Want to build a kickass PC for gaming - advice on parts needed

SnotNosedGit

I've been looking around trying to find some info on how to get the best gaming PC possible for under €2000, but find it very daunting.
I can build it from parts, but would prefer to buy it off the shelf. I guess BF2 is the benchmark at the moment.

Have any members any advice on what i should go for or can point me to some up to date links.

WizZard

If you want to build you could get a great PC for €2000 (do you need monitor/keyboard etc?)

<edit>try this shopping list on Komplett</edit>

Or if you want to buy go to the Dell Outlet (www.dell.ie/do) and buy an XPS system.

po0k

2000 will get you some high quality components for the machine.

Pay attention to the Case, power supply, cooling etc.

How good is your technical knowledge?

Endurance Man

Well need to no a few things. Are u going to be needing a monitor/keyboard/mouse, or just the actuall pc components. Those 3 pieces can add a lot to the total figure.

Nukem

Ya Dell seem to be moving PC's with X850XT in them for quite a good price.Can't believe i said that-i need a shower i feel dirty.

Nukem

po0k

It's a pity the rest of the system is crap.

And Dell use bottom of the line OEM parts. I could throw them several orders of magnitude farther than I would trust them.

SnotNosedGit

Thanks for the answers.
My technical know how is fairly good, but not when it comes to gameing hardware.

I have the monitor, mouse, keyboard, Hard Disk etc already.
I only have DDR ram in my current PC. Which is Dell.
Would rather not go for a Dell again, as upgrading is difficult.

Endurance Man

Crisis, well then for around the 2000 price mark u are going to be able to get the best of just about everything :eek: .

SnotNosedGit

That shopping list is cool.
Thanks for the link Wizzard.

Endurance Man

Put this together very quickly, what do u guys think?

http://www.komplett.ie/k/k.asp



EDIT>> Hm that link didnt work .

Endurance Man

https://www.komplett.ie/k/shoplist.asp

Here it is
Comes to 1833

Endurance Man

Wizzard,wouldnt u think it would be better to go for the better Cpu/mobo/ram??

ShevY

buy mine

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=281360

WizZard

Endurance Man wrote:

Wizzard,wouldnt u think it would be better to go for the better Cpu/mobo/ram??

No idea what your shopping list is since you haven't linked correctly. Click on Share list and copy the URL that is displayed on the page. Mouseover my link above for an example of what it should look like.


Maybe, CPU, mobo and RAM are the only things of my list I would change, but I didn't look too hard either. Was in a rush this morning. Damn Monday mornings!

Endurance Man

http://tinyurl.com/dccef

Whoops, my bad, there she is.
I think its crazy getting the 7800, the perfommance gain is just to little to justify that crazy price :eek: . The Radeon X800XL is going to do a good enough job, well actually are very good job for like half the price, and that way u can get the better cpu/mobo/ram.

WizZard

Hmm. Good idea, but the 7800GTX allows SLi at a future date. Might be handly for a gamer?


Anyway, your RAM won't work. It's DdR2 when Athlon64 only supports DDR(1).
No need for 2 hard drives - esp when the second is only 80Gb (SATA2 doesn't matter yet, better off getting a Raptor for speed. not need in this setup I'd imagine anyway). The DFI might be a bit of overkill. It's really an enthusiast board and thus comes with some baggage! Better to go for a board with less of an OC allowance but less hassle to set-up/maintain. eg. ASUS A8N-SLi
I don't like the case much, but that's personal preference!

An X2 is nice, but maybe not needed for just gaming. He's better off going for a single core CPU and better graphics since the X2 won't make a difference in games for about 6 months, or at least til the new Unreal engine come out and gets used. I think it's mutli-threaded.
Plus you haven't included a 19" TFT and mouse/keyboard which I have, so I could prob include better CPU etc by removing that. I'll do that now.

<edit>List number two. I've gone dual core with this too, since money was to spare I would advise you to get RAM and OCZ PSU from http://www.pc-memory-upgrade.co.uk/ instead, especially if you would intend to go SLi this year (Komplett don't stock the god stuff!)</edit>

<edit2>In fairness, I would envy the system in that shopping list + OCZ 600W PSU and Geil PC4000 RAM</edit2>
<edit3>Or buy (most of) the system in my sig (w/o monitor)-Current boards.ie 3dMark05 Champion System!!! for €2.4k </edit3>

Endurance Man

Yes, u are probably right about the mobo . I think if he is spending this much money on a the system he is not gonna want to upgrade any major parts any time soon, hence the X2. That is going to carry him at least 2/3 years which for this money is what it should do.
Didnt check out the ram properly, stupid me.
2 harddirves is always very handy, but that is going to depend on the person buying this i think. If he has tons of mp'3/movies/............etc, he is going to want a seperate hdd to store that stuff, away from the operating system ???

