$2300 build suggestions

what resolution?

What is the native resolution of your monitor? that is what counts.

do you know the model? if not then depending on how old it is, it could be around 1600 x 1200 or 1900 x 1200.

once we find this out we can build the pc around that.

Nvidia system:

Here you go Ticket# 401489 --- Price: $2325 (To see this build click here) Price after current promotion $2325

Copy of Specifications:
Chassis Model: Special Deal Hot Seller - Cooler Master HAF 932
Exterior Finish: - Not Available
Trim Accents: - Not Available
Processor: Intel Core i7 930 2.8GHz (Quad Core)
Motherboard: EVGA X58 LE Edition SLI (Intel X58 Chipset) (Supports SLI or CrossFire)
System Memory: 6GB DDR3 1600MHz Digital Storm Certified Performance Series (Highly Recommended) (Hand Tested)
Power Supply: 1000W Corsair (Dual/Triple/Quad SLI Compatible)
Expansion Bay: - Not Available
Hard Drive Set 1: Operating System: 1x (500GB Western Digital (16MB Cache) (7200 RPM) (SATA)
Set 1 Raid Options: - Not Available
Hard Drive Set 2: Multimedia\Data: - No Thanks
Hard Drive Set 3: Backup\Misc.: - No Thanks
Optical Drive 1: DVD±R/RW/CD-R/RW (DVD Writer 22x / CD-Writer 48x)
Optical Drive 2: - No Thanks
Internet Access: High Speed Network Port (Supports High-Speed Cable / DSL / Network Connections)
Video Card: 1x NVIDIA GeForce GTX 470 1.2GB (Includes PhysX Technology)
Add-on Card: - No Thanks
Sound Card: Integrated Motherboard Audio
Extreme Cooling: AIR: Stage 2: Noctua NH-D14 Extreme Performance (Does NOT fit on the regular EVGA X58 3X SLI)
H20 Tube Color:- Not Available
Chassis Airflow: Standard Factory Chassis Fans
Internal Lighting: Internal Chassis Lighting System (Blue)
Enhancements: - Not Available
Chassis Mods: - Not Available
Noise Reduction: - Not Available
Boost Processor: FREE: Stage 1: Overclock the processor between 3.3GHz to 3.9GHz (Requires Air Cooling Upgrade)
Boost Video Card: - Not Available
Boost Memory: - Not Available
Boost OS: - Not Available
Windows OS: Microsoft Windows 7 Professional (64-Bit Edition)
Restore Kit: Digital Storm Specialized Recovery System (DVD Image Based)
Virus Protection: - Not Available
Office: - Not Available
Benchmarking: - Not Available
Install/Test Game: FREE: Please include a free copy of a hot-selling game
Display: - No Thanks
Surge Shield: - No Thanks
Speakers: - No Thanks
Keyboard: - No Thanks
Mouse: - No Thanks
External Storage: - No Thanks
Exclusive T-Shirt: FREE: Digital Storm T-Shirt - Black (Medium)
Priority Build: - No Thanks, Ship Within 5-15 Business Days After Order Is Successfully Processed
Warranty: 3 Year Platinum Care Extended Parts & Labor Warranty

---------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------------

Ati system:

Here you go Ticket# 401490 --- Price: $2259 (To see this build click here) Price after current promotion $2259

Copy of Specifications:
Chassis Model: Special Deal Hot Seller - Cooler Master HAF 932
Exterior Finish: - Not Available
Trim Accents: - Not Available
Processor: Intel Core i7 930 2.8GHz (Quad Core)
Motherboard: EVGA X58 LE Edition SLI (Intel X58 Chipset) (Supports SLI or CrossFire)
System Memory: 6GB DDR3 1600MHz Digital Storm Certified Performance Series (Highly Recommended) (Hand Tested)
Power Supply: 1000W Corsair (Dual/Triple/Quad SLI Compatible)
Expansion Bay: - Not Available
Hard Drive Set 1: Operating System: 1x (500GB Western Digital (16MB Cache) (7200 RPM) (SATA)
Set 1 Raid Options: - Not Available
Hard Drive Set 2: Multimedia\Data: - No Thanks
Hard Drive Set 3: Backup\Misc.: - No Thanks
Optical Drive 1: DVD±R/RW/CD-R/RW (DVD Writer 22x / CD-Writer 48x)
Optical Drive 2: - No Thanks
Internet Access: High Speed Network Port (Supports High-Speed Cable / DSL / Network Connections)
Video Card: 1x ATI Radeon HD 5850 1GB
Add-on Card: - No Thanks
Sound Card: Integrated Motherboard Audio
Extreme Cooling: AIR: Stage 2: Noctua NH-D14 Extreme Performance (Does NOT fit on the regular EVGA X58 3X SLI)
H20 Tube Color:- Not Available
Chassis Airflow: Standard Factory Chassis Fans
Internal Lighting: Internal Chassis Lighting System (Blue)
Enhancements: - Not Available
Chassis Mods: - Not Available
Noise Reduction: - Not Available
Boost Processor: FREE: Stage 1: Overclock the processor between 3.3GHz to 3.9GHz (Requires Air Cooling Upgrade)
Boost Video Card: - Not Available
Boost Memory: - Not Available
Boost OS: - Not Available
Windows OS: Microsoft Windows 7 Professional (64-Bit Edition)
Restore Kit: Digital Storm Specialized Recovery System (DVD Image Based)
Virus Protection: - Not Available
Office: - Not Available
Benchmarking: - Not Available
Install/Test Game: FREE: Please include a free copy of a hot-selling game
Display: - No Thanks
Surge Shield: - No Thanks
Speakers: - No Thanks
Keyboard: - No Thanks
Mouse: - No Thanks
External Storage: - No Thanks
Exclusive T-Shirt: FREE: Digital Storm T-Shirt - Black (Medium)
Priority Build: - No Thanks, Ship Within 5-15 Business Days After Order Is Successfully Processed
Warranty: 3 Year Platinum Care Extended Parts & Labor Warranty

for BFBC 2 dx11 you might need to oc the cards some to get over 50 to 60 fps.

with a good oc you can get teh same perfomrance as a 5870 with a 470, but it will run warmer then the 5870, so really its your choice.

don't worry about the ram, whatever really makes a difference is what you see in my build, if you don't see it in my build then its because its a waste to have it, with the exception of sound card, sound card I leave up to the user themselves.

