NEW Gaming Build $2000.00 Buget

[chipmunk]

i am new to this board. i live in south jersey,and work as a commercial roofer. this looks like a great board as far as i have seen. i have 2 desk top mach. and 1 lap top on a home network, just upgraded to verizon FIOS from DSL.
just looking for some advice on an additional gaming machine.



i am an intel guy. current mach. is antec alum case w/ 3- 90 mm fans/filtered front grill , P-4 3.o intel mob, ati 9800 256 ram vid card?, a 500 w antec power sup.,2 -160 gig WD hd,2 plextor 18x dvdrw, TV tuner,fax modem, 19" samsung led monitor,sony 3.5 floppy, i can't think of any thing else right now.

i would like to know what you guy's would do ??? i haven't been following the latest and greatest and need some input from those of you in the know.

i haven't been gaming for the past couple of years and i plan on jumping back in. just want a good mach. to do so.

i built my last 2 mach. and don't know if i am willing to do so again.

thanks

[Khalil]

You can build a killer C2D machine with a very nice video card for $2000.00
I think most would agree the C2D E6600 would be a good way to go.
If you live in Illinois or Indiana I would be glad to build it for you. :D

[TimPoet]

You could prolly fit in an 8800 GTX vid card in that budget!!!

[chuck4456]

CPU .......................................... INTEL C2D E6600
CPU COOLER............................... ZALMAN CNPS 9700
MOTHERBOARD........................... ASUS COMMANDO
MEMORY.................................... CORSAIR XMS PC 6400 (2x1GB)
VIDEO CARD .............................. EVGA 8800GTX
HARD DRIVE .............................. SEAGATE 250GB 16mb PRT SATA
POWER SUPPLY ......................... PC POWER & COOLING SILENCER 610

Case choice is entyrely up to you. Be sure that it's one that can provide adequate ventilation and room to grow.
This one should rock!

[LeftyAce]

I concur: C2D e6600, 2 GB ram, large harddrive of your choice (the Seagate 7200.10 drives are quite good). Don't know that motherboard, but ASUS rocks. . GeForce 8800 Video card. Case of your choice.

Khaliil, he's in south jersey. Sorry :-(

[danielson]

Well, what you need slightly depends on whether you are going to overclock or not, and whether you are going to be playing the new DX10 games or just the good old ones. Assuming you are going to play the DX10 games(which aren't even out and there won't be much DX10 gaming until the end of this year) then I can suggest a very good system.

E6600 $315 All prices are Newegg
ASUS P5B-E $150
CORSAIR ValueSelect 2GB PC-5300 $159
XFX 8800GTS 320MB $309 This is fine if you are using 22inch monitor or less. If not then bump up to a 640MB version for $450
Seagate 320GB hard drive $88
Lite On CD/DVD Burner $35
Case of your choice $100
SILVERSTONE Olympia 650w power supply $149
Logitech THX Z-5300e 5.1 Speaker $134
Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeGamer Sound Card $59

That's $1500 before taxes. Unless you're going to hardcore game at max settings on a large monitor, the GTS 320MB or 640MB Video Card is more than enough. The motherboard will intelligently overclock for you if it senses your system needs a boost. It's got solid capacitors and great reliability. The power supply is excellent. Overall it's a very nice system in todays market. Yes, you can get a more expensive very high end system, but this one will handle anything you can throw at it.

This price also allows you room to buy an operating system and anti virus program, or any other software you might be interested in i.e. Microsoft Office

[Freakitchen]

Danielson's suggestions are good ones. I would suggest, however, that you go for the eVGA flavour of that video card - XFX are a division of ECS/PC Chips and that doesn't say much for its quality.

You might also consider giving the on-board audio a try, before spending money on a soundcard.

FK

[TimPoet]

You might also consider giving the on-board audio a try, before spending money on a soundcard.
Why hold back when he has an excess of $500 in his budget? Quality is the issue here.

[Freakitchen]

That's fair enough, but I don't see the point of spending money for the sake of it. Audio quality is a subjective thing - he may never notice the difference. I like my music, and have never seen the need for purchasing a sound-card purely for audio quality purposes. The speakers make the difference, in my opinion. If the OP was an audiophile, with a quality speaker system and music stored in lossless codecs, then that would be a different story, of course.

[TimPoet]

I know there has been vast improvement with onboard sound while I was away, but I don't think it has completely replaced sound cards. Besides there's nothing like complete audio immersion during a good game, especially a FPS.

