7900GS / 7600GT

[Nilo]

I'm thinking of buying the following parts to build my system:

E6400 - 240
P5W DH Deluxe - 230
2x512 - 140
Asus 7900GS - 215
WD SataII 16 Raid Edition 250x2 - 95x2

The total is way over my budget. If I could down the price to at least 950, it would be great.
What options do I have?
Go for a 7600GT instead (183)? Go for an E6300 (204)? Go for WD Caviar's (2x90), instead of Raid Edition (95x2)?
What should I do?
Can you please help me? Thanks.

 

[atm743]

dont get a 7600

it only has 12 piplelines and 128 bit memory interface.

no matter how high the clocks are those two things = sucky performance

 

[BossBorot]

How much are you over your budget?

How many openGL games do you play?

What resolution will you run your games at, what are the games that you plan on playing the most, how long do you plan on keeping your video card, and how much eye candy do you want?

Look at these HDDs instead.

And the 7600 series offers very good performance for the price which is about all that you should expect from it.

 

[Nilo]

Thanks for your replies.
Those HDDs were also an option. But I thought the Raid Edition WD's were better.
As for the graphic card, you really think I should spend 32 more and get the 7900GS?
So, what options do I have in order to spend not more than 950? (preferably 900, but that's just not possible )

 

[atm743]

Thanks for your replies.
Those HDDs were also an option. But I thought the Raid Edition WD's were better.
As for the graphic card, you really think I should spend 32 more and get the 7900GS?
So, what options do I have in order to spend not more than 950? (preferably 900, but that's just not possible )

i would say either save up and get a 7900 gto

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814130065

or wait for the dx10 cards to come out. when those come out i know the 7900's will drop BIG TIME

 

[MadMan007]

Where does the OP live that a 7600GT costs $180?

 

[Papier]

Where does the OP live that a 7600GT costs $180?

Ya, I was wondering about that. I got my 7600GT at launch for 180.

Anyways, it really depends on what you want. If you want average gaming performance and a little cash left over, get the 7600GT. If you want good gaming performance NOW, get the 7900GS. If you can wait until Christmas time when DX10 gen hardware comes, all the other videocards do a massive drop in price, and all the cool games coming, then do it.

If I was in your situation, I'll do this though. Buy a cheap average video between 100~150 (some of the 7600GT's are in this range). The CPU is a tough choice; price vs overclockability (read the E6400 are better OCers). If this is a budget build, I'll just go with the e6300.

I'll save the money I pocketed, and go with a more powerful DX10 card later, then sell the 7600GT. You'll get the card for half off almost and twice the performance of anything (in theory!).

 

[Immortal_Hero]

Well in a gaming box first consider cutting the HDD then the CPU then the GPU. Some good 8meg cache 7200 RPM drives will serve you fine. There is no really noticable performance increase by doing 10k drives or more cache. Your money would be better spend on GPU, CPU, RAM. Stay with a 7900 series card. If you can afford a 7900 GTO that would be sweet. I'd take a 5400RPM HDD over a 7600 card.

 

[Nilo]

Thanks for your help
If I don't want to upgrade soon, I should get the 7900GS, right?
Btw, these two cards make the same noise levels? Is one of them better than the other, in that matter?
As for the CPU, will I notice much difference if I choose to go for the 6300?

 

[Neuromancer]

Id get one hdd of good quality, drop to one of the GB boards the 6300 and get 2GB of RAM and a gto

But thats just me

 

[Nilo]

You're saying that I should buy just 1 HDD, go for the 6300, and buy 2GB of RAM? Will I notice better performance doing that? Too bad the memory just got expencier this week (maybe go for PC2-5400 or PC2-4200, in this case)

 

[Neuromancer]

Anh... stick with 1GB itll be fine. Better to have good 1gb kit then getting a crappy 2GB kit.

667 will clock up to 800 wit htight timings at 2.2 ish, my buddies OCZ gold xt 's(667) are running 900 at 5-5-5 2.1v his are 2x512. He bad 150 canadian for his sticks

Im just saying if you have the money to go big now. 500GB of space is overkill unless you are a GFX designer or a tryingto start a dvd library (which I am doing )

Raid is nice and makes a differnce, but I think you are going to see more performance from a better GPU, you could always get another 2 sticks of 512 later. Same with a harddrive. But there is no "incremental" upgrade on video card. Its not like you can spend 100 now and then spend 100 later and that is the same as spending 200 now...

Like i said for RAM you can get another 2 sticks later, in fact am2 boards shine with 4 sticks, i believe the intels are like other systems and suffer a 1-4% performance loss for running 4 sticks vs 2. And many games now like having 2GB of RAM. This is a matter of opinion though as many people think 1GBis enough. Im still on 1GB only cuz by the time I had money for a good 2GB kit, the prices went up 100 bucks

For the CPU i recommend the 6300 because money is an issue. You can clock it up to 3GHz pretty easy with decent RAM running 1:1 (figure out what yo want you clock to be and divide by 7, get ram that you know will clock that high)

 

[terran2k]

I'd go with 2Gig of memory. I'd do 1 raptor system drive and 1 7200rpm drive for storage. I did the raid 0 thing, while its nice and all, I think 1 raptor would have been better. With the release of a new nvidia cards right around the corner. I'd wait until they are released and see where the prices are at. It really depends on what games you intend to play. I only play 1 game (americas army) so I got a used 7600GT KO couple days ago and selling my 6800GT (before the prices on the 6 series fall thru the floor), the 7600 is more than what I need to run that game, so it'll hold me over till I see the 8 series cards in action. If you want to play Oblivion, I'd get then 7900GS at least.

 

[mblue]

First thing would be to drop the intel stuff. You could get a dual core AMD + a board for the price you are going to pay for that board alone. Also, don't buy an Sli board if your not doing sli and get the 2 gig of memory. This is what i would buy.
1 x WD2500JS (250 Gb 7200 Sata): 69.99
Asus M2N-E: 93.99
PQI Turbo (PQI25400)2x1 Gb kit of DDR2 667: 217.99
AMD 64 4200+ dual core AM2: 182

Total: 563.97 before shipping.
That leave ~386 buck for a graphics card and that would be a hell of a graphics card.

 

[Nilo]

Ok. thanks for your replies
About noise, these two cards make the same noise levels? Is one of them better than the other, in that matter?

 

[mblue]

I wouldn't worry about the noise level, you can always buy an after market cooler later on, like the NV or Zalman models

 

[Nilo]

I've heard about the Zalman (which model could be the best for the 7900GS?) but not the NV.

 

[Immortal_Hero]

First thing would be to drop the intel stuff. You could get a dual core AMD + a board for the price you are going to pay for that board alone. Also, don't buy an Sli board if your not doing sli and get the 2 gig of memory. This is what i would buy.
1 x WD2500JS (250 Gb 7200 Sata): 69.99
Asus M2N-E: 93.99
PQI Turbo (PQI25400)2x1 Gb kit of DDR2 667: 217.99
AMD 64 4200+ dual core AM2: 182

Total: 563.97 before shipping.
That leave ~386 buck for a graphics card and that would be a hell of a graphics card.

Get that and a 7900GTO... I would vote that way too as I am now anti C2D...

 

[Nilo]

WD2500JS? Why not the WD2500KS or WD2500YS?

 

[mblue]

WD2500JS? Why not the WD2500KS or WD2500YS?

Actually, that's a good catch the WD2500KS would be better, it has 16 meg cache. That would be the only change I would make to that list I gave above.