Never Built Before, Looking for a 3200$ SystemPost Date: 2008-07-30 |
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Whackywombat 
Newbie 
Joined: 01 Jul 2008 Online Status: Offline Posts: 19 |
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 Topic: Never Built Before, Looking for a 3200$ SystemPosted: 30 Jul 2008 at 3:28am |
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Hey all, I've never built a system in my life before and this is going to be my first ever gaming PC. I was wondering if anyone could help me build a 3200$ system that focuses primarily on gaming aspects.
Thank you so much for the help! |
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Tyler Lowe
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Joined: 14 May 2008 Online Status: Offline Posts: 0 |
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Posted: 30 Jul 2008 at 3:34am |
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Hey there WhackyWombat, welcome to the DSO forums.
If you could give us an idea of the types of games you enjoy, and the size of the monitor/resolution you intend to play those games at, this would be very helpful.
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skyR
Newbie
Digital Storm Apprentice 
Joined: 08 Oct 2007 Online Status: Offline Posts: 2220 |
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Posted: 30 Jul 2008 at 3:34am |
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http://www.digitalstormonline.com/comploadsaved.asp?id=171308
If you give us more information, we will be able to help fine tune the system to meet your needs. - What size monitor will you be using? - What games do you play? - Do you multi-task? |
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Whackywombat
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Joined: 01 Jul 2008 Online Status: Offline Posts: 19 |
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Posted: 30 Jul 2008 at 3:51am |
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Ah sorry for not providing enough info!
Im planning on buying a 22' Monitor, which is not included in my price tag for the computer. I mostly enjoy RPGs like Oblivion, The Witcher, and Warhammer Online and Fallout 3 when they come out. I was hoping to be able to max out those games if it is possible in my price range. And I only multi-task occasionally. Edited by Whackywombat - 30 Jul 2008 at 3:51am |
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widdlecat
DS Veteran 
Joined: 11 Mar 2008 Online Status: Offline Posts: 840 |
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Posted: 30 Jul 2008 at 4:59am |
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SkyR laid out one smokin system that can easily run those games maxxed at 1680 x 1050 (native res for most 22"monitors)
With your budget, it offers flexibility in choice of optical drives... if you want a DVD writer, mebbe lightscribe... you could also go with a larger second hard drive or high performance velociraptor... |
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SunfighterLC
DS Veteran
Joined: 18 Feb 2008 Online Status: Offline Posts: 1527 |
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Posted: 30 Jul 2008 at 9:55am |
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I almost did the same build as skyr i noticed..so i wont bother putting it here lol.
Quick question though...would a 32GB SSD be enough for a vista64 OS or would you need the 64GB version?
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E8500@ 4.03Ghz
XFX 790i Ultra 1000W Corsair HX 2 280 GTX EVGA FTW 4GB OCZ Reaper 1800Mhz 250-80-300GB VR HD Logitech Z-2300 2.1 Speakers Asus Xonar 7.1 Hanns-G HG 281D 28" HDMI Monitor |
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TomD
Groupie 
Joined: 22 Jun 2008 Online Status: Offline Posts: 289 |
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Posted: 30 Jul 2008 at 11:00am |
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Starfighter wrote:
Quick question though...would a 32GB SSD be enough for a vista64 OS or would you need the 64GB version?
Get two 32 GB and put them in RAID 0. That seems more your style.
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Whackywombat
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Joined: 01 Jul 2008 Online Status: Offline Posts: 19 |
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Posted: 30 Jul 2008 at 12:16pm |
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Hey thanks for all the help, I was wondering if a quad core was necessity or if I could go with the 3.16 Core Duo and OC it up a little more?
Edited by Whackywombat - 30 Jul 2008 at 12:18pm |
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SunfighterLC
DS Veteran
Joined: 18 Feb 2008 Online Status: Offline Posts: 1527 |
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Posted: 30 Jul 2008 at 3:03pm |
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No way...most games barely even use 2 cores..let alone 4...by all means Core 2 Duos are the now CPU, maybe a year or two from now they wont be..but as of right now....THEY ARE NOW! Duos>quads.
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E8500@ 4.03Ghz
XFX 790i Ultra 1000W Corsair HX 2 280 GTX EVGA FTW 4GB OCZ Reaper 1800Mhz 250-80-300GB VR HD Logitech Z-2300 2.1 Speakers Asus Xonar 7.1 Hanns-G HG 281D 28" HDMI Monitor |
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Kliebor2
Senior Member 
Joined: 22 May 2008 Online Status: Offline Posts: 659 |
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Posted: 30 Jul 2008 at 3:35pm |
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Dual Core is what most games that are currently available take advantage of.
