PC hardware discussion V1,000,000,000.6

[SwiftSpear]

So I'm 2 or so months out from building myself a new PC... I've got everything I need in terms of sound equipment, monitor, and peripherals for the time being, so I only need tower components. I've also got a winTV card and a 600 watt modular PSU that are only a few months old so I figure I'll recycle them.

Budget maxes out at $1500 CAN so unless I go water cooling I don't really think I've got any troubles. While I don't plan on going to water I do plan on doing some overclocking so I will be maxing out the air cooling in the case and what not.

Basically I'm looking for suggestions on processors and GPUs in the high range that won't break the bank and will give me lots of OC room for the dollar spent. Additionally, what are the best cases that don't package with a PSU? As the PSU is useless for me...

Any other suggestions or things I should know?

[edit] Also motherboards. I only sell tower packages in my current job so I'm WAY out of date on motherboards. Which are good for my purposes?

[Sheekel]

I just bought a Galaxy 8800GT as it was somewhat cheaper than the other 8800GTs, and came with an aftermarket cooler. I'll post again once i get it

[SwiftSpear]

For GPU I'm looking at this

I'm not sure though, I've heard some reviews stating that the GTS overclocks alot better... No idea weather that's authoritative or weather I can find one at a pricepoint I like.

[Sheekel]

At $1500 you can definitely get the Q6600 processor. And get a nice Zalman cooler, push it to 3.0ghz and beyond!

[minion]

For best air cooling on the Q6600 and 8800GT, I cannot recommend anything else than these: ThermalRight 120 Ultra Extreme and the ThermalRight HR-03 GT.
These are extremely good air coolers. Also for the Core 2 Duo/Quad range, look for the G0 stepping for less power use, better overclocks and cooler running.

[Peet]

Mobo. Best choice for overclocking hands down, lets you tweak the voltage and clock frequency of practically every bus, from windows.

[El Idiot]

All of the Phenoms will be out by 2nd Quarter this year...
If you have no faith in AMD, then the Q6600 is a good deal.
As for a GPU, a 9000 series Nvidea is coming out. I believe its a dual G92 or something.

[REVENGE]

I suggest you wait until February 14, then get the 9600 GT. It'll be cheaper than the 8800 GT, but will perform on par and have DX10.1 capabilities.

[REVENGE]

A simply superb motherboard: Asus P5E3 Premium

As for case, I'm assuming you want the best, so:

Looks like a ------- Appliance Antec Performance Shiny P182SE

Best Gaming Case Antec Nine Hundred

Best Sleeper, Plain, Flawless Build Quality Lian Li Tower

General consensus is that Lian-Li probably makes the best quality cases you'll ever find, with the tradeoff being that they're pretty spartan in appearance and features. If you can put off with that, then know that functionally they're pretty much king of cases.

[HeavyLancer]

For a processor, I would recommend the new Core 2 Duos or Quads that are coming out: the E8xxx series dual cores or Q9xxx quad cores (out soon). Oh, and this is coming from an AMD fan. AMD is really bad at the moment, they may take a while to get back up and running in the processor stakes again.

Graphics Card: The 8800GT is incredibly good value at the moment. the new 9600GT is meant to be a replacement for the 8600 series, and I read somewhere that Nvidia has made it slower than an 8800GT so that they can sell it cheaper. I think it is meant to be an AMD HD3850 competitor. And DX10.1 is going to be pretty fail. Considering how DX10 is only optional on most games, DX10.1 features will be even rarer. Don't get a card solely on that.

Oh, and case-wise, I have an Antec Nine Hundred and I can thoroughly recommend it. The only problem with it is the noise, but this is minimal compare to the amount of noise my 8800GT makes at times. The cooling is excellent and I personally really like the chunky look of it.

