gig)

hard drive: WD Raptor 10k 70+ gig s-ata (roughly 175)
I recommend scsi ultra320 but that becomes quite
pricey.

motherboard: DFI Lanparty SLI-D (if you go the vidia
route)(roughly 200)

without dual core, or dual sli that right there is pretty intense

[Locke]

Games like CS:S and others don't even use dual processers instructions; you better off getting a FX-55 or FX-57 for gaming.

Oh, yeah, make sure you go buy a X1800. :o

[keira]

Games like CS:S and others don't even use dual processers instructions; you better off getting a FX-55 or FX-57 for gaming.

Oh, yeah, make sure you go buy a X1800. :o

No matter, performance is still on par with single core processors. The difference is negligible plus new drivers that are just coming out have increased performance for dual core. Even if previous games are built on single core technology, you get the added comfort when dual core gaming comes out. In the meantime, cpu intensive programs like adobe would love the added benefits of dual core along with a number of other programs.

[NC Derek]

is the x1800 the newest ati card? because i thought it was, but i was searching on newegg and there are cards over 700 bucks...thats a lot. better give me sucky sucky

[IWantWhiteCastle]

those 700 dollar cards are made mainly for video editors and 3d creators and such, not built specifically for gaming.

Edited by IWantWhiteCastle, 10 October 2005 - 12:18 PM.

[ShLoNkY]

For what its worth: I have an ati x800 pro VIVO from sapphire. This card uses the R423 GPU core and has 12 active pipelines. The x800 XT PE uses that SAME memory and GPU as the one i have. Therefore: Flash the bios and you got an X800 XT PE with 16 active pixel pipelines for about $250. This works only on a few cards. I HIGHLY doubt youll find a better/more powerful card for under $250. (newegg has this exact card for $239) Coupled with an AMD64 and youd have a badass rig. Check out the new MSI boards cuz they are pretty good. I have owned 2 socket 939 mobos from them (k8n neo2 platinum and k8n neo4 sli) and no complaints here.......

[monster]

I posted this in another thread, but, here is the frames / second comparison for x1800 xt and 7800 gtx in F.E.A.R. demo.

lol. Go ahead and get two 7800 gtx's in SLI.... you'll need them just to keep up with the new ati X1800 xt.

Edited by monster, 10 October 2005 - 06:07 PM.

[Frag0holic]

hehe, NVidia got slapped on the fingers by ATI yet again. NVidia used to own teh shizzle out of everyone else (including VooDoo), but not anymore. Now ATI is top dawg lol

[LucyTheProfessional]

Best PC without going overboard, in my opinion, as follows

Athlon64 3700+ (s939 obviously)
1x7800GTX (since the x1800XT turned out to be a bit of a flop...single slot + lower thermals + pretty much equal benchmarks = winner)
2x512 OCZ VX or Mushkin Redline or OCZ PC3200 Platinum Edition Rev. 2 (maybe its rev. 3, I dont remember - the one that Anandtech got to DDR618!!)
DFI NF4-D Ultra or the new Sapphire PURE mobo, SICK white PCB!
Seagate 7200.9 series HDD, size appropriate to your needs etc
Antec P180 (for no side window) or your choice of windowed case, but the P180>all
Antec Smartpower or Purepower PSU. Modular PSUs rock, so I recommend either the SmartPower or an OCZ Modstream
Any optical drives will do really

I think that's about it. Spend the money on Video, rather than CPU, since most games (HL2 aside) are GPU limited before CPU, and HL2 just does well at any resolution so it hardly matters.
That's my recommendation

EDIT: I checked this with two different sites to be sure, but anyone who tells you that ATI's new cards own the 7800 series is just plain wrong. I'm an ATI fan and was hoping for a big win, but neither company's cards really have a clear advantage - both cards have games they're strong in. The ATI cards, particularly the 1800XT fare better with Anti-Aliasing on, largely because of their higher core clock, but the nvidia cards do better in a lot of games that need a high fill rate because of the higher pixel pipeline count. Again, ATIs cards enjoy more memory bandwidth, and some say better image quality because of their new Anistrophic Filtering maths, but this is subjective. The reason I say a 7800GTX is a better choice is because it's a single slot design and has great thermals, and manages to keep up with the x1800XT in most benchmarks, and beats it in others. At higher resolutions in particular, the 7800GTX and GT usually take the crown because of the higher pixel pipeline count.

Either will serve you well, but I recommend the 7800GTX.

Edited by LucyTheProfessional, 11 October 2005 - 08:57 PM.

[NC Derek]

speaking of resolution, i used to run doom3 on 2400x1600 and it ran fine. until the latest patch came out, i can only do 1600x1200. why would it not even have 2400x1600 as an option? i have the same parts and monitor still, theres not a noticable difference, so was 2400x1600 not ment to be an option to begin with?