I can tell you that if you are like me and play multiplayer alot and use Ventrillo or some other voice chat software while running your game, the quad core will help alleviate the stress if you are taxing your cpu with your game at all. This being because the services and Vent etc can use the almost untouched cores and not steal processor time from the two cores many high end modern games max out. Dave |
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Digital Storm 950Si - Q9450 Quad Core @ 3 Ghz
Dual PNY OC2 GTX 560Ti 8 Gigabytes DDR2/800 2 Western Digital 500 GB SATAII 7200 RPM HD |
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widdlecat
DS Veteran
Joined: 11 Mar 2008 Online Status: Offline Posts: 840 |
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Posted: 30 Jul 2008 at 3:38pm |
Is that NOW NOW or THEN NOW? Seriously tho, I've read in a few magazines of some games utilising more than dual cores.. Company of Heroes:Opposing Fronts and Crysis for two. There are a few others that don't "advertise" the use of multicores so that the consumer doesn't feel pressured into upgrading just to play their games. Dual cores can run these games of course... I have no problems playing Company of Heroes, but there will come a time when I come across games that will play better with a quad core I'm sure. Perhaps Assassin's Creed could run better with quad core? I dunno. I need more ram first, then I might feel the cpu pinch. In all honesty, not to cast dispersions upon sunfighter, but quad cores are up and coming. Eventually, more games will not only utilise more cores, but perform much better. |
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SunfighterLC
DS Veteran
Joined: 18 Feb 2008 Online Status: Offline Posts: 1527 |
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Posted: 30 Jul 2008 at 3:47pm |
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Keep in mind all these people have quad cores that are dissing the dual cores =P.
Has there even been any evidence stating that running things like ventrillo in the background will even know to utalize unused cores?
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E8500@ 4.03Ghz
XFX 790i Ultra 1000W Corsair HX 2 280 GTX EVGA FTW 4GB OCZ Reaper 1800Mhz 250-80-300GB VR HD Logitech Z-2300 2.1 Speakers Asus Xonar 7.1 Hanns-G HG 281D 28" HDMI Monitor |
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Whackywombat
Newbie
Joined: 01 Jul 2008 Online Status: Offline Posts: 19 |
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Posted: 30 Jul 2008 at 3:49pm |
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Heh very sorry for all the question but again I am very computer hardware illiterate. I am wondering if the 4GB System Memory at 800MHz is well worth the money or if I should invest my extra money into a higher one like 4GB at 1066MHz or is the difference between the two not worth it?
( Sorry I am trying to finally be rid of all lag and micro-stutterting in Oblivion heh  ) |
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Kliebor2
Senior Member
Joined: 22 May 2008 Online Status: Offline Posts: 659 |
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Posted: 30 Jul 2008 at 3:56pm |
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Yes there has Sunfighter, my system uses the free cycles on unused cores for any process running... windows manages it automatically distributing work load to under utilized cores. Games, many of them split task work into multiple threads or worker processes that can let multiple cores share the load of the game.
Windows always load balances the cores best it can by distributing load of different processes to different cores as evenly as possible. Old games and even some newer games do not allow that because they are 1 process thread, so they can not be distributed, their entire load needs to be handled by one or perhaps 2 cores. As Widdlecat said, some newer games may well take advantage of more than 2 cores soon. Dave Edited by Kliebor2 - 30 Jul 2008 at 3:59pm |
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Digital Storm 950Si - Q9450 Quad Core @ 3 Ghz
Dual PNY OC2 GTX 560Ti 8 Gigabytes DDR2/800 2 Western Digital 500 GB SATAII 7200 RPM HD |
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Tyler Lowe
Newbie
Joined: 14 May 2008 Online Status: Offline Posts: 0 |
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Posted: 31 Jul 2008 at 1:35am |
If I absolutely must, I can screen shot processes being distributed atuomatically across 4 cores to result in the most even load possible.
 None of my 4 cores is *ever* at 0% usage- with the exception of system idle when 1 core stays at maybe 2% and the rest are at zero.
My opinion, take it for what it's worth:
Since almost nothing I do puts more than about 60 to 75% load on my CPU's I suspect it hardly matters if you run the same applications on a faster core 2 CPU. You might see slightly higher usage, but that's about all for the time being. A few programs will actually gain more benefit from the higher clocks than the additional cores.
Times are changing however. More and more programs are being released that will scale to any number of additional cores. How well will they scale on an 8 core system yet to be released? No one can say with any certainty. What is certain, and what is not in doubt, is that just as surely as the single core CPU is a thing of the past, so too will the 2 core and 4 core machines of today give way to more powerful designs.
Will a two core CPU run pretty much anything you need it to today?
Yes. A fast enough single core CPU can run just about anything you need it to... still. Unless you're into video editing, or have a need to move around and compress massive files while holding a video conference, a P4 at 3GHz can still get you by for many tasks. A dual core CPU is able to do all of that and run background tasks on a seperate core, freeing up all of the computing muscle most will ever need.
Will a quad have a longer useful life by virtue of it's additional cores?