[danielson]

If a person is using a digital connection (spdif) out to your speakers then the quality of the mobo has little to do with your sound. Onboard sound that has an spdif out will work fine for most people. If you're using analog to your speakers and using the DAC's on your soundcard then the quality quickly becomes important. Also, if you are a somewhat serious gamer, you will want the support of 128voice EAX 5.0 and you won't get that with any onboard sound or any sound card other than Creative. Sound is quite personal, it's true. I suggested in inexpensive Creative card to support the OP's wishes for a gaming computer. Part of the reason was because I included a 5.1 speaker system in the package. :)

[glc]

I'd recommend holding off on a 8800 - within the next 6 months or so there will be a lot more DX10 cards to pick from - I'd stick a 7600GS or GT in as a placeholder if you are building now. If you can wait till the end of April, the E6600 is dropping about $100 and the DX10 scene should be more populated. Right now, Nvidia can't even get a set of Vista drivers for the 8800 to work right.

[Mr.Ferrari]

The ATI X2900XT series should be releasing around april/may, as will nvidia's updated 8900-series.

Could be an option.

[danielson]

Yes, if you're going to hold off on purchasing the E6600, you should hold off on buying any of it, as it will all be cheaper then. Buying a system part by part over time is the absolute worst way to buy it. If you have a computer now that will get you by, then just wait and buy the whole system towards the end of April when the prices drop.

[DarkPacMan77]

I didn't know about the "april" things you guys brought up, so thanks (I usually just read here lol, but that was interesting).

Are the other c2d prices dropping as well?... I'm thinking that would put some serious market tension on amd if the whole line of c2d prices dropped...

[glc]

http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2007/01/30/intel_22_april_price_cuts/

[chipmunk]

thank you guys for your input!!! i was thinking 2-vid cards? 2- HD's??? what do you guys think of intel MB's?? how does this SLI thing work out?? planning on a full tower.
is 650w enough on the power supply?

i don't think waiting till the end of april will work, my wife won't leave her pocket book open that long!!!

[TimPoet]

well, two vid cards in sli or crossfire can be good if you want to take the highest end cards and strap 'em together to get astronomical performance. Not so good for mid range cards, it's better to just spend the same amount of money for a higher end card.

Intel mobo's are great- very stable and reliable. Asus is great too and I think more overclockable.

2 HDD's can be a great setup.

If you must strike while the iron is hot, then go for it. Best to order all through Newegg.

[LeftyAce]

SLI isn't worth it. The performance increase just isn't there, and you spend more on a Mobo, psu and graphics cards. Why 2HDDs? If you're concerned about backups, get an external hdd (Or better yet, an internal hdd and put it in an Apricorn enclosure). That way if your computer's PSU goes down and kills the hdd, your backup is safe. That and a host of other reasons it's safer to have an external backup.

[Khalil]

Danielson's suggestions are good ones. I would suggest, however, that you go for the eVGA flavour of that video card - XFX are a division of ECS/PC Chips and that doesn't say much for its quality.
You might also consider giving the on-board audio a try, before spending money on a soundcard.

FK

I didn't know that Freak, glad I saw this post now I will never buy an XFX product or recommend it to anyone. :)

[glc]

Actually, XFX is a division of Pine Technologies, which I believe is a subsidiary of ECS.

[Freakitchen]

Just done a bit of searching on google for the link between ECS and XFX - one of the first links was to the 'Hexus' forums, on which a representative from ECS, working specifically for XFX, is an official member.

http://forums.hexus.net/showthread.php?t=47046

FK

[chipmunk]

ok witch vid card???
ASUS EN8800GTS/HTDP/640M GeForce 8800GTS GDDR3 PCI Express x16 HDCP Video Card - Retail

EVGA 640-P2-N825-AR GeForce 8800GTS 640MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16 SUPERCLOCKED HDCP Video Card - Retail

PNY VCG88GTSXPB GeForce 8800GTS 640MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16 HDCP Video Card - Retail

they are all within $20.00 of each other

[Mr.Ferrari]

The Asus or evga. Preferably Evga.

[TimPoet]

eVGA is great in quality and customer service

[glc]

I still think you should just get a placeholder card till the DX10 dust clears. Right now the 8800 is the only game in town and the first things out of the gate always have issues. Nvidia hasn't even come up with Vista drivers for it that work right. You can get a 7600GT for 90 bucks that will play anything out there if you take it easy on resolution and effects.

If you absolutely must have an 8800 now, get the 320mb version at 300 bucks. It's strong enough to do anything unless you are playing games on a 24 inch monitor.