The Official PC building thread!

sammorris most of the time i use my pc for playing games, watching films and programming on the odd occasion i do a bit of picture edditing.

is this graphics card any good? http://www.dabs.com/ProductView.aspx?Quicklinx=48R6&CategorySelectedId=11021&PageMode=1&InMerch=1

 

The 7900GS is ok, but it's below the 7900GT, which is below the X1900XT, which is the card I demonstrated. Any of those 3 would blow away the 7600 that marsey posted (and he's overbudget! ) And the 6300 is marginally faster than the 3800 (not very noticeable). Thing is, for outright processing power, Core 2 Duos are useful at the higher end (unless you're an extreme overclocker) but for most people, pound for pound, they perform the same for the price as X2s do. The E6300 is matched to a 4200+, which is the same price. That motherboard is also WAY over the top, and Seasonic PSUs are overkill cost-wise for a PC like that. The Hiper is cheaper, and more powerful, and probably no louder.

 

the 7800gtx is also better than the 7900gs.

come on sam "the 6300 is marginally faster than the 3800 (not very noticeable)" not sure what to say to that realy....at stock speeds the e6300 is about 20% faster than the x2 3800, but if your going to overclock them, it (the 3800) should go higher and get closer to the e6300.

like i said at the bottom of the post it is all with the future in mind. how much power will a quad-core dx10 sysem use. the rumours iv read say the 128 pixle pipes in them are going to need 450/500watts, 135w for the kentfeild, throw in 2 drives and a couple of usb toys and that psu starts to look inadequate.

the 7600gt at med resolutions(1200 by 1000) can keep ut with higher end cards with all the details on high, now that is something you told me before i got mine, and one of the reasons i did, now with the latest batch of gpus just around the corner is it realy the right time to spend more than you need to? if i had put one of those mentioned in it would of took the cost well above £700.

if i was spending this amount of my money i would want an e6600 not an allendale, but hey i aint got the cash to spend at the min. if i was doing it on a budget i would go for a 939 rig with their prices being so competetive now.

the thing is sam hes asked for both and we have shown him what you can get for each.

 

In most of the benches I saw, the 6300 was roughly on par with the 4200+, which is 10% faster, not a greatly noticeable difference. The 7600GT can keep up with the faster cards, but the X1900XT (256MB version) has come down a lot, and if you game you need as much power as you can get. Since that card fits in his budget, why not?

 

i dont want to seem bitchy here but you compaired it initialy to the 3800 not the 4200(which does cost the same) but i.m.h.o you would need a 4600 windsor(£200) to keep up with the e6300. any way both systems we posted seem like good value and would offer great performance for their respective prices. like you say "buy cheap, buy twice"

a 7900gs for £140 seems like a good deal to me.

if it fits your budget dam right get the best you can, i was always going to come in on the high side with £600 for a c2d rig. have a go sam see how you go, just remmeber that what i looked for was componants that will take the strain of the next set of upgrades aswell as coming as close to £600 as i could

 

double post. dead bats in mouse made me do it

 

only cheap quality, cheap performance just means slower. The 1900 is fine!

 

i think my point with the gcards has been missed somwhat. sam not everyone has a screen as flash as yours, the majority of people have what? 17/19 inch screens running? 1200/1000 ? now at those res my 7600gt monsters most games out today, gets a bit choppy in oblivion but i could always turn the settings down. now im rambling.

the thing i wanted to point out is the £70 you can save on the 1900 with the 7600gt, is a quarter of the price of the next gen cards are going to be and that can only be a good thing. [bold]if humza wants vista to be spot on he will want a dx10 card.[/bold] add their 128 pixpipes in 3 arrays, the 356mb mem bandwidth(not true but almost) and gddr4 to the newwer gpu design they will(should) blow all current cards miles out the water.

