Need Help chosing processor + Video card

[nickrut]

wow you guys are really helpful...i appreciate that. Ill probably be going with a e6400 + 7600GT since i should be able to do that for 700...i appreciate all the help

 

[african_leopard]

Interesting thread this. If you have the money the C2D is ideal, however....

Personally I'm going with the Pentium D 805. Looking at the CPU charts it does a pretty fair job with gaming.

If one has a limited budget, in CAD the D805 is about 112 and the E6300 is about 216 - so almost double. If one looks at the cost efficiency on the CPU charts you'll see that the D805 one of the best bets at the moment.

I'm looking at 7600 GT myself -great mid range card - there are so many flavours its confusing though - but the XFX 7600 GT 590 MHz XXX gives the higher end cards a run for their money (it's already overclocked so no performance improvement if you try and overclock). In Canada it's about 160...not sure about the US.

Motherboard - I think it depends on whether one wants to run 1 or 2 cards.... But I'd definitely get a MB that will run a C2D....

BTW I'm building a machine myself, so some useful comments here....

 

[-silencer-]

Interesting thread this. If you have the money the C2D is ideal, however....

Personally I'm going with the Pentium D 805. Looking at the CPU charts it does a pretty fair job with gaming.

If one has a limited budget, in CAD the D805 is about 112 and the E6300 is about 216 - so almost double. If one looks at the cost efficiency on the CPU charts you'll see that the D805 one of the best bets at the moment.

I'm looking at 7600 GT myself -great mid range card - there are so many flavours its confusing though - but the XFX 7600 GT 590 MHz XXX gives the higher end cards a run for their money (it's already overclocked so no performance improvement if you try and overclock). In Canada it's about 160...not sure about the US.

Motherboard - I think it depends on whether one wants to run 1 or 2 cards.... But I'd definitely get a MB that will run a C2D....

BTW I'm building a machine myself, so some useful comments here....

Cost efficiency.. if you overclock that D 805, power consumption shoots through the roof (plenty of articles online about 805 power consumption while overclocked). It's not at all as bad with OC'd E6300's. The price difference is US$90 now, but for future performance and power consumption savings, the US$90 is worth it. An E6300 overclocked surpasses stock performance of the E6700 on air cooling, even with the E6700's 4MB cache. No 805 can make that claim. True, the difference in gaming won't be as noticeable now, but future games will eventually show a difference..

The 7600GT is a good card, but it doesn't give higher cards a run for the money when OC'd. The 7900GS is around only US$180, has 20 pixel pipelines instead of only 12, and runs at a 256 bit data path over the 7600's 128 bits. I'd like to see some numbers of an OC'd 7600GT truly spanking a stock 7900GS.. I'm doubtful on that.

 

[4745454b]

yes it is. And i wish people would stop critizing the pentium D's a pentium d 805 would own any game i have one plus the geforce 7600 and i play BF2 on max settings. my proceessor has yet to hit 100% and its not overclocked. in every thread people say the pentium D sucks, but they are idiots.

Oh dear lord, are you still spreading your misinformation?

You CAN NOT play mondern video games at a normal resolution with a 7600 with the setting MAXED out. You can play the games, but NOT MAXED! I told you this in that other thread, and I'll tell you that again. If your looking to save some money, get an AMD CPU, as they are better then the netburst ones. If you have the green, get the C2D. Use the right tool for the job, don't worry about who made it.

 

[CaptRobertApril]

Time to hit the FUD button yet?

 

[4745454b]

Would if I could man, would if I could....

 

[CaptRobertApril]

Would if I could man, would if I could....

This is your chance!

:lol:

 

[4745454b]

Oh yea, there it is. Right next to my any key.....

 

[skyguy]

The 6300 may be double the cost of the 805, but when you look at total system cost, it's actually more like 8% higher on the total build cost.

As for which 7600GT? I've used a few different ones in builds....the BFG cooler is LOUD. The EVGA is quiet, and can even be used for a Step-Up program that EVGA offers. You can get the overclocked EVGA one at Directcanada.com for $160 stock price.....they have different deals weekly so keep an eye open.

 

[african_leopard]

I did not imply that this particular 7600 GT beat those higher end cards - considering it's technology (for eg running at 128 bits) it does very well....

Some reviews

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/xfx-7600gt-xxx.html

They did not go against 7900GS though.

http://www.nvnews.net/reviews/xfx_7600gt_xxx/

http://www.legitreviews.com/article/312/1/

I think it all depends on how much money you are prepared to shell out - and how tight your budget is. This card goes for CAD 160 - the GS7900 goes for CAD 226 and higher. Is the performance improvement you get worth the extra CAD 66 - I'm not so sure. Particularly as Direct X 10 is coming out soon.

If I wasn't on a tight budget I'd be looking at the latest C2D and the Geforce 8800

And I'm not looking at overclocking - so whatever I get will be stock.....

Here is the price performance index for the two CPUs

My biggest problem is which MB....

 

[african_leopard]

The 6300 may be double the cost of the 805, but when you look at total system cost, it's actually more like 8% higher on the total build cost.

How do you get to that total system costing? Just curious . If its going to cost me 8% more to build, then I'd obviously go for the bottom end C2D.