PC gamers advice - new system

[Darren S]

Right guys, I could do with some input with regards to updating my PC around September time.

I'd say 90% of it's usage will be for playing games and I'm only thinking of replacing the internals - not the monitor or anything. I'll be looking at a new mobo, new CPU, new memory and obviously a new gfx card(s).

The only dead-cert I've given myself is that the CPU will be AMD - other than that, it's open season. I don't know whether or not to stick with AMD64 CPUs or go to the dual core ones. Maybe even fork out for an FX CPU, but that's probably just a waste of money.

Then there's the mobo. Also, the gfx. Do a buy two decent SLi cards then or do I buy a superb single card and wait for its twin to drop in price? Any thoughts on memory too?

Cheers,
D.

 

[Lee]

At work I'm running an AMD Athlon X2 4800 on a DFI RDX 200 mobo. I'm running 2gb of Corsair XMS DDR 400 CAS 2 memory. Video card wise I have 2 ATI Radeon X1900XTs 512mb each. The FX 57 is still a very powerful CPU and in most games will still perform better than the dual core chips, until they get full support. I bought a couple of FX60 for the office and have yet to see any real benefit other than a chunk of my PC build budget gone.

I've been running GT Legends at 1280 x1024 with every single option cranked up to the max, it doesn't even flinch.

I've been playing

 

[FiDoDiDo]

AMD Operton 3.0Ghz has just come out which is worth a shout I would say.

 

[Darren S]

Lee - do you rate the DFI mobos overall then? I take it that that is a Crossfire spec mobo?

Ben - I've thought of that too. Some of the Opterons can easily be clocked up to FX spec for a fraction of the price. Decisions, decisions...

D.

 

[Dave138]

pentium 4 3.0ghz prescott, 1.5gb dual channel corsair xms, 9800xt gfx card and 65PERL Mobo, does the job for me, never jumped or skipped a beat!

cheap to build up to, bought all the bits off ebay

 

[unofficialPete]

Not sure if these AMD upgrade kits are value for money?

http://www.lowestonweb.com/Products/DisplayInfoMain.asp?e=EDFFCD8B-3EE9-4EB4-86A8-00C8FFDED21A

 

[Lee]

I've bought a few DFI boards and haven't had any real issues. In the past I've bought nothing but Asus, but I've had loads of stupid issues with those, like the Motherboard fan failing on 31 out of 34 boards on the A8N SLI Deluxe boards.

Yeah that's the crossfire board.

Unfortunately I need to order a new PSU Tuesday as I don't think the Enermax Liberty 620w I was using could cut it when the going got tough. It's started making an odd noise and the PC has suddenly become very unstable. I've seen and heard it before and it's been the PSU every time. Sodding thing, this could draw attention to me having the fastest PC in the office and only using it for email, web browsing and my own games. lol

 

[wozzaa]

I only use DFI boards in my builds for myself. Great boards especially if your overclocking they cant be beat.

Id go for dual core games now a lot of the newer games support it. Oblivion supports dual core games next unreal will and a load of others will all support multiple cores.

And the graphics card is really which do you favour. ATI or Nvidia they both have roughly the same abilities.Ram Corsair OCZ Geil will all be fine just dont put cheap shite in a good system.

I have an overclocked 4400+ running at 2.7ghz each core its fast. with a 7800GTX512 and 2gb OCZ platinum memory and a dfi nforce 4 SLI DR board. Theres not a thing i cant run near enough at 1600x1200 with everything cranked up.

 

[Griff]

Overclocked my Opty 144 from 1.8ghz to 2.8ghz on air using a DFI board.

 

[daz182]

http://www.dell.com/html/us/products/renegade/renegade.html?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs

 

[Dave138]

lee - where do you work, i want a job there, there is one mean system lol.

is it a computer based office, 3d gaming place??

 

[FiDoDiDo]

lee - where do you work, i want a job there, there is one mean system lol.

is it a computer based office, 3d gaming place??

Lee works for a games development company.

 

[Darren S]

I only use DFI boards in my builds for myself. Great boards especially if your overclocking they cant be beat.

Id go for dual core games now a lot of the newer games support it. Oblivion supports dual core games next unreal will and a load of others will all support multiple cores.

And the graphics card is really which do you favour. ATI or Nvidia they both have roughly the same abilities.Ram Corsair OCZ Geil will all be fine just dont put cheap sh*te in a good system.

I have an overclocked 4400+ running at 2.7ghz each core its fast. with a 7800GTX512 and 2gb OCZ platinum memory and a dfi nforce 4 SLI DR board. Theres not a thing i cant run near enough at 1600x1200 with everything cranked up.

Come on wozzaa - neither PacMan or Asteroids qualify in that category, do they?

Interesting about Oblivion supporting dual cores. Would be good to see some benchmarks on that. It really does push my current system to the limit, with most of the eye-candy switched off. Would you rate a DFI NF4 mobo over say, a Crossfire enabled one? I must admit, I've never had issues with my current NF2 Ultra mobo.

The other thing though, is that I'm not really into overclocking. Not that I'm worried to give it a try, but that I simply can't be arsed with all the tweaking. Maybe the functionality of the DFI boards would just be wasted on me?

D.

 

[Lee]

I need something to tax my system. GT Legends won't go any higher.

If you go the nVidia route the Asus A8N 32 SLI offers a pretty huge performance increase over the original Asus A8N SLI Delxuxe/Premium boards.

 

[Clart]

I'm with Griff

Clocked Opteron 146 fx-57 beater and a DFI LAN party board

 

[Weeman]

geek

 

[Darren S]

I need something to tax my system. GT Legends won't go any higher.

If you go the nVidia route the Asus A8N 32 SLI offers a pretty huge performance increase over the original Asus A8N SLI Delxuxe/Premium boards.

b*****d.

D.