GeForce 8800GTX What processor and Mobo should I get?

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nlraley

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Dec 25, 2006
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I am getting ready to build a new machine and would like some suggestions as to what mobo and processor should I get to fully compliment and utilize the GeForce 8800GTX I'll be putting in it.

I have about a $2.5k budget to build my entire machine (I won't be needing a cd/dvd burner or player, mouse, keyboard, or monitor.

Also want good OC capabilities and be able to SLI the card.

Any suggestions?
 
If you have enough cash i would get either a QX6700 or a X6800 for the cpu, and evga's 680i mobo. Those cpu's would fully (or as fully as current cpus can) utilize the 8800gtx and the 680i chipset is great for oc'ing, has 3 pci x16 slots, and its perfect for the 8800gtx.
 
I wouldn't go for a X6800 on a $2500 budget.

Something like E6600 would be the sweet spot, along with top-line RAM, and hard drives.

If the X6800 or QX6700 fit into the budget, then it's worth it.
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But u need those expensive cpu's to get hte most out of a gtx.

And he does have a budget. $1000 cpu, $650 gpu, that leaves 850 for a case, ram, hard drive and power suppy. So that still leaves enough for a raptor and some nice ram.
 
Only get the 680i if you need SLI, and don't bother with the X6800; if you're already going to spend $1000 on a CPU, it might as well be the QX6700. As RobsX2 said, you don't need the fastest CPU as an E6400 would be perfect with a little overclocking.
 
I'd rather have the CPU be the bottleneck than the GPU. After all, you won't be able to really tell a difference between an E6700 and an X6800 (I have the former). Trust me - an extra $500 into your CPU won't net you extra FPS in Oblivion or... well, Oblivion is still (though not for long) the most graphically demanding game. If you are going to spend $1k on a CPU, get the QX6700. If not, just get the E6700. Also, my 680i worked perfectly out of the box (though I did run into a problem when I ran a BIOS hotfix, which I didn't even need because my SATA drivers were fine, where it lowered my Ram voltages to default while keeping the timings lowered which resulted in the system shutting off every 30 seconds until I figured out that I needed to reset the timings) and has been stable since.

If I were you, I'd get a 680i motherboard, 8800GTX, 2GB DDR2 800, X-Fi Platinum, 2x 320GB Seagate HDDs, 2x DVD-Burners, a decent power supply and case, and Windows MCE 2005 (with free upgrade to Vista Home Premium 😀 ). The Platinum's Front Panel is really nice, and I'm actually enjoying watching movies from my bed with remote in hand. The bundled Media Player (actually, it's more of a Media Center thing like Microsoft's) is really growing on me. Here's a pic of my PC:

Picture002.jpg


3dMark06 - 11,630
92.3 avg FPS in CoH @ 1680x1050, 62.7 avg FPS in F.E.A.R. at 1132x1040 (or something like that, it's a funky fullscreen resolution because my monitor is 1680x1050 and F.E.A.R. only does fullscreen - need to see if I can fix that), no lag in Oblivion at 1680x1050 with 4x AA (8x AA lags slightly from time to time), HDR, 16x AS, Full Shaders, and Full Viewing Sliders, Dark Messiah of Might and Magic (comes with 8800GTX 😀 ) at max settings, and Call of Duty 2 at max settings with no lag either.

It does everything I want it to and more. I don't have the hard drives in Raid-0 because I keep downloaded stuff on the secondary hard drive so I can just reformat Windows without losing everything. It's pretty damn sweet.
 
I recommend that you wait for the Intel Q6600 to release. Its a quad core processor at around $500+ If your on a 2500 budget you wont have enough cash to spend on the 6800 You should equip 2 raptors, an 8800 and some $300 to $400 ram on a Nvidia 680i board.
 
I have this
ASUS P5N32-SLI SE Deluxe
Core 2 Due E6600
EVGA 8800GTX
2gig 667 memory
and I run everything maxed out with no problem, and I'm going to add another 8800GTX this week for SLI.
 
i hate you. :evil: :evil: im still working on getting ONE 8800gtx.

also, i couldnt help but notice. 12 foot dvi cable? here's some reasons on WHY that i came up with...which one is it?

1. your computer is really loud and you wanna be as far away from it as possible
2. your computer is really ugly and wanna be as far away as possible.
3. you have a very oddly shaped desk
4. you like a lot of slack in your wires for some odd reason
5. your computer runs really hot and you keep it in a mini fridge, which is really loud and ugly and you wanna be as far away from it as possible.

so which one is it?
 