[bold]edit[/bold]

some bargains here for you, this week only. e6300 £115 plus some others,
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/Online_Catalogue_This_Week_Only_25.html

 

Neither card is DX10, and none are at the moment and "designed for Vista" is marketing BS, as nVidia are always capable of pulling off, they're no more designed for Vista than the Radeons.
With overclockers, you'd need to get all your stuff there to save, they charge a hell of a lot for delivery lately, counteracting the value of their this week only offers.
One presumes this PC will need some degree of future proofing, the 7600GT is not offering that. I didn't just buy this PC for outrageous performance now, I bought it so I could still play games at respectable resolutions (1280x1024 for example) later on. The current games are the last that the 7600GT will be able to play with some nice detail settings. The 7600GT is still excellent value, don't get me wrong, but when he can have a faster card and still be within his budget, why not? I think you're over-hyping the Allendale in this case. The Athlon is pretty close behind at this end of the market, and allows 939's trademark good value high performance motherboards.
His call, but I'd still go 939, even now.

 

i didnt say either card was dx10 or designed for vista, what i am saying is that by getting a cheaper card now the money he saves could then go towards a dx10 card when they are available.

if i was to buy a new rig today i would base it around some good quality ddr2, regardless of the cpu thats were i would start, but if i was just going to upgrade this one i would go for 939 as they are great value for money. only problem is that the good procs have all been bought up by dell

 

he can do, up to him. Intending to change graphics cards soon after buying a new PC seems a bit of a weird strategy though, after all, DX9 cards will play DX10 games, just not as well, and isn't that the point of upgrading anyway?
I personally think DDR2 is over-rated. The higher clock speed and 4-bit fetch is useful, but higher latencies offset quite a chunk of the added performance, and CPUs probably still haven't taken full advantage of it yet, especially Intels.
Plenty of 939 X2s about, so I'd get one of thems. Maybe a 4200+, but a 3800 will keep him in budget.

 

wow this is confussing me even more could i please have a one line answer to what graphics card i should get that would be good to run with vista and most games. thankyou all for your advice!

 

That's a bit of a wait isn't it? The straiht answer, humza is buy the best you can afford, that's always a given. Within my build, the X1900XT 256MB is the best you'll find.

 

it is a wait now m$ have bumped it till march.

humza if you want a rig that will get the best out of vista and the games that come out next year you will want a dx10 card(i know i will when cryasis, is that splet right? is released) to get the most out of it.

what it comes down to realy is the monitor your plugging it into, if its a smallish one most (7xxx or 18xx) cards will do the job for now, if its a 50inch plasma you will need 2 £300+ ones to get the same amount detail.

thinking about it logicaly, i would get a mobo with onboard graphics and wait for the new cards in the spring, then get the best you can afford then

 

My 7600GT is perfect at 12*10 IF you're on a budget go for the AM2 X2 3800+, if you can though, get the E6300. The X1900XT isn't a waste if you do Folding@Home. Plus if you can hit 3.0ghz with that E6300 talk about bang for the buck!

 

Yeah, but you can hit near 3.0Ghz with a 3800+....
Actually most plasmas only game at 1024x768 or 1280x1024, so they're no different to normal monitors, it's 1920x1200 workscreens that are the real killers. The point is, how futureproof do you want your system? If you're only going to be playing reasonably recent titles at medium detail, a 7600GT will be enough until Vista when you'll buy another graphics card, but that's the value of the 7600GT mostly gone as you'll never sell it for anywhere near what you bought it for. If you get a better card to start with even when Crysis and that lot come out you're still covered... Considering it's only about £60 more, I'd still call the X1900.

 

i built a pc 4 months ago.mb asus a8n sli premium ,cpu amd 3200+,ram 2x1gb kingston 400mhz ddr2,msi 7600 gt.i'm thinking about bying another 7600gt or wait till dx 10 cards come out(and then of course change the cpu which at the moment is good enough for me-gaming,internet and office appz-).so any suggestions woulb be helpfull.i don't mind playing oblivion at 20fps(1280x1024,grass shadows off) but FEAR is almost unplayable at 15-20 fps.also i have an lg tft monitor so no more than 1280x1024 at 75hz

 

I would personally wait for DX10 beacuse its not that far off round the corner and if you buy another card now you will smack yourself in the face when DX10 comes out for not wating. lol

Dave