Possibly.It is just as possible that by the time 4 cores are actually required, the current designs will be hopelessly weak and outdated. A i486DX and a Pentium 4 are both single core processors, but no one is going to mistake the capabilities of one for the other. That's a pretty extreme example, granted, but I think it serves to make the point.
Will we see programs released in 2009 that will take full advantage of all 4 cores in core2quad CPU's?
Definitely. As others have pointed out, there are a handful among us now, and that number will only increase. I believe this is particularly true with Intel finally releasing it's own native quad.
Edited by Tyler Lowe - 31 Jul 2008 at 1:51am |
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Tyler Lowe
Newbie
Joined: 14 May 2008 Online Status: Offline Posts: 0 |
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Posted: 31 Jul 2008 at 1:41am |
WW, sorry for the side discussion on the relative merits of quads vs dual cores this thread has turned towards. Higher clocked memory, at speeds of over 800MHz, is primarily of benfit when overclocking. There are exceptionally small performance gains to be had otherwise. If you want your CPU overclocked, and want the best possible result, I would suggest the PC8500 (1066MHz) DDR2.
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DST4ME
DS ELITE 
Joined: 14 Apr 2008 Online Status: Offline Posts: 36758 |
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Posted: 31 Jul 2008 at 1:43am |
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I think that some people here are making the mistake of thinking, everybody else uses their PC the same as they do.
I dare anybody here to run FAH and not use all 4 cores. anybody that multi tasks or uses p2p, uses all 4 cores. anybody that knows how to set affinity uses all 4 cores. I got a X9000 right now in my laptop, its a wonderful dual-core but there are things on a quad-core I can do that I can't do on a dual-core. |
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Whackywombat
Newbie
Joined: 01 Jul 2008 Online Status: Offline Posts: 19 |
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Posted: 31 Jul 2008 at 1:40pm |
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Ok awesome, so building up from Skyre's base build this is what I have:
Chassis: Digital Storm 850Si Exterior Finish: - Standard Factory Finish Interior Finish: - Standard Factory Finish Power Supply: 750W Corsair HX (Dual SLI Compatible) (Silent Edition) Processor: Intel Core 2 Quad Q9450 2.66GHz (1333MHz FSB) (12MB Cache) Motherboard: Asus Rampage Formula (Chipset: Intel X48) (Supports CrossFire) System Memory: 4GB DDR2 OCZ at 1066MHz (SLI-Ready Edition) Card Reader: - No Thanks Hard Drive 1: 250GB Western Digital (16MB Cache) (7200 RPM) (SATA) Hard Drive 2: 74GB Western Digital Raptor (10K RPM) (8MB Cache) (SATA) (Extreme Speed) Raid Option: - No Thanks Hard Drive 3: - No Thanks Optical Drive 1: DVD-ROM/CD-ROM (DVD Reader 16x / CD Reader 40x) Optical Drive 2: DVD±R/RW/CD-R/RW (DVD Writer 20x / CD-Writer 48x) (LightScribe Edition) Wireless Access: High Speed Network Port (Supports High-Speed Cable / DSL / Network Connections) Video Card: 2x CrossFire Dual (ATI Radeon HD 4870 512MB) TV Tuner: - No Thanks Sound Card: Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi FPS Fatal1ty Champion (Includes Front I/O Unit) Extreme Cooling: Air Cooled Stage 3 WindTunnel (Copper Heatpipe Heatsink & Additional Case Fans) Internal Lighting: Blizzard Internal Lighting (Blue Edition) (Cold Cathode Tubes) Modifications: - No Thanks Boost Processor: Yes, Overclock the processor as much as possible with complete stability Boost Video Card: - No Thanks, Please do not overclock my video card(s) Boost Memory: - No Thanks, Please do not overclock my memory Tweak Windows: - No Thanks, Please do not tweak the services on the operating system Windows OS: Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium (64-Bit Edition) (For Enthusiasts) I was wondering do you guys think this will run way to hot and possible cause my system to shut down, or should I be ok? ( And on a side-note, though it doesn't matter, how loud do you think this puppy is gonna be?) |
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Kliebor2
Senior Member
Joined: 22 May 2008 Online Status: Offline Posts: 659 |
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Posted: 31 Jul 2008 at 1:47pm |
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Stage 3 is a raftload of fans, it will not be silent... there will be noticable fan noise.
Under normal load I would say it will not be terribly loud... ie it will not sound like a jet taking off or anything... you are going to hear the fans though. Under heavy load and trying to dissipate larger amounts of building heat, it may well get louder depending on the ambient temp in your computer's location. Higher ambients will result in higher fan speeds to move the air through the case as component temperatures climb. Dave  |
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Digital Storm 950Si - Q9450 Quad Core @ 3 Ghz
Dual PNY OC2 GTX 560Ti 8 Gigabytes DDR2/800 2 Western Digital 500 GB SATAII 7200 RPM HD |
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