Dooom

Wizzard, what'd you get in 3dMark? Gonna try and run you a marathon for your money! Soon as I get my motherboard back..althought my RAM is fairly crap but it's not the worst. Methinks I should get a nice score, specially when I clock up the 7800 and 55.

Anyway, back on topic.
This setup is more or less the same as mine, bar a few things. And for under 2k you can't really go wrong!
RAM though, I think you should probably take Wizzard's advice on that one. Although you'll probably want 2gb of the stuff to make BF2 run nice and butter smooth.

Nukem

Dunno if this has come up but im reckoning the 7800gt is a power hungry mutha with those 20 pipes. Read its only a marginal increase in the 6800ultra?????????????
Thats CPU is a hungry power beast so i hope you get a lump of a PSU. KW PSU are very close ......................BEWARE:eek:

VeVeX

AMD Athlon 64 3500+ Venice 90nm £164.44

VapoChill Micro Extreme Performance £28.14

Asus A8N-SLi Premium £135.07

GeIL 1GB (2x512MB) PC4000 UltraP £105.69

Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 10 NCQ 200GB x2 £131.48

Leadtek GeForce 6800 GT 256MB PCI-E £217.32

NEC ND3540 16x16 DVD±RW (Black) £31.49

OCZ PowerStream 520w £112.51

Antec P180 Advanced Super Midi Tower Case £99.82

£1,025.96 GBP = €1,485.87 EUR

Overclockers.co.uk

Much better setup for the money in my opinion.

WizZard

Spike wrote:

Wizzard, what'd you get in 3dMark? Gonna try and run you a marathon for your money! Soon as I get my motherboard back..althought my RAM is fairly crap but it's not the worst. Methinks I should get a nice score, specially when I clock up the 7800 and 55.

No chance of getting near me with a single 7800GTX. Score is here

Dooom

Oh we'll see...

WizZard

If you get over 10k with ONE air-cooled 7800GTX I will buy you (many) pints!

Dooom

Haha, you got yourself a deal!

And er...if I happen to melt the card in the proccess, you'll buy me a new one right?

Endurance Man

I just dont think that 7800 is worth that extra money, its so bloody expensive. You no that when u buy so soon after release u are paying about 30% more than u should :rolleyes: , its crazy. The 6800 Gt would do just as good a job without, and at a later stage when the prices on those came down u could get a second one.

Dooom

Endurance Man wrote:

I just dont think that 7800 is worth that extra money, its so bloody expensive. You no that when u buy so soon after release u are paying about 30% more than u should :rolleyes: , its crazy. The 6800 Gt would do just as good a job without, and at a later stage when the prices on those came down u could get a second one.

Ahem.

WizZard wrote:

If you get over 10k with ONE air-cooled 7800GTX I will buy you (many) pints!

Nuff' said like.

Endurance Man

I dont think this guy is going to care what 3dmark score he gets :rolleyes: , he just wants to play games with high detail etc........................ and a 6800gt is going to provide that without taking a huge chunk of his budget away.

airetam_storm

Yes but Spike-v-Wizzard should be fun

Why not get the FX-57 over the 55?

Dooom

Indeed this should be fun. Although I've been browsing through the 3dMark 05 scores and this may well prove to be...not impossible, but f*cking hard none the less. Unless I watercool/phasechange the 55, but I'm extremely broke at the moment so that won't be happening!
But I've never admitted defeat and I ain't gonna start now!

airetam, I assume you were directing that at me? Didn't get it because:

a) - Way too expensive, and it'll be redundant in a fairly short time.
b) - I'll be throwing in an X2 next year (assuming it's needed then) so this is just to keep me happy until then

airetam_storm

Why are people spending money when the new socketF's will be out next year?

\edit\ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/05/09/amd_socket_m2_desktops/

\edit2\ Whoa just saw this on Jes
Product AID: 20963 256MB MSI NX7800GTX-VT2D256E PCIe
Sorry for no link but jes is qware

Dooom

There's no point waiting for technology. When the Socket F's come out, there'll be a new announcement, ad nauseum.
Same with graphics cards and most other computer hardware.

Endurance Man

Back on topic here, snotnose, are u gonna buy a pc or not. I get so sad when we all go to this trouble of figuring out the best system and then never hear wat the person actually got or if he even got anything at all :rolleyes: . Let us no wat goes down

Nukem

Dunno if you've seen this just thought id throw the cat among the pigeons.

Nukem

Endurance Man

Dunno if you've seen this just thought id throw the cat among the pigeons.

Come on m8, we have been given 2 grand to knock about , and we want self build .

Richard Dower

Can i have my "dream spec"?

