Is this a decent graphic card?

[Xest]

Entry level Core Duo is still over £10 dearer than an entry level AMD 64 X2. That's all the justification I need to go for AMD over Intel if I was on a tight budget, as I usually am.

I suppose that £10 less will go well towards the extra £20 you'll need to spend on a higher watt power supply and the higher power consumption costs of the AMD ofc Need to look at the bigger picture, even without that the AMD maybe 5% cheaper but if it performs 10% worse it's a really poor deal.

I don't see the CPU as the main bottleneck on PCs these days I would rather put that £10 into better Graphics, better RAM or better Hard Disk.

Depends what you play I guess, games like DAoC don't tax the processor really as physics and AI processing is largely irrellevant in a game like DAoC, but if you want to play modern FPS games and such where physics and AI are made much better use of then CPU speed is still extremely important. Also, a lot of last gen games indeed didn't make much use of the CPU because processors were stuck behind the old NetBurst architecture bottleneck and have been for a good few years now, since the peak performance barrier that was near being hit with NetBurst processors is now removed developers can worry less about sparing those processor cycles and start using them more in next gen games so it's also rather important to make sure you're investing in something that wont start struggling with new games again in 6months.

Now is actually a good time to buy, hardware is pretty cheap right now, it was rather expensive to buy when 64 bit and dual core was a little fresher over the last year or so but now it's all hit the mainstream rather than the power hungry elite it's fairly cheap.

I've never looked into it but I wonder if importing hardware from the US wouldn't be a bad idea right now, with the US dollar so weak, I don't know if import duties would outweight the benefits of such an incredibly weak dollar but it maybe worth looking into. I've not looked into importing hardware, but certainly books from Amazon.com rather than .co.uk are rediculously cheap with the exchange rate, particularly as books don't suffer import duties in the UK being classed as educational material

[OohhoO]

so system (A) or (B) for more or less the same price & why?

(A)
- Thermaltake Shark, Black, 2x 21db Fan, Aluminium, 450Watt, ATX, CE / PFC, 12cm Low Noise
- Intel® Pentium® DUAL 960 (3.6GHz),Box 775P,VT, 2x2MB Cache, 65nm, Intel Fan
- 2048MB Memory 240-pin DDR2 SDRAM DIMM sockets (2x1024MB)
- 300GB Harddisc Serial ATA-II, 7200rpm, 8MB Cache (1x 300GB) (Samsung/Western-Digital)
- Lite-On 165H6S IDE, +/-R, BOX, DVD 16/16/8/6/4CDRW48/24/48, Black
- Lite-On 16x IDE, 6x/48x, Black
- Graphiccard Gigabyte NX7600GS, 512MB, TV-out, DVI
- 2x LAN 10/100/1000 MBit/s, Broadcom BCM5789KFB (PCIe GbE) and BCM5788KFB (PCI GbE)
- Motherboard Foxconn 945P7AA-8EKRS2, 945P, FSB1066, DDR2, SATAII, RAID, FireWire

(B)
- Thermaltake Shark, Silver, 2x 21db Fan, Aluminium, 450Watt, ATX, CE / PFC, 12cm Low Noise
- MSI K9N Platinum,nForce570, Athlon64,SATAII,1394,GLAN
- AMD 64 X2 4600+, Box, (2.4GHz),2x512kb,AM2
- 2048MB Apacer/Infineon ( 4x 512MB )
- 500GB Samsung Serial ATA-II, 7200rpm/9ms/8MB Cache (2x 250GB)
- DVD Recorder Lite On 165P6S, 16x +/- DVDRW +/-, Silver
- DVD-ROM Lite On LT-16p9s 16x, Silver (2x Drive DVD-ROM + DVD Recorder)
Nero 6 Suite OEM + PowerDVD Software
- nVidia GF 7600GS, 512MB DDR2, 800/400MHz., TV-out, DVI
- Card-Reader USB 2.0, for Compact Flash / Microdrive
Memory Stick / Multimedia Card / SD Card / SmartMedia Card
- Optional (Microsoft Windows XP Home/Professional/Professional x64)

[Xest]

Breif look through I'd say the second one as the first is an old Intel NetBurst CPU and that's the set of CPUs where the AMD's still outperformed.

