Upgrading My Computer, $1000 to Spend

handym3000

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Dec 7, 2005
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answer these question and we can help you better

are you going be overclocking

what games do you play

ati or nvidia or no opinion

single core or dual core or no opinion

company preference w/ products which you will and will not use
 

ShaneStunna06

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Mar 13, 2006
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i'm open to any brand... it appears to me that AMD is dominating Intel in gaming right now so i will probably go AMD. i just want the computer that will run the newest games with the best quality and fastest fps... one game i'm planning on is Elder Scrolls Oblivion, but i've recently been playing Black and White 2 and World of Warcraft. I understand all the parts and i've built several pc's. I was just wondering what would give me better game performance. I was looking at a 3700+ or an Opteron 165. then maybe for GPU a X1800XT or 7900GT. basically whatever would make the best combination.... i can sacrifice some other areas such as ram or hard drive for now if i need the extra $$$ for cpu and video card



and yes i will probably overclock if the cpu stays stable (Opty 165)
 

handym3000

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i like my 3700 but having a opty is better in the long run i would go with the opty 165

ram i would look at ocz or corasir. ( no gold gtx too high of voltage) 2x 1gb kits

motherboard for overclocking i would go with a dfi lanparty board or their infinity seires

hard drive go with a sata drive at least 100 gigs or more if you like. raptors are cool but can cost too much

i would go with the x1800 so you can use aa and af at the same time
w/ the drivers for the ati cards use the divers from omegadriver.net you get higher scores in 3d mark

for the case i would not get the power supply with it. case you can decide but i would not go with one w/ less than 3 fans 1 upfront 1 in back and 1 on the side

for the power supply. i like modular power supplies but anatec power supplies are great too.
 

ShaneStunna06

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CPU: AMD Opteron 165 1GHz HT Socket 939 Dual Core Processor - Retail- $325

rMemory: 2xCORSAIR ValueSelect 1GB 184-Pin DDR SDRAM Unbuffered DDR 400 (PC 3200) System Memory - Retail- $134

Motherboard: EPoX EP-9NPA+Ultra Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce4 Ultra ATX AMD Motherboard - Retail- $105

Hard Drive:Seagate Barracuda 7200.9 ST3250824AS 250GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM- $100

SAPPHIRE 100154 Radeon X1800XT 256MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16 Video Card - OEM- $299

leaves me about $50 for the case and power supply? should i get a different heatsink/fan for processor or is stock actually good
 
"SAPPHIRE 100154 Radeon X1800XT 256MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16 Video Card - OEM- $299
"

the new 7900GT is faster than the 1800XT practically across the board in real gaming benchmarks (screw 3dmark06!), and available at the same price point.....
 
" should i get a different heatsink/fan for processor or is stock actually good"

I've heard recent rumint from a poster in these forums that the sink/fan on a 165 is rather smaller than that on the 170-185 units (but is instead identical to that on X2/3800+?), but cannot state this yet as fact....
 

decripple

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i have a opteron 165-the heatsink is very sizeable and weighs nearly as much as my zalman7000B-cu plus it has 4 heatpipes it is an excellent processor get it or the 3800X2, i used my bro's pc which has one and it changed my mind and i went with dual core-this processor is also good and will save you a little money over the opty
and this heatsink is much larger and a better cooler than my bro's 3800X2 heatsink

a zalman 7000B-cu is very quiet and very good cooler (i have one)

good PSU is very important don't skimp on it

7900gt is an excellent video card for the price, in some benchmarks it compares to that of a 7800gtx

an asus A8N-SLI mobo is great quality and u have the ability to uprade but if u don't want it the epox one mentioned is good and so is the asus A8N-E