Specing a New Gaming Rig

Ok. New rig time. Finally I get to move from my Dell Laptop to a serious machine... to play Quake 4.

System Use: Gaming (Quake3,BF2,FEAR), Regular use is X-Chat, Bittorrent, Browser, and IM

Budget: 1300ish Canadian Dollars More or less. Less is always better.

Time frame to begin purchasing: 1-2 Weeks

Primary Stores: www.bigfootcomputers.com www.ncix.com (hense, new egg links are useless to me).

Parts currently owned: Mouse and Keyboard, AS5. I also have a case, but I dont know if I want to use it or not. Stackers are sweet looking.

Part Requirments: No Raptor. I need space more than speed, and I cant justify the cost to capacity ration. Monitor is preferable to be a LCD.

Brand Requirements: I like OCZ RAM. I had it before, it was shiney, and worked well. I liked the support.

Parts not included in budget: Cooling.

Overclocking proficiency and habits: I am decent at overclocking, I know how to do it, I do it, and I am not a noob. I however prefere to play games rather than tweak or benchmark. Infact, I tweak my box, and leave it. And I never benchmark. I dont do volt mods, and I dont like voiding video card warranties (because I cant afford to replace them). My CPU will be overclocked.

Overall rig goal: Price to Preformance. I want to keep my cost down, while maintaining a decent level of preformance. Stability is key, I will not sacrifice stability for speed, or money. A box that is unstable is useless. As well a box down for maintence is useless.

Part suggestions...
I really got out of the loop when I sold my desktop. I previously ran AMD desktops only, and dont know crap about Intel boxes. I will try either platform, whichever suits my needs the best for the least.

Recommendations?

Brand Requirements: I like OCZ RAM. I had it before, it was shiney, and worked well. I liked the support.

Click to expand...

I like your style, I'd go with this 2x1GB kit:
http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=14504&vpn=OCZ4002048ELDCPE-K&manufacture=OCZ Technology

It's very shiny, and very fast.

i havent used an amd system since '00. but for intel, i have a few suggestions:

mb:asus p5wd2
ram: pqi turbo ddr2 667 2x1gb
monitor: dell 2005fpw
vid: evga 7800gtx
psu: fsp bluestorm ax500-a

thats what i have ordered sans the lcd for an intel system. amd i will let others speak

x2 3800+ epox nForce4 sli board, 7800gt(get sli later or something), 2x 1gb set of OCZ gold PC4000. breakfast of champions right there. case is personal preference so i won't deal with that.

-1cem4n

Oh yeah. Sorry I forgot to mention.

I wont spend a redunculous ammount of money on what part. I will not pay 500$ for a videocard. The top of the line parts, aren't for me.

Dell LCDs are good? (reseaching now).

1cem4n said:

x2 3800+ 7800gt(get sli later or something), 2x 1gb set of OCZ gold PC4000.

-1cem4n

Click to expand...

Those three parts alone went over my budget.

9mmCensor said:

Oh yeah. Sorry I forgot to mention.

I wont spend a redunculous ammount of money on what part. I will not pay 500$ for a videocard. The top of the line parts, aren't for me.

Dell LCDs are good? (reseaching now).

Click to expand...

In that case, depending on how much you game, I'd go with a 6600 GT ($180-$220 CAD) or a 6800 GT ($380 CAD). Also, Dell does make some pretty nice LCD's for cheap.

if your budget for vid cards is low, and you want a dell lcd, that uses high res. you might opt for a lower res lcd to compensate for the lower priced card (so it can keep up)

Ok.

From NCIX.com

Saphirre x800GTO2 300
DFI NF4 Ultra D 150
3000 Venis 200
DVD Drive + CD Burner 50
2 Gigs of OCZ Shiney for 330
OCZ 530W PSU 150
total so far ~1200 that leaves me with a few hundred for a LCD (say 350) and an old case. what hard drive should I get?

This for the HD, its what i have, super quiet and fast.. http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=15304&vpn=WD1600JS&manufacture=Western Digital

9mm

are you willing to purchase from the classifieds section here at ocforums.com?

ram & heatsinks are regularly for sale? i've even seen retail cpu's for sale too.

The Maxtor DiamondMax10's are pretty cheap, 250GB for $90 USD, also many people use them and their pretty popular.

Maybe you don't need the OCZ Powerstream? I'd say even the Forton AX500-A would do fine for your system.

the s939 opterons are clocking pretty good, you might want to look into those. The maxtor drives with the 16mb cache are damn fast and are available in high capacity versions

UltraSharp 1905FP 19-inch Flat Panel Monitor are on sale at Dell today. for 400CDN. Is that a good deal? Is it a good monitor? Whats the pixel policy at dell?

Sounds like a nice deal on the monitor 9mm id go with that.

food for thought on dell dead pixel issues...

one person's experience...

I am going to see if I can get a 19" CRT locally. Too much hassel with pixels, and whatnot.

Beautiful work

- My general opinion is CRT > LCD, but especially for gaming you should go with a CRT. A while ago I went to a local lan center and they had 19'' LCD Dell (don't remember model nr), and games like cs,css,doom3 didn't look that great.

- Instead of the cd burner add a couple extra bucks and get a dvd burner. Its more efficient these days.

have you tried playing on a 19'' inch LCD with the highest res and a great videocard?

it looks absolutely amazing

-1cem4n

yeah, on a 17'' LCD didnt look bad at all, but u still wont change my opinion about CRT's