Choosing a new PC

[darthvaderkenneth]

How much would a PC with intel core 2 duo E8500 and an ATI radeon HD3870x2 will cost? Also how good would it be at playing games like Crysis and CoD4.

 

[murdoch]

Whats the most you would spend £££.

 

[Ian]

Also, do you want to build it yourself or buy off the shelf?

 

[darthvaderkenneth]

I'm not sure about the chipset or motherboard but I would like 2-4 gigs of ram. Price about $1000-2000USD. Yeah i'm planning on buying it off the shelf.

 

[darthvaderkenneth]

About S1000-2000USD. I would be using 2-4gigs of ram and windows vista home premium or ultimate

 

[floppybootstomp]

Ok, this lot comes to $1478 and does not include Monitor; Speakers; keyboard; Mouse; Operating System.

Also note I couldn't find any USA suppliers stocking the 3.2Ghz E8500 so I've included the 3Ghz E8400 to give you a rough idea, Add a bit more for the E8500,

This is assuming you're building it yourself.

Prices from Newegg and there were mail-in cash rebates available on some items.

That would make a good gaming machine but you could economise and still have a very good machine.

I'd personally ditch the 2 x ATI cards in crossfire and go for an Nvidia 8800GT 512Mb or even an Ultra for that budget.

Here's specs:

E8400:…………………………………………………………$225
Asus P5K SE Motherboard: (with Crossfire)………$150
2 x ATI HD3870:……………………………………………..$500
2Gb Corsair XMS2 DDR2 memory PC6400……………$74
Samsung SATA 500Gb Hard drive:…………………………$110
OCZ 700 watt Power Supply:…………………………………$135
Antec 900 Gamer’s case:………………………………………$120
Pioneer SATA DVDRW:………………………………………..$32
Creative X-Fi Xtrene Gamer Sound card:…………………$81
Zalman CNPS9500 CPU Cooler:………………………………$45
Arctic Silver Thermal paste:……………………………………$6

 

[darthvaderkenneth]

Actually the HD3870x2 is one card not two HD3870 cards in cross fire so its about $100 cheaper It has 1024mb of memory which is more than the 8800ultra . I think i can spend it bit more for 4gb memory and the E8500 instead of the E8400.

 

[Alf]

well lets get this out of the way first...
having a Gig of memory on your graphics card will do you no good. Even at extreme resoulutions.
stick with a card that offers 512mb.

3870 is a great card otherwise.

 

[Abarbarian]

Before you throw money away read the reviews and test reports om the 8800 GT's here ,

https://www.pcreview.co.uk/forums/forum-56.php

 

[darthvaderkenneth]

I'm not sure about the 8800gt since I want something newer and with more memory but I don't want to w8 for the Geforce 9800

 

[Alf]

well to be fair, the 8800GT is still quite a bit more powerful than the 3870 is.

 

[darthvaderkenneth]

Ok, I might consider the 8800gt and gtx and the 3870x2 but what about the CPU? SHould I get a new wolfdale dual core or the yorkfield quadcores at 2.8ghz.(E8500 or Q9550)or should i w8 for the e8600 and q9650 which comes out about half a year latter

 

[darthvaderkenneth]

I am planning to use the PC for playing less demanding games than crysis like vegas 2 and far cry 2, so should I get 2gb of memory instead of 4gb and is a 3.16ghz c2d better than a 2.8ghz c2q.

 

[Alf]

right now im sure the Duo is better, but as apps become more and more multi threaded, the quad will last you much longer.

 

[darthvaderkenneth]

What motherboard would support the quad and is 4gb of ram good enough for vista? The quakd q9550 costs about $500 and the video card $400, the ram $100-200 how much would the mobo, cooling systems, psu, sound card and a 20-22inchmonitor cost?

 

[Alf]

im not going to name some specs, cause frankly i dont know much on the Intel side of things but i figure....
Mobo - $200
Heatsinks - $50
PSU - $150-200
Sound - X-Fi fatality $140

right now a few people here recomend a certain LCD, but right now the name excapse me (Pebble somethingorother)

 

[darthvaderkenneth]

Would this last 2.5 years?

 

[Alf]

only if you dont play games at max detail
then yes

 

[darthvaderkenneth]

only if you dont play games at max detail
then yes

Well how long would it last if I were to play at full detail. I know it won't handle crysis at max but wat about less demanding games like CoD4, BF2142 or future games like vegas 2 and Far Cry 2

 

[Alf]

it would be able to play anything out right now at max detail (except crysis). as for the future? i doubt it
thats the bad thing about computer gaming, the fastest card out right now may not be able to play a game maxxed out 4 months from now.