New Computer

[Khirmint]

I'm having to do a couple of upgrades to my computer, so I figured I'd look into replace it. Aiming for reasonably priced gaming computer. Purchasing from ncix.com, where I think I can get a slightly better price using a friends premium account.

Been a looong time since I've put together a computer, so feedback or potential problems would be appreciated. Thanks!

EVGA E-GEFORCE 7900 GS KO 500MHZ 256MB 256BIT 1.38GHZ GDDR3 Dual DVI-I HDTV Out Video Card

ASUS P5B ATX LGA775 Conroe 965P DDR2 PCI-E16 3PCI-E1 3PCI 6 SATA2 Sound Motherboard

Antec Sonata II Black ATX 16IN Mid Tower Quiet Case 3X5.25 2X3.5 4X3.5IN 450W Air Duct 120MM Fan

Seagate Barracuda 250GB 7200.10 8MB 8.5MS SATA2 NCQ Hard Drive Combo Deal (15422)

Samsung SH-S182 DVD+RW 18X8X16 DVD-RW 18X6X16 DL-8X DVD Writer IDE Black OEM W/ Software

OCZ Gold XTC PC2-6400 2GB 2X1GB DDR2-800 CL5-5-5-12 240PIN DIMM Dual Channel Memory Kit

Logitech G11 Gaming Keyboard Black Silver Programmable Backlit Keys USB

Logitech G5 Laser Gaming Mouse 2000DPI USB Multilingual GREY/BLACK *IR-$10*

Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition OEM

Intel Core 2 Duo E6400 Dual Core Processor LGA775 Conroe 2.13GHZ 1066FSB 2MB Retail

[Grantref]

You're building this yourself, correct?

If you can wait a couple months, the next revisions to the Core 2 Duos are supposed to be released by Intel in Q2 2007. The E6450 will have a full 4MB L2 Cache instead of 2MB. Alternatively, look into upgrading to the E6600, which has a full 4MB now. It makes a big difference.

With a mid-range video card like that, I would recommend getting a board that supports SLI so you can add another one to nearly double your gaming ability without spending the cash on a high-end video card.

[Nazon]

If I was getting a new gaming rig at this point in time, I would have gotten something that was much more vista friendly, so that I could run all those directx 10 games that will begin coming out in the near future (so far there is one out, afaik). After all you don't want to have your pc crippled in a year or so (game wise), so my advice is wait a bit, for second generation of dx10 graphic cards to come out (which in turn will cut the prices of the current dx10 cards dramatically), getting some more RAM (I have read somewhere that Vista's sweet spot it 4Gb!). And then following both pieces of excellent advice given to you by Grantref in above post.

[Khirmint]

Yes, I'm building this myself. I can't remember the last time I bought a prebuilt system.

Do you guys think that Vista is going to be necessary for gaming fairly soon? I've been running 2k, and only just now ran into a game that had to be patched to actually run on 2k. I'm guessing that XP is going to be more or less the same?

I've read that the 4mb of L2 cache is mostly just useful for apps that are designed to make use of it? I wish I could find the quote back, so I might be mis-remembering it.

And how would tell if a card is "vista friendly"?

I've got a neglected Wii, so I could go play that for awhile instead of of buying now. But assuming I don't decide to wait, I made these changes:

2 x EVGA E-GEFORCE 7900 GS KO 500MHZ 256MB 256BIT 1.38GHZ GDDR3 Dual DVI-I HDTV Out Video Card

EVGA Nforce 680I SLI LGA775 Conroe ATX DDR2 2PCI-E16 2PCI SATA2 RAID Sound GBLAN 1394 Motherboard

[Zyth]

I agree with Nazon, you really want to wait a few months for second gen dx10 cards to come out. The compatible Nvidia cards are the 8800 series+ - so while your 2 7900s will be pretty good, they will get crippled in under a year, and the current 8800 price is really high. I am in the predicament of owning some 7900s too and am waiting, so that's my advice to you.

[Rosuav]

Originally posted by Khirmint
Do you guys think that Vista is going to be necessary for gaming fairly soon? I've been running 2k, and only just now ran into a game that had to be patched to actually run on 2k. I'm guessing that XP is going to be more or less the same?

XP is going to be *ample* for a good while to come. 2K will probably even serve you fairly well for the next while, though I wouldn't promise that. End-user acceptance of Vista, like every new version of any operating system, is going to be relatively slow - XP's still going to have the lion's share of the Windows userbase for a period, I'd be guessing a couple of years at least (depends on what MS do with Vista and whether it actually captures people enough to make them buy it, or if most people will just wait until they get a new computer with Vista). Games writers will respect this, and Vista-only games will likely be rare until Vista holds the bulk of the Windows world.

[Kurdt]

Vista won't really be fully fledged until "Fiji", which is like SP1 for XP, but with all of the features that they had to cut in order to get Vista out on time. (Despite they breached the proposed date by several months.)

There WILL be however, games written ONLY for Vista. Hellgate:London is a prime example. A game like that, I don't want to miss out on.

The 7900GT cards are fully Vista compatible, which is really your main concern in your hardware, apart from your chipset, which no manufacturer is going to be making them NOT compatible. So you should be dancing there.


The main requirements for gaming on Vista will be video cards, and ram. Games are only JUST now starting to support SLi vid cards, otherwise they've actually only been utilizing one.

I would go 4 gig of ram. If you want real performance. Even Dell have admitted that they will not sell a desktop machine with Vista Ultimate with anything under 2 gig of ram.

I'm also an AMD fan when it comes to PC's, especially for gaming. And I never trust a mobo company that releases 8 firmware updates before the mobo is released. (Yes, I mean Asus.)


Hope some of this feedback is helpful.

[Rosuav]

Originally posted by Kurdt
I'm also an AMD fan ...

Kurdt twirls around
Kurdt twirls around
(repeat x1000)

[Grantref]

Vista-only games will consist of Halo 3 and Halo 3 for a while yet. However, you may wish to consider an
8800GTS 320MB card as an alternative to your 7900GS. It's the cheapest directX 10 card available, and you can always SLI two of them at a later time for a lot less than a 8800GTX.

Also, you might as well go ahead and get the OEM version of Vista Home Premium instead of XP. If you don't want to right now, get Media center XP so you can have a cheaper upgrade path to Vista.

[Nazon]

Should you decide to go for SLI solution, make sure that you get an adequate power supply to run both cards and your hardware. 350W should do it for the setup you mentioned above (with two graphic cards), but if you plan to add more devices in the future, you may want to go bigger.

As for Vista, I cannot foresee how soon dx10 will be absolutely required, but I still recommend being on the safe side and getting a graphic card(s) that support it, to get all the shiny new content. It would be a shame if you had to miss out on some features in a few months after getting a new rig.