I need a bit of advice here guys I know a bit about PC's but nohing about Video cards.I'm building a tower and it will have the following a i7 860 CPU,ASUS P7H55-M Pro Mobo,4GB of Corsair XMS 3 DDR3 1333 Ram another 4GB will be thrown in a month or less after I have it up and running and a 650 watt PowerSupply.I'm not a really big gamer and won't be using this Machine as a gaming Machine first but I do want to play a few games on it,I was wondering what card would be the best performing card for 100.00 to 140.00 bucks I'm looking at a BFG BFG BFGE96512GTOCE GeForce 9600 Tigerdirect.ca part number is b529606,EVGA 512-P3-N987-TR GeForce 9800 GT tiger number E1459862,EVGA 512-P3-1242-LR GeForce GT 240 Superclocked tiger number E1450244,XFX GT240XYHFC GeForce GT240 tiger number P4500240.I will also be running Windows 7 Home Premium,if anyone wants to offer any suggestion's on a card feel free I want it to be a PCI Express card as well and don't want to go more then 150.CAD Funds and if you can find it on tigerdirect.ca that would be great as they get most of my Bussiness.
Get a radeon hd4670 (80.00) it's a great card for the occasional gamer. This is the card I have and it's great for playing most games, I haven't encounter a game it wouldn't play. It doesn't require a seperate power connection like some of the higher end cards. The more expensive cards are for serious gamers that require the highest performance. Go to youtube and type in the name of the video card your interested in and you can see the video card in action.
I'd recommend against the Asus motherboard. Asus boards are often troublesome due to lower quality manufacture than other brands. I'd suggest a Gigabyte P55 series as a replacement. Further, you don't need to use the H55 chipset over P55, as the H chipset is for integrated graphics. If you're buying a graphics card, you don't need it. You also don't need a 650W PSU for such a basic system. 650W is enough to run a heavily overclocked CPU and two very powerful graphics cards. The system as you specified there will be using less than 250W, let alone 650. I would also advise against buying any of the graphics cards you've chosen. The 9600GT is quite a slow card by modern standards, the 9800GT is better but still outdated and a little overpriced. The GT240 is poor value, much like all of nvidia's new products. Despite costing a lot, it performs worse than the 9800GT. By far the best modern card you can get for 150CAD is this one: http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150448 It is noticeably faster than the best of the cards you've listed, the 9800GT, by 45% in Shattered Horizon, for example. It is also power efficient, supports DirectX11, Eyefinity and all the rest. If you do not need good power-efficiency, DirectX11 or Eyefinity (if you're not a huge gamer, you probably don't) then you can save by buying the HD4850, which is the HD5750's predecessor. It is just as powerful (in fact, slightly faster, around 5%), but costs only $112: http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102824 Or, if you want something that really flies, you could buy an HD4870: http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814161292 It's up to you if you wish to pay this much for a graphics card. If you intend to get into games, then the 4870 would be a good buy. If you will only ever be a casual gamer, then the 4850 is the most you should be spending. For reference, the 4870 is around 20% faster than a 4850, 25% faster than a 5750, 80% faster than a 9800GT, 100% faster than a GT240 and a whopping 160% faster than a 9600GT. However, the 4870 is a large, power hungry card, and you will need a power supply with two connectors for it, whereas any of the other cards only require one, some not at all. If you want to save money and are really not interested in lots of graphics power, jony's suggestion of an HD4670 is also sound, it's a really efficient card, with moderate performance, and a nice low price. Here's how it stacks up: HD4670: 85% performance, $80 9600GT: 100% performance, $90 GT 240: 125% performance, $85 9800GT: 140% performance, $100 HD5750: 200% performance, $145 - DirectX11, Eyefinity HD4850: 210% performance, $112 HD4870: 260% performance, $170 - two Power connectors required As for the rest of the components, recommended motherboard: http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128406 recommended power supply: http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139008 recommended power supply if HD4870: http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139004
Sams right on the money for sure. One thing I want to add is what is the computer going to be used for? Reason I ask is you mentioned buy 4 GB now, then 4 GB down the line. In 99% of cases theres almost no need for the extra 4 GB. I think you will find that 4 GB is pretty much sufficient for anything you need to do.
Xplorer4 I will be using my new build mainly for surfing the Net and doing some gaming and alot of Video Re-encoding,I will also be using Nero 9 reloaded alot as well and if I can find the ram in single sticks I may just olny get one stick as I know most PC'S never need more than 6GB and that can be over kill,if I can olny get it in 2 packs then I may just keep one as a spare in case one burns out.
You shouldnt need more then 4GB then. While Nero is a memory hog,you should be fine. As for running 6GB, keep in mind your mobo is designed to run 2 or 4 identical sticks of ram, not 3. Also, try TMPGEnc Authoring Works for your video authoring needs. It makes much better use of multi core cpus then Nero. Nero may not even utilize more then 1 core actually. Neros conversion times on my Core i7 860 are around 1-2 hours. Cant recall. For a simple 700 MB AVI to DVD conversion, ConvertXtoDVD gets the job done in about 10 minuets(minus burn time), and TMPGenc does the job in about 15 minuets. I havent gotten to do a quality comparison of all 3 yet, but last time I checked ConverX did have very slightly lower quality(bitrate wise, but not visible to the eye) then Nero but I would tolerate that to have 10 min encoding time vs 1-2 hour.
Always use two sticks of RAM, it improves performance substantially. Also bear in mind that P55s should be using either 2 or 4 sticks of RAM, not 3.
I already use ConvertXToDVD and it seems to work fine,I also found a nice ripper called Magic DVD Ripper that I have used to Rip a Copied DVD into my Harddrive and it put it into AVI Format allowing me to save on DVD's,I find with ConvertX I can get 4 Divx,Xvid,or AVI Movie's per disc and they all look fine.
Not sure what happened there but this is what I ment to say. I already use ConvertXToDVD and it seems to work fine,I also found a nice ripper called Magic DVD Ripper that I have used to Rip a Copied DVD into my Harddrive and it put it into AVI Format allowing me to save on DVD's,I find with ConvertX I can get 4 Divx,Xvid,or AVI Movie's per disc and they all look fine.
Try Handbrake instead. The latest version does not support AVI/Xvid conversions but it will handled X264/MKV which is far superior unless you need the ability to play back on a DivX certified DVD player or TV. If you do need AVI/Xvid find an older version. As for ConvertX, if you want to put 4 movies on a disc, you can but your hurting the quality. Anyways back to the build, you wont regret the 860. Its a marvelous chip!