[SwiftSpear]

To clarify... I'm comfortable doing a bit of overclocking... but that's not really the point of the project, so I really don't want to spend tonnes of money on after market cooling, because if that was the goal I'd just set aside more money and go with water to begin with. Primarily I'm looking for stuff that will preform well and is EASY to overclock. What I want is the best value for my dollar, so it's sort of superfluous to sink 500-600 into hardware ideal for over clocking when the actual clocking exercise itself won't get me more performance than I would get spending that money on higher factory clocked items.

I don't care in the slightest about looks for the case, and I'm a bit obsessive with case cooling, so likely my box will run fairly cool just because it will have tonnes of fans in it, but I don't want to spend additionally hundreds of dollars on third party heat sinks and what not unless I see a clear performance advantage.

[edit] In terms of processors... My first instinct was to just go for the current core 2 quad... however, I realized I don't really know too much about thier specifications. Now, I'm ok getting a moderate processor, doing a bit of clocking to make it decent, and just being happy without ridiculously elite hardware, but what I REALLY REALLY don't want is to spend money on a mobo set up, and then want to upgrade my proccy down the line because of new advances, to find I'm unable too because of the mobo slot or something equivalently stupid.

Along the same lines, is it worthing going for DDR3? I've heard a few people worried about bugs in the new system... Are the problems more likely to be inherent to the motherboards, or the RAM chips themselfs? What I really don't want is a system setup that is going to date quickly, so if the new wave of things is going to be DDR3, getting the motherboard out of the way now and slapping more chips in later sounds appealing.

One last thing, is RAID worth it?

[clumsy_culhane]

for cpu, i would recommend the Q6600 as its so cheap, yet so easily over-clockable. For graphics card, 8800 GT or 8800 GTS 512 i would recommend.

[Neddie]

DDR3 is not yet mature or cost effective, get a board that can support it, but don't get it yet. I could get a C2d and clock it, though I run stock.

[SwiftSpear]

DDR3 is not yet mature or cost effective, get a board that can support it, but don't get it yet. I could get a C2d and clock it, though I run stock.

Will a DDR3 compatible board be able to run DDR2 chips? I can't find any information indicating such... That being said the DDR3 chips seem to be set up in such a way that their advantages over DDR2 are to the point of being obcene... It's not cost effective to go all out yet... but I could go for 2 gig at a lower clockrate for now, and then upgrade later as the software begins to match the hardware capabilities. The question is, would it be worth doing or is there likely to be new processor advances in the near future that will make the mobo obsolete in a short while anyways?

[edit] My primary concern is longevity. I'm going back to school at some point in the future and I won't be able to afford another rebuild for most likely a good 6 years. I'd like to be able to stream upgrades into the box and keep it a strong box as long as possible.

[clumsy_culhane]

in most cases, a DDR3 board will run DDR3 only. some board have two slots of DDR2, and two of DDR3, but its rare and (imo) wasteful.

[Acidd_UK]

For the record I'm using DDR3 and haven't had any problems with it...

[Relative]

For the record I'm using DDR3 and haven't had any problems with it...

Well there's nothing wrong with DDR3, its just too expensive right now and the current performance margin over DDR2 doesn't make it worth it.

[SwiftSpear]

For the record I'm using DDR3 and haven't had any problems with it...

Well there's nothing wrong with DDR3, its just too expensive right now and the current performance margin over DDR2 doesn't make it worth it.

So in theory, say I'm spending 1.5 times more for RAM that is of equal performance... I'm ok with that if it means that 3 years down the line, instead of throwing away my mobo, I just throw 2 more 2 gig DDR3 chips in the box and om nom nom benchmarks. Most likely they won't be as expensive then. However, if that's just idiotic and it won't work that way, I'd rather go for DDR2.

[Relative]

pah

[REVENGE]

DDR3 is expensive, but it can already outperform DDR2 by a mile+ if you're an overclocker. Besides, the best motherboards such as the X48 based Asus I recommended use DDR3 standard.

Also, 9600GT benchmarks suggest it is faster than initially anticipated, even though it's pre-release. Using beta drivers, they got the card in SLI mode to outrun the 8800 Ultra by quite a bit. If they can price it at around the current 8800GT range, you've got a winner.