I chose Noctua cause its better then asetek, asetek is not a real LC system, it does not have the same performance as a real LC system like frostchill/subzero.

the 32MB would be a bit faster but its not in the budget, the plan is in a few month buy a ssd and use that for HDD1 for OS/Games/Apps, and push the 500GB to HDD2 and use it for storage.

cyberpower sucks, all ssds are not the same.

a fast hdd or ssd will speed up boot times for os and games, and make anything that has to do with hdd/ssd go much faster, file transfer, read/write, ssds have the best speed for small files (4K) and that is the most important speed to have, cause most of the suff done are in small files, also ssds have no seektime.

I would wait till the end of the year then add a ssd yourself, its real easy, to move the os and everything in one shot from the 500GB HDD to SSD follow my clone guide, you can follow my clone guide here

Edited by DST4ME - 23 Apr 2010 at 6:23pm

not sure if it changes from time to time, I have been looking through the pictures trying to determine...one time I thought it looked like Mushkin Silver Line but there is another picture in here where it is definitely Super Talent

right now i think it's kingston.

ssd's will rev up anything starting up. basically, a path of the computer data goes like this: HD --Work Information--> CPU and GPU --Finished Work--> RAM. a faster HD means the quicker you can get stuff for your CPU to work on. SSDs are superior to regular Hard Disks, I've seen people previously owning Velociraptors that run at 10,000 rpm and still seeing a major performance increase.

Originally posted by Damon What is the best SSD offered by DS currently that would optimize gaming??

The only SSDs I see in the Special Deals configure area worth considering are the Corsair Nova series or the Intel 80GB. The Intel SSD is heaps and bounds better than the Nova series in almost every way, so I would definitely recommend the Intel.

Some people might feel 80GB isn't enough for their needs as an OS/apps/games drive, to which I simply counter, get two or more of them for RAID0. Then you get not only more space but performance many times greater than any single SSD will be able to achieve for years to come.

So which model offered by DS is the best???

Originally posted by Damon So which model offered by DS is the best???

as I said all 3 are good but intel is king

Edited by DST4ME - 26 Apr 2010 at 4:04pm

That is almost exactly the build I ordered. I got it today, and I'm in love.... 

Originally posted by scifi4ams ok here is my $2300 build.  A few questions. I can up my budget to $2500 if I can get equipment that will give me a performance boost.   Will I benefit  going w/ the corsair dominator memory Everyone says the Nactua D14 is better than the asetek 240mm but it is so huge  and I hear it will raise the case temps and I was excited to hear i could get LC that required no maintenance. Also I am still tossed between the 5870 and the 480 for gpu   Ticket Number: 402667 Total Price with Instant Savings: $2,290.00

On that build you have two DVD/R's selected, not sure if that was intentional. I would select the Corsair 750w over the generic DS one, it's only a few dollars more and for better quality. As for the 5870 vs the 480, I would just start looking up benchmarks from various sites on the two and pick based on FPS scores in games you are interested in at the resolution and graphic detail settings you want, and factoring in that the 480 costs more and has a bigger power requirement (750w would not be enough to run two of them in SLI).

If you can manage another $200 or so for the budget I would say by far the biggest performance increase you could get is to get a SSD for OS/apps/games. I would recommend the Intel 80GB SSD, vastly superior to the Nova line.

Originally posted by scifi4ams I wish I had the budget for SSD but 40g and 80g I feel is too small.

It's enough for at least the OS and most of your important applications, possibly even some games. OS/apps get the biggest benefit, you will have a noticeably more responsive and snappy/instant experience. Games benefit as well, some much more than others, but in general since you're usually playing the game out of memory and loading screens are not too frequent the improvements are not as pronounced. Games on a SSD is probably venturing more into the luxury side of things.

So basically, when you're on a budget you just use a smaller fast SSD for OS/apps and standard 500MB or 1TB HDD for everything else, games, unimportant/infrequently used apps, and mass storage.

The more time you spend using a computer daily the more you benefit from using a SSD, and I stand by the idea that anyone who has ever experienced using OS/apps on a good SSD will never go back to not using one, but in the end though SSDs are not required and you can get by without them if you're on an extreme budget. If nothing less just put it at the top of the list for future upgrades and get one once funds allow and you find one for a good deal at an e-tailer.

Originally posted by scifi4ams If your hd's are the same hd1 and hd2 and no raid involved, is there any performance difference when instaling games on hd2 when os is on hd1?

Maybe some small discrete fashion, since they can be used in parallel if you are doing different things on both the HDDs at the same time, but I don't think you want to be extensive multitasking while playing games.

And I should note that even the RAID performance benefits on mechanical HDDs are so dismal compared to SSDs that I could not bother with RAID on a mechanical HDD for any reason other than data redundancy these days, just get a SSD if you want performance and a large HDD for everything else.