Nice new 9/09 Prebuilts!

Nice Sept-09 changes to the enthusiast deals, especially the #1 deal!

 

That’s if I am not mistaken?

 

From; Intel Core i7 920@2.66GHz, 2.93GHz, 4/8, 130W, sys mark-214

To; Intel Core i5 750@2.66GHz, 3.20GHz, 4/4, 95W, sys mark-217

 

From; 3-gigs 1333-Mhz DDR 3

To; 4-gigs 1600-Mhz DDR 3

 

From; EVGA X58 SLI Micro mother board

To; EVGA P55 LE mother board

 

For a prebuilt, I like what I see for the price, especially since I’m only running a Max Resolution of 1680 x 1050 / 60 Hz.

So what’s the Good, the Bad and the Ugly?

I think the point here is not so much the monitor itself but rather the resolution that it is capable of displaying.

To squeeze today's graphics card as hard as you can and make them beg for mercy as you try and push out every last little pixel of gloriously colored and rendered performance, you START at a minimum of 1650x1050 or whatever.

Almost anything recent can handle all of today's games at most of the resolutions that are considered standard now with reasonable details.

So since he is only running a 1680x1050 the new packages will fit him well because getting more probably wouldn't make a whole lot of difference right this second in what he actually sees and therefore would practically benefit by.

Originally posted by Shabby <P =Msonormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 10pt"><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 115%"><FONT face=Calibri>This appears to be a fair and somewhat easy comparison to grasp, within reason.<?: prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /><o:p></o:p></SPAN> <P =Msonormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 10pt"><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial"><FONT face=Calibri color=#800080 size=3>Intel's Core i7 870 & i5 750, Lynnfield</SPAN><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 115%"><o:p></o:p></SPAN>

Wish i had seen this earlier before i bothered writing an explanation for those less familiar with the platforms. This is a nice review. The benchmarks consistently spank the Phenom II X4 965 BE.

I like the new Perfomance 2 as a strong potential for my wife and another for my kids (i.e. might buy two of them) as they don't need the extra horsepower of the other pre-builts; but it gives the flexibility of future upgrades.  I sent DS an e-mail for more info on the model of the PSU and the info on the CPU cooling; plus clarification on Vista (it doesn't say 64-bit or 32-bit).

When it's time for me to upgrade to a DX11 card next year I'm hoping that I can drop the two 260's I have in my DS rig (i7 920) into their machines without needing to upgrade the PSU.

I have two 260's in SLI on my machine right now.  I'll upgrade sometime next year and hopefully be able to put those in the pre-built - one in each (i.e. replace a 250 with a 260).  Much easier to sell that to my wife if her machine also benefits by me upgrading the GPU on my machine.

Although I have champagne taste, I’m on a beer budget right now, and it appears there’s little chance of that changing anytime soon!

It may not be considered a dream machine by many purists, per se, but it is compared to what I’m using now, and that’s a start.

I do have a couple of questions regarding the enthusiast 1.

Not that it matters, it’s just for grins and giggles.

1. The on-die PCIe controller, that's 16 PCIe 2.0 lanes coming right off the chip, is the ultra low latency GPU communication even a perceivable difference?

2. I should be able to push this puppy up to 3.8 GHz or 4 GHz without a meltdown or much effort, as shipped?

3. Where is the bottle neck in this rig?

4. Do you think I will notice a difference over the below antique calculator I’m using now for gaming?

I never said it was FUN gaming, just gaming; actually it’s more like patiently ambushing people from behind protective cover, not very satisfying for me and extremely irritating to unsuspecting passersby.

Dell Inspiron 530

Core 2 Duo [email protected]

2-Gigs PC2-5300 (333 MHz)

GeForce 8500 GT

HP w2007

Max Resolution of 1680 x 1050 / 60 Hz.

well the 275 can run up to 1600 x 1200 for you very nicely, boy are you in for a treat then you are gonna be around 50fps at 1600 x 1200 at almost all the games, that means pretty much smooth gaming.

Edited by DST4ME - 09 Sep 2009 at 10:13pm

EVGA P55 LE is SLI capable, though I wouldn't recommend it for SLI.  First PCI-E slot is 16x, while the other is 4x.