1200 euro to spend

docetes

I'm looking for something that I can pump money into without replacing all the parts. i.e. I'll replace the graphics card but don't want to replace the Mobo.

I was thinking about the asus striker extrame for staters.

I'll probably use it for some light gaming

toco123

Monitor, OS ?!

docetes

no need for a moniter or an OS

toco123

light gaming... and €1200.. Whats your needs?!!

docetes

toco123 wrote: »

light gaming... and €1200.. Whats your needs?!!

another €800:D

I figure about 2gigs of ram and a decent graphics card should do it but I really want to be able to replace the graphics card or add another one for sli. Apart from that I don't really know. Battlefield2, Civ4 and doom 3 are the games I play mostly

docetes

i was looking at http://www.overclockers.co.uk/syscon_int.php?prodid=FS-068-OK

but with an extra NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT 512MB and 4GB of ram
works out about €1300.

skuzzb

E6750 is a last gen chip so have a look at the E8400 instead. It might be worth the few extra quid.

The samsung f1 drives are the fasted around so get one of them instead of the WD.

toco123

Okay lad... I think that €1200 for pretty old games is madness...

Not to worry though!!

For €890 on www.harwareversand.de


Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Boxed

ABIT FP-IN9 SLI, LGA775 NVIDIA 650i SLI, ATX, PCIe

2048MB DDR2 Corsair XMS2 CL 5, PC6400/800
2048MB DDR2 Corsair XMS2 CL 5, PC6400/800

ATX-Netzteil Corsair TX650W 650 Watt

Club3D 8800GT ZEROtherm 512MB, NVIDIA Geforce 8800GT, PCI-Express
Club3D 8800GT ZEROtherm 512MB, NVIDIA Geforce 8800GT, PCI-Express

Samsung HD753LJ 750GB S-ATA II, 32MB Cache

Antec Nine Hundred, ATX, ohne Netzteil

Samsung SH-S203D bulk schwarz


For €1177.72 on www.harwareversand.de


Intel Core 2 Quad Q9450 boxed, 12MB, LGA775, 64bit

EVGA nForce 780i SLI

Antec Nine Hundred, ATX, ohne Netzteil

ATX-Netzteil Corsair TX650W 650 Watt

Club3D 8800GT ZEROtherm 512MB, NVIDIA Geforce 8800GT, PCI-Express
Club3D 8800GT ZEROtherm 512MB, NVIDIA Geforce 8800GT, PCI-Express

Samsung HD103UJ 1TB 32MB SATA II

Samsung SH-S203D bulk schwarz




Probably the best rigs at that price... And keeping in mind you wish not to remove the mobo and processor

skuzzb

I have that abit board and it has FSB holes all over the place....fsb maxes out at 390mhz for me and you need to put stupid volts into the North Bridge to get it to do anything so you might be better off with a gigabyte 650i board instead.

http://www3.hardwareversand.de/3/articledetail.jsp?aid=18310&agid=659

toco123

Fair enough... theres nothing in price difference anyway! OP will you be overclocking??

TerrorFirmer

Considering those games would run flawlessly at max settings on a 60 euro card, it would be madness to opt for Sli.

What else do you want to do with this machine?

docetes

Well it's nice to have the option of playing recent games

Sqaull20

docetes wrote: »

Well it's nice to have the option of playing recent games

2 x 8800gt €300 is everything you need for todays and tomorrow games...

http://www3.hardwareversand.de/articledetail.jsp?aid=18814&agid=554

docetes

so apart from www.harwareversand.de where else could I buy the parts?

Nforce

adverts.ie :D

toco123

All in German but good prices:
www.drivecity.de

Expensive:
www.dabs.ie
www.komplett.ie

docetes

it looks like I'll have to get it off http://www3.hardwareversand.de

I just don't like the idea of a money transfer. I'd prefer if they took credit cards.

toco123

we all would.... you could buy from ebay... but its so slooooow and possibly more expensive

docetes

ok I'm going with the germans. Here's what I've come up with.

Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 Box 6144Kb, LGA775, 64bit 197,99 €

ASUS Striker II Formula, Sockel 775 nForce780i SLI, ATX 199,36 €

4096MB DDR2 Corsair Twin2X CL 5, PC6400/800 72,61 €

Antec P182, ATX, ohne Netzteil 109,09 €

ATX-Netzteil Corsair TX650W 650 Watt 75,64 €

Club3D 8800GT 512MB PCIe X2 319.58 €

Samsung SH-202N schwarz bare Lightscribe 26,69 €

Samsung HD753LJ 750GB S-ATA II, 32MB Cache 84,99 €

for a total of 1167.02 plus P+P

Having never done this before can anyone see any real problems with this setup?

AlmightyCushion

You could save a bit of money and go with the q6600. What resolution is your monitor?

Sqaull20

docetes wrote: »

ok I'm going with the germans. Here's what I've come up with.

Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 Box 6144Kb, LGA775, 64bit 197,99 €

ASUS Striker II Formula, Sockel 775 nForce780i SLI, ATX 199,36 €

4096MB DDR2 Corsair Twin2X CL 5, PC6400/800 72,61 €

Antec P182, ATX, ohne Netzteil 109,09 €

ATX-Netzteil Corsair TX650W 650 Watt 75,64 €

Club3D 8800GT 512MB PCIe X2 319.58 €

Samsung SH-202N schwarz bare Lightscribe 26,69 €

Samsung HD753LJ 750GB S-ATA II, 32MB Cache 84,99 €

for a total of 1167.02 plus P+P

Having never done this before can anyone see any real problems with this setup?

780i motherboards are way over priced imo, a good 650i board is way better value and extra money can go towards a blu ray drive, speakers, head phones or whatever..

http://www1.hardwareversand.de/articledetail.jsp?aid=18310&agid=659 €68

I would go with a quad too, great value @ €167

How big is your monitor?

docetes

I'm gonna get a ****ty 17" monitor out of work but I'll be buying myself a decent monitor 21" or bigger if I can afford it.

regarding quad core chips do operating systems/games actually use these chips to their full potential?

AlmightyCushion

docetes wrote: »

I'm gonna get a ****ty 17" monitor out of work but I'll be buying myself a decent monitor 21" or bigger if I can afford it.

regarding quad core chips do operating systems/games actually use these chips to their full potential?

Sli is only meant to offer good performance gains at resolutions of 1920x1200 or above (24" monitors would be 1920x1200). You might be better off getting a single 8800gts/gtx.

Games don't currently use them to their full advantage but they will in the future and given how cheap they are, you may as well get one.

docetes

One of these can come out of next months pay cheque so

http://www1.hardwareversand.de/articledetail.jsp?aid=17913&agid=367.

and you're probably right about the quad core.

But would it not be better to go a bit nuts with the motherboard so I wont have to replace it at a later date?

AlmightyCushion

docetes wrote: »

One of these can come out of next months pay cheque so

http://www1.hardwareversand.de/articledetail.jsp?aid=17913&agid=367.

Very nice.

docetes wrote: »

and you're probably right about the quad core.

But would it not be better to go a bit nuts with the motherboard so I wont have to replace it at a later date?

Not really. Pretty much every motherboard you get will have all the same features so they will last just as long before they become obsolete. You could get a 790 board. It has ddr3 (most boards now are ddr2) but they are really expensive and it's only compatible with ddr3 (which is also really expensive) so you'd have to get that now which will add to the cost even more so. At your budget it would be throwing money away that would be better spend on other components and leave you with a worse system.

Blowfish

docetes wrote: »

But would it not be better to go a bit nuts with the motherboard so I wont have to replace it at a later date?

Well by the looks of it Intel will be changing socket for their next line due out late 08/early 09, so there really isn't a whole lot of point trying to future proof yourself mobo wise.

PogMoThoin

Blowfish wrote: »

Well by the looks of it Intel will be changing socket for their next line due out late 08/early 09, so there really isn't a whole lot of point trying to future proof yourself mobo wise.

Yep, nehalem gonna have on chip memory controller, just like Amd been doing for years, means new socket and mobo layout without a northbridge. They gonna start off with 4 cores with hyperthreading (show up as 8 cores in task manager) and Intel expect to be using 16 cores by 2012. Futureproof, not a chance :eek:

docetes

Ok so here goes
Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 Box 6144Kb, LGA775, 64bit 197,99 €
ASUS "Commando", Sockel 775 Intel P965, ATX 110,90 €
4096MB DDR2 Corsair Twin2X CL 5, PC6400/800 72,61 €
Antec P182, ATX, ohne Netzteil 109,09 €
ATX-Netzteil Corsair 520W 520 Watt 76,15 €
Club3D 8800GTS, 512MB, NVIDIA Geforce 8800GTS, PCI-Express X2 380,41 €
Samsung HD753LJ 750GB S-ATA II, 32MB Cache 84,99 €
LG GGC-H20L bulk schwarz 110,91 €


I went for a reasonable mobo and a pretty good chip. At this stage I'd like to thank all those who've advised me so far.

Could this be improved (Stupid question as the answer i probably yes)

Sqaull20

Asus commando is not sli compatible, its a crossfire board

docetes

oops

ok replace that with an ASUS P5N-E SLI, Sockel 775 nForce 650SLI, ATX

Sqaull20

Power supply while decent will be pushed to its limits..

I would go with the 620watt

http://www1.hardwareversand.de/articledetail.jsp?aid=7658&agid=240

And this ram is only €5 more, with much lower timings

http://www1.hardwareversand.de/articledetail.jsp?aid=20385&agid=599

Everything else looks good, very nice system ( very jealous )

By the way why are you going Dual Core, are you going to overclock?

Alot of people are having issues overclocking with the E8000 series on older nvidia chipsets, dont think you will be seeing the best out of that E8400..

I would go with a Q6600 if it was me...