I'd rather have the CPU be the bottleneck than the GPU. After all, you won't be able to really tell a difference between an E6700 and an X6800 (I have the former). Trust me - an extra $500 into your CPU won't net you extra FPS in Oblivion or... well, Oblivion is still (though not for long) the most graphically demanding game. If you are going to spend $1k on a CPU, get the QX6700. If not, just get the E6700. Also, my 680i worked perfectly out of the box (though I did run into a problem when I ran a BIOS hotfix, which I didn't even need because my SATA drivers were fine, where it lowered my Ram voltages to default while keeping the timings lowered which resulted in the system shutting off every 30 seconds until I figured out that I needed to reset the timings) and has been stable since.

If I were you, I'd get a 680i motherboard, 8800GTX, 2GB DDR2 800, X-Fi Platinum, 2x 320GB Seagate HDDs, 2x DVD-Burners, a decent power supply and case, and Windows MCE 2005 (with free upgrade to Vista Home Premium 😀 ). The Platinum's Front Panel is really nice, and I'm actually enjoying watching movies from my bed with remote in hand. The bundled Media Player (actually, it's more of a Media Center thing like Microsoft's) is really growing on me. Here's a pic of my PC:

Picture002.jpg


3dMark06 - 11,630
92.3 avg FPS in CoH @ 1680x1050, 62.7 avg FPS in F.E.A.R. at 1132x1040 (or something like that, it's a funky fullscreen resolution because my monitor is 1680x1050 and F.E.A.R. only does fullscreen - need to see if I can fix that), no lag in Oblivion at 1680x1050 with 4x AA (8x AA lags slightly from time to time), HDR, 16x AS, Full Shaders, and Full Viewing Sliders, Dark Messiah of Might and Magic (comes with 8800GTX 😀 ) at max settings, and Call of Duty 2 at max settings with no lag either.

It does everything I want it to and more. I don't have the hard drives in Raid-0 because I keep downloaded stuff on the secondary hard drive so I can just reformat Windows without losing everything. It's pretty damn sweet.
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To be honost, I would prefer to have the video card be the bottleneck and not the CPU, nowadays if you have a CPU bottleneck not only can it be expensive to upgrade, a lot of the time you will be looking at a motherboard upgrade and maybe new ram. If your video card is a bottleneck you might beable to play games on max still, but if your CPU is a bottleneck you can be limited in a lot more ways when it comes to actually using your computer.

If budget doesn't matter, i would go after the QX6700, if you want then a E6700, but in the future multitasking games "Should" be coming out and its a nice investment.
 
That's plenty of money, and you'll get plenty of advice. Be sure to use the newest Raptor (150GB) or a pair of 7200.10s in raid, at least, as the system drive. Personally, I think it's reasonable to use 2GB memory now, and simply upgrade with another 2GB in 6 months, but that's not so important a call as the hard drive and cpu plan. I presume you'll be doing a 8800 level gpu.

It would be nice for that kind of money ($2500) to go quad core right off, or actually set aside $400-$500 to buy a quad core upgrade drop-in in about 6 months. That is, if you didn't go quad core immediately, then build a $1800 or $2000 dual core machine instead -- and not with the most expensive dual core, just a good one, like a 6600 or if AMD, a 5000 (90nm) -- and use the savings to snag that quad after AMD brings theirs out and further models and price drops have come for both Intel and AMD. Q3 2007 will be a more price efficient time to go quad core.
 
I think we can presume he'll do ddr2 800, and just use a drop-in quad core upgrade (same motherboard), if he wants to upgrade, so the idea of new motherboard and new type of ram isn't correct, unless it's more important to have the latest than it is to have simply top performance.

Here's an example question you should be able to answer: which system would play Oblivion faster, all other components expect cpu and graphic held equal?:

system A) a C2Duo 6300 cpu and 8800 GTX gpu

OR

system B) a C2Duo 6700 cpu and 7950GT gpu

Which is faster? You should know if you want to give advice re the cpu vs the gpu.
 
I think we can presume he'll do ddr2 800, and just use a drop-in quad core upgrade (same motherboard), if he wants to upgrade, so the idea of new motherboard and new type of ram isn't correct, unless it's more important to have the latest than it is to have simply top performance.

Here's an example question you should be able to answer: which system would play Oblivion faster, all other components expect cpu and graphic held equal?:

system A) a C2Duo 6300 cpu and 8800 GTX gpu

OR

system B) a C2Duo 6700 cpu and 7950GT gpu

Which is faster? You should know if you want to give advice re the cpu vs the gpu.
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I was stating not only for now but for future, yes the 8800 with a 6300 would have higher framerate, but which one would be cheaper to upgrade in the future? Either a E6300 to a QX6700 or EX6700(~1000), or 7950 to 8800(~600), in a lot of cases I would prefer to have a stronger CPU, and the comparison you did doesn't do much justice.