DFI Lanparty SLI DR, four WD Raptors in RAID 0, 1GB of OCZ PC5000, PC Power and Cooling 850W SLI PSU, NEC 3540, Audigy X-Fi...and alot more.

But you get where i'm going.

Richard Dower

WizZard wrote:

If you get over 10k with ONE air-cooled 7800GTX I will buy you (many) pints!

I'm getting good overclocks on my XFX 7800GTX, 475/1280...stable. Not tested higher as yet. Added additional cooling to the refrence design though.

I mean, if you had a San Diego 3700+ and OCZ PC5000 on a DFI you could get over 310HTT...mad overclocks and bandwidth.

Dooom

What extra cooling did you add? Out of curiosity...

Richard Dower

I had two packs of copper RAM sinks on hand. So applied them the the backside of the stock cooling design. And a pack tiny heatsinks applied to the front of the card.

Does help, and my intake fans blow across the card as well. I am waiting for the XFX Extreme Edition bios to go online and flash, hopefully it'll be stable.

Nukem

Endurance Man wrote:

Come on m8, we have been given 2 grand to knock about , and we want self build .

Sorry i was thinking 2Gb and a decent card and maybe a huge sound system and a cracking monitor.Oh well. Ya build it. More fun

SnotNosedGit

Thanks Guys for all the hard work,
Now my little mind overloaded with info. I'm definitely leaning towards Wizzards spec but am still trying to get it right in my mind. Was hoing to order one today but im off on holidays on Monday for 4 weeks, so maybe given all this to think about, i'll order after i come back from holidays.
A friend of mine has just ordered your shopping list Wizzard

Both of us want to get into playing games again. I haven't played games much since i spent 4 years on the top floor of DCU CA labs playing Doom and Duke Nukem. Those were the days. Don't think i ever saw a lecture room.

Shevy, i was looking at yours, but unfortunatly i cant get the vat back on a second hand machine, not that you are chargeing vat, but you know what i mean.

One more thing.... Do all the cables and screws for the self build come with the components?

WizZard

SnotNosedGit wrote:

A friend of mine has just ordered your shopping list Wizzard

I should get a cut from Komplett at this stage!

SnotNosedGit wrote:

One more thing.... Do all the cables and screws for the self build come with the components?

Yes.

WizZard

airetam_storm wrote:

Yes but Spike-v-Wizzard should be fun

Hehe

airetam_storm wrote:

Why not get the FX-57 over the 55?

Too expensive. The FX-59 is out Q1 2006, plus the FX-57 only OC's roughly the same as the FX-55

po0k

Richard Dower wrote:

I'm getting good overclocks on my XFX 7800GTX, 475/1280...stable. Not tested higher as yet. Added additional cooling to the refrence design though.

I mean, if you had a San Diego 3700+ and OCZ PC5000 on a DFI you could get over 310HTT...mad overclocks and bandwidth.

You'd be better off dropping the clock and tightening the timings.

simonp1

Endurance Man wrote:

https://www.komplett.ie/k/shoplist.asp

Here it is
Comes to 1833

put it all together and booted up fine I put a gig of the ram too,
but as soon as I started playing battlefield2 on all high which I got it for.
8 times out of 10 it crashes to desktop or reboots and that goes for farcry too but not as much. I have been weeks searching for answers and updating everything, dropped the settings to medium and was fine but that was the reason I spend so much.

WizZard

@simonp1:
Start a new thread for this. List all your components and the settings you are using. Also list the drivers you are using; versions, etc.

We'll try to help.

simonp1

Will do, system info from sisoft sandra whatever its called should list everything you need to see what could be the problem. If so Ill do it tonight and post tomorrow.
thanks

WizZard

No, system info from you is better. eg. what you bought.

This is easier for people to go through, at least it is for me.

If you have changed any settings in your BIOS then you need to put that into your post too.

Example here: (not real)

AMD64 'Venice' 3200+ (VDimm: 1.45v, FSB: 220, Multi: 8)
OCZ PC3200 Rev. 2 (2.8v, 1:1, 2-3-4-8) Also other settings if you have changed them, eg. drive strength etc.
ATI X800XL (400/525) Core MHz/RAM MHz

Screenshots of CPU-Z would be good too, the main tab and the memory tab.

simonp1

ok will do cheers
Simonp1

simonp1

______________________________
Clock Information
BIOS VPU 400.00
Current VPU 398.25
BIOS MEM 490.00
Current MEM 492.75

Monitor/Panel: Dell P991
Adapter: RADEON X800 Series (Omega 2.6.53)
Adapter: RADEON X800 Series Secondary (Omega 2.6.53)

thanks
simon

WizZard

Pop it into a new thread so more people can see you have a problem, and help (or point and laugh, but mostly help)

And also add normal CPU and RAM settings too. You've just got GPU & Graphics RAM settings there. Cheers