Just a thought though is it worth waiting until the end of January/beginning of Feb so you can get Vista bundled with your machine instead of XP? You'll probably want it eventually due to games eventually becoming written for DirectX 10 which wont be available for XP and with Microsoft stamping out pirated copies of the OS with genuine advantage running a pirated copy wont really be plausible unless you don't ever patch your system in which case you'll likely end up smothered in viruses and other malware

[OohhoO]

so what you're saying is I should either wait until a system with one of these ===> CPU Intel CORE 2 DUO 6700,775P, FSB1066MHz, 4MB,65nm <=== or similar becomes reasonably affordable, or maybe just build it myself to save money?

K I'll look into it.
Trouble is my PCs are both 3-4 years old & the power supply on one is now regularly overheating & other little bits & pieces are starting to get dodgy so no longer running reliably & I have to run them with the case open cos otherwise I'm spending more time pulling & pushing them back & forth & opening them, temporarily fixing stuff & then closing them again than actually playing, which isn't really very satisfactory.

Currently running an AMD 2400+ with a TI 4200 & an AMD 2800+ with an FX 5200 so you can see I REALLY need a new PC

Also the finance minister has graciously accepted my application for a replacement (with certain budgetary constrictions) on the grounds that Christmas & my birthday are coming up

[Xest]

I'd certainly wait for vista if you can at least. Core 2 is definitely worth it if you can fit it into the system by waiting/building yourself but so is a GeF79xx or 8xxx card Problem is you can go on forever so it's best to set down what you want i.e. say you decide you definitely want Vista, you definitely want a Core 2 then hold out on that then go for it as soon as you can. January 30th is Vista's date, and as much as I hate supporting MS in their operating system ventures I do think it's something worth considering because of the whole DirectX 10 lock in debacle MS has created.

[Takitothemacs]

running vista atm and have to say overall I have been reasonably impressed.

There are nice features and Im not overly concerned about the spec requirements... running on a centrino duo intel atm on a dell Latitude D620 with gig of ram and all of the features of Vista Ultimate work nicely on this release... unlike pre RC2 Betas that I have been using for the past 12 months... the newer versions were much better on lower spec machines than the earlier ones... but you certainly need higher end gfx capability to get all the nicer bits of Vista... so ensure that your gfx card is compatible with vista to get the best out of the experience.

[OohhoO]

hmmm looking at individual pieces it seems it'd be a fair bit cheaper to build the system myself

thinking about:-
Case: NZXT Midi-Tower Apollo Silver,5x5,25" 1x3,5" 4x3,5, NO PS! CHF 149.90
Power: Thermaltake Toughpower 600W,ATX 2.2, SLI, A.PFC, 140mm Fan CHF 139.90
Board: ASUS P5B, PCX, P965,FSB1066,Audio,SATAII,RAID,GLAN CHF 199.90
CPU: Intel CORE2DUO E6300,Box775P,1066MHz,2MB,65nm,Fan CHF 279.90
RAM: ????
Graphic: GigaByte NX7950GT, 512MB,1400/550MHz,TV-Out, 2xDVI,DDR3 CHF 399.90

Can any boffin recommend a better motherboard, &/or recommend me the best RAM modules for this system?
Are there any obvious mistakes/incompatibilities in this setup?
Am I barking up any wrong trees?

[<ankh>]

GF8800GTX for the win imo

[Xest]

I just stick to ASUS/abit motherboards tbh, I've tried other manufacturers and ASUS/abit boards have always been the ones that stood out as the best to me. As for RAM, just go for something with a low ns access speed rating. I'm not convinced it's worth spending over the top on RAM for super gold plated heat sink covered, flashing neon, Giorgio Armani RAM or whatever they try and push nowadays but the cheapest of cheap unbranded can cause a slight (albeit it minimal) system bottleneck also, so base your purchase more on the statistics of the RAM and ignore the crap about heatsinks, LEDs and branding - they're sales gimmicks.

Power supply looks a bit overkill though, 400w should be plenty. Core 2 Duo's require around 60 - 75 watts compared to AMD 64 X2's 100 - 110 watts. You're looking at around 150 watts for the graphics card also as nVidia cards generally are a little less power hungry than ATIs.

[OohhoO]

Aye I've almost always had satisfactory results with Asus MBs too. They may not be the quickest but they're usually reliable.

That MB supports DDR2-533 (PC2-4200), DDR2-667 (PC2-5300), DDR2-800 (PC2-6400) RAM modules
Are there any compelling reasons to take 1 i/o the others?

I usually go for Kingston RAM modules due to bad experiences with no-name, but I'm open to suggestions.