It should be A) C2Duo 6300 with 8800 GTX or C2D 6700 with 8800 GTS not 7950(maybe even EX6800 if he could squeeze a few more $$$).
 
I`m preparing my PC to get a DX10 card (but not a 8800Series card,they will be dead just like the 7800Series cards.)
so i think you can get something like me :twisted:
 
Well, I wish I had $2500 to spend right now. I'm no expert, but this is what I would buy.

ASUS P5B Deluxe $180

PC P&C 750w Quad $200

OCZ FlexXLC PC9200 2gig kit $460

8800GTX $560

C2D E6600 $310

SOUND CARD $120

CASE $220

Swiftech Water cooling kit $200

TOTAL $2250 You could bump to a E6700 or go with the E6300 and wait and get the Quad later.

Good Luck
 
Well, I wish I had $2500 to spend right now. I'm no expert, but this is what I would buy.

ASUS P5B Deluxe $180

PC P&C 750w Quad $200

OCZ FlexXLC PC9200 2gig kit $460

8800GTX $560

C2D E6600 $310

SOUND CARD $120

CASE $220

Swiftech Water cooling kit $200

TOTAL $2250 You could bump to a E6700 or go with the E6300 and wait and get the Quad later.

Good Luck
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That looks like a good setup, if he doesn't want to do water cooling he could save around 200 and get a good heatsink/fan, and maybe get EX6800 or QX6700
 
To answer your question I have computer desk I designed and built just for gaming which allows me to sit in my reclining chair while I playgames, hence the 12’ DVI cable. It’s not because my system is ugly or noisy that I have a long cable it’s because it allows me to put the system off to the side within reach of my power switch and DVD to change gaming DVD’s or CD’s.
 
It's because the cost of upgrading to the same quad core drop-in is the same for the two examples, that it's better of course to put money into the better graphics now, and save money with a cheaper dual core cpu, since all dual cores handle current games easily, and we are limited not by cpus here but by the graphics and hard drive, etc.
 
i figured it was something like that. i was just screwing around when i said that. but for real, that sounds bad A$$. id love to sit in my recliner when im playing video games.
 
So from what I am reading my best bet would probably to go with a MOBO that allows me to be able to drop in a second pair of dual cores if I want to go quad core in the near future, and it seems that Intel, being in the lead right now as far as raw power and speed, would be my best bet.

So I was looking through the various suggestions, would a Intel Core 2 Duo E6700 Conroe 2.66GHz 4M sharing L2 Cache LGA 775 Processor be the best bet to go with if I was going to go with this route and OC it to around 3.4? Then if I needed/wanted to I could drop a second one of these and run quad core in the future? What MOBO out there would allow me that option and SLI as well? That definately sounds like the best route to go with here. Fill up the guts with a great dual core and graphics card, then double them up down the road rather than really sacrificing in one given area.

For my HD I was thinking along the lines of a Western Digital Raptor WD740ADFD 74GB 10,000 RPM 16MB Cache Serial ATA150 Hard Drive. Figured the 10k RPM would best suit me, and I've never really had a huge deam for that much hd space. I've heard alot about RAID but what exactly is that and how hard is it to set up?

Looks like I'd need about a 1k watt power supply to run everything, especially if I upgrade into a 2x dual core and run in SLI. I'm definately going to want SLI options for the near future.

As far as the RAM is concerned, it's been so long since I've had a new system (my current one was built right when ATI release their Radeon 9800 Pro with 512 to give you some insight) I really don't know what there is out there.
 
what you're thinking about is the 4x4, where you can have 2 dual cores. intel doesn't do that. as for your power supply , you dont need a 1k. trust me. as for raid, yes, it has definite performance benefits but i dont think it's worth it. if i were you this is what i would get...

Antec P-180
Core 2 Duo E6600
Corsair Dominator Memory
Zalman 9700 LED
74GB Raptor Main Hard Drive
Western Digital 500GB Storage Drive
PC Power and Cooling 750W Power Supply
Creative X-Fi Fatality Sound Card
EVGA 8800GTX
EVGA 680i Motherboard

That will run you $2,378.92. If you want SLI 8800GTX's right off the bat, it will cost $2,968.91. Before shipping.

Lastly, I also recommend getting these...

Thermaltake Thunderblade 120MM Fans

Get five of them, and replace the fans that came with the case. These fans are quiet and move a LOT of air. The fans will run you $24.95 plus shipping.

ONE LAST NOTE! In order for you to fit the 8800GTX in the Antec P180 Case, you have to remove the top hard drive cage. That is no problem, since you remove one thumb screw and it pulls right out. Also, you can mount your hard drives in the second cage at the bottom.

So this is the system I would get if I were you. I guess just wait and see what others have to say too.
 
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