1500e to spend

stylie

I know in this dark economic times we should be battening down the hatches and not spending frivolously on luxury items, but dammit stylie has been promising to spend this on his new rig for ages now and between now and xmas he is going to bite the bullet and pull out his dusty moth riddled old wallet.
The question is what would people here do if they had a budget of 1,500e where would they spend the money ?? ..I'm thinking quad core, crossfire graphics cards, 4gig ram, blue-ray reader etc..no monitor, no speakers,cheap sound-card...I want to splash out on certain areas and skimp on ones I dont use..anyone here do a rig recently for this budget ? interested to compare notes

Shiny

Quad
4 Gigs RAM
SSD Hard drive (Which ever one is best value at time of purchase)
^^ Maybe an additional SSD for a nice raid 0 setup

1TB Hard drive for storage (Maybe additional one for Raid 1 backup)

A dual cpu graphics card. I wouldn't bother with 2 separate ones.

Get a nice Logitech mouse (G5 Maybe ?)

If you don't care about sound then just use the onboard sound on the
motherboard.

What monitor do you have?

Sqaull20

If your intent on spending that money, dont waste it on old tech, like Q6600.

X58 Mobo
Core i7-920
4 gig Ram
2 x 750gb Samsung F1's
HD4870X2

AlmightyCushion

I hope the monitor is one of the components you aren't skimping on. What's the point of spending a butt load of money on high end components for gaming when you are playing it on a 19" screen. With your budget you should be looking at a 24".

stylie

Thanks for the input lads...the monitor is not an issue yet as I might be doing a very complicated swap/work/barter deal for a 40in panasonic or a less complicated deal for a 24in Samsung..if they fall through I would have to revise the budget a bit but for the moment I'm planning the budget without the monitor

I have the G5 mouse already which i love..thinking of getting the logitech G15? keyboard..

I hope to play a few games on the rig but it will be also used for heavy duty processing of photographs and film...

Thanks for the card advice and any more input ye have..I pretty IT wise but other peoples advice is always welcome

PogMoThoin

Sqaull20 wrote: »

If your intent on spending that money, dont waste it on old tech, like Q6600.

X58 Mobo
Core i7-920
4 gig Ram
2 x 750gb Samsung F1's
HD4870X2

Sorry, have to disagree with You there.

There is no advantage to a gamer in buying a Core-i7, games don't ulilise more than one core and with the Q6600 less than $150 it would be pointless to waste money on an i7 and the more expensive DDR3. I'd go with a Q6700, 4Gb DDR2, x48 mobo, (1 or 2) SSD's for OS, 1TB F1 Samsung, 4870X2, Soundcard and get a good 5.1 surround like a logitech Z5500's and a 24' Monitor. Money better spent IMO as peripherals make a gaming setup.

Sqaull20

OP is using it for processing films and stills as well.

If he wanted bang for buck, I would have told him to get E5200, HD4850, 3gig ddr2

kaimera

PogMoThoin wrote: »

Sorry, have to disagree with You there.

There is no advantage to a gamer in buying a Core-i7, games don't ulilise more than one core and with the Q6600 less than $150 it would be pointless to waste money on an i7 and the more expensive DDR3. I'd go with a Q6700, 4Gb DDR2, x48 mobo, (1 or 2) SSD's for OS, 1TB F1 Samsung, 4870X2, Soundcard and get a good 5.1 surround like a logitech Z5500's and a 24' Monitor. Money better spent IMO as peripherals make a gaming setup.

primary use isnt games so the entry level i7 gear is worth the outlay for what he wants it for from benchmarks I've seen

PaddyTheNth

PogMoThoin wrote: »

Sorry, have to disagree with You there.

There is no advantage to a gamer in buying a Core-i7, games don't ulilise more than one core

While this was true, it is no longer the case.... http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055400573

If I had the cash to splash I'd sort out a nice monitor as recommended in this thread, a dual-slot 4870 probably, at least 2 hard drives such as the F1 1TB (maybe an ssd for OS/prog files), surround sound...and if I still had the cash in the budget I'd absolutely go for a new i7 processor.

stylie

Do any of ye guys use RAM cards with their own heat sinks ? looking at the Reaper X HPC and it seems pretty "cool" but would it take to much space up ?