The Official PC building thread!

I run a Thermaltake 480w butterfly psu and it comes with more power connectors than you can shake a stick at as well as sata power leads, so i would imagine your 680w monster will, just to be sure why not check out www.thermaltake.com for the specs on it

 

Didn't realise i posted it the first time, browser is playing up sorry ...why haven't we got the functionality to delete/preview our own post's ?

 

Wtf are you talking about? The board he wants to use supports the X2!

http://www.asus.com/products4.aspx?l1=3&l2=15&l3=0&model=539&modelmenu=1

Asus just released another board designed around the dual cores and ease of use. The A8V-E SE (not SLI). The A8V is compatible too. I'll cut the crap, go to Asus.com and you'll find almost every one of their modern boards support the X2, a few don't.

The biggest difference is for Asus is to go back and install support for the dual cache addressing between different cores.

Using the 6800, raptor satas, and DDR-400, both CPUs score a 116 on the world bench 5 (strange, very). But you have to take into account that alot of the programs world bench 5 is using are not otimized for dual core CPUs yet, along with games.

The 4800+ is a much better choice, providing the same performance now, while besting the single core FX-57 in the future.

For $50 less, and running on the exact same components you plan to use, it'd take a special olympics contestant to choose the FX-57.

 

What are you trying to say?
That seems very out of order...

 

Theres an ati radeon x850 xt on tigerdirect http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1476861&Sku=C261-3025 R.
Its considerably cheaper than all the other ones. Why is that and is it a good buy for a gaming computer?

 

No idea, it looks like a quality card

 

The X850XTPE is a very good value card now, and to see it at that price does not surprise me a bit. A lot of offers appear on cards like that nowadays... Go for it, it's awesomely powerful,

 

You know exactly what everything meant. You just have no response for being blatently wrong...

 

Who me?
Reasons, the way you're going you could end up repeating the fall of cmmnsense, I think the link to "special olympics contestant" was a bit harsh and unfair.

But anyway, do you really think if there was no point in the FX-57 being, AMD would market it at that price, if at all?
I doubt it, AMD may second to itnel in sales, but they are not fools. Well, they have been in the past, but...
Well, some processors were bad ideas, but never were they pointless, I reckon the FX-57 must have a gaming advantage in the present day, even if only a relatively little one.

And I know i shouldn't get upset, but there must be something in the AUP about that reference.

 

The FX-57 has been around for a, relative in the computer world, a long time. It has been the premium choice in the gaming PCs, but has recently been surpassed by the X2.

They make identical scores in an all around, including gaming, test, woldbench5. The FX-57 can crunch pure graphics demands slightly better on games that do not support multi-threading. The advantage won't even be nocible on an SLI machine. It's too huge a sacrifice, whe the Unreal 3 engine has already been optimized for dual core CPUs. Despite clock speed the X2 will spank the FX-57 with games running that engine.

In is only a matter of months before all the major engines are optimized for the dual core CPUs, and the FX-57 will have you kicking yourself.

I'll reiterate, in the current computing world where few programs are optimized for dual core CPUs, the FX-57 and the 4800+ X2 both score a 116 on the worldbench5 using the same components (Your computer will score higher for things like the Raptors, the 7800s, and alot of other things. This test that PCWorld did uses average components.) for each. The gaming benifits will only be seen for a few months with the FX-57 while playing games currently not multi-threaded. Playing games running Unreal 3, with a dual core, will already see the benifits now, that every game will in a few months.

The FX-57 is a very poor choice, backed merely by anecdotal squablings of hard core clock speed lovers.

The 4800+ X2 is completely stable when clocked to 2.8GHz (The same as the FX-57) with some aftermarket cooling, air cooling I might add. You could probally push it to 3GHz if you had really advanced air cooling. Water cooling will give you dual cores running 3.2GHz and up.

If anyone wants the settings for the air cooled 2.8GHz, just ask. Make sure to step it up slowly in case your air cooling isn't as good as the one that it was tested on.

Just so no one gets confused, the test and comparisons of each are stock. I am just showing that once you have it you can push it even farther.

 

Reasons do you think the X2 4200+ is better than the Athlon 64 4000+ in "performance". Just curious, I haven't seen any benchamrks

 

You'll see better gaming performance (A few FPS, smoother, It wouldn't be noticable to me though.) Because of the higher clock speed.

Overall the Dual core is better now, not by much, but will be astoundingly better in the future when software and mor egame engines are written to optimze use of dual cores.

The dual core is a better investment, because it won't be long before the few advantages of clock sped over parallelism, become none.

If you are forced into the 4000+'s price range, you should get 3800+ X2 dual core, for I think $10 more. Then overclock it to match the clock speed of the 4000+. A sound CPU cooling/case exhaust solution and the CPU is a far better investment.

Even if your uncomfortable overclocking it, you are still better off with whatever dual core you can afford. It'll come down to a good GPU anyway.

 

I don't know now.... I did some research on the X2 4200+, and it turned out to be worse in some aspects(that did't involve multitasking) than the 4000+. If I could afford the 4800+ I would definitely get it, but I can't. I think i'll stick with my 4000+ for now, and even when multi-threaded apps are released, I'm sure they'll run just fine on it.

 

I'm looking to build a relatively cheap gaming PC. I'd like it to in effect, power through HL2 and it's mods with ease. I have in the area of 1,100 dollars to spend not including a monitor. I have a general idea of what I want, but input is always appreciated.

[bold]CPU:[/bold] AMD Athlon 64 3700+ San Diego Socket 939 (280)
[bold]Motherboard:[/bold] MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum (100)
[bold]Memory:[/bold] Corsair ValueSelect 1GB 2x512 (85)
[bold]HDD:[/bold] WD Caviar RE SATA 250GB (120)
[bold]GPU:[/bold] ATI X800 XL 256MB PCI-E (170)*
[bold]Optical Drive:[/bold] Plextor PX-712SA/SW-BL SATA DVD+/-RW (70)
[bold]Sound Card:[/bold] Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS Platinum (100)*
[bold]Case and PSU:[/bold] Need suggestions here.

That puts me at 925 without a case or PSU. I'd think I could get a decent case and PSU for 175 bucks. Let me know what you guys think. Thanks.

*Denotes cost with Circuit City employee accomodations.

 

All prices, besides the ones from CC Accomodations are current from NewEgg.

 

ok guys help me out here first off i,ll say that i have 1 grand to spend and that i have no expeirience whatsoever on building comps second of all i want to know which one will be better and,or chaper to make...a laptop or a computer .i will be using it mainly for gaming and storing movies and the occasional school work,oh and also if it would be recommended for me to pay some guy to put it together for me or should i try to do it myself??