new Build

[Mekabuser=12thVR=]

~S~ all
K , My last comp was an AMD Socket A agp MOFO> I managed to make it work just good enough with a GeForce 6800 to make BF2142 run.
Havent seen comp in 6 months, been out of country, but am going to build new one for this mod. I dont think I can even salvage the PSU, i thought it was 500 W , but Its probably just 300 which doesnt cut it..
I have a hard drive with a "copy " of XP sp3 on it.. My comp at one point freaked out, and the person who reformatted the drive loaded his c opy of xp in because I foolishly misplaced mine..
Ive spent the last several days trying to catch up with whats going on technically and have a few questions.. I am going for the under 700, and if possible , under 500 build.. I am figuring on going with the quads, but first, Id like to know AMD or Intel?
ANy strong thoughts on that? I know for the most part its the GPU for this game, but still, Id like to hear input..
Secondly, The Idea of building my own system finally makes me happy.The problem is, I dont know with which OS to go with.. The idea of paying over a hundred bucks for VISta, which all it seems to do is suck , annoys the hell out of me, and almost has me looking at prebuilds knowing ill throw another GPU card in..
What is the story with DX10. Does it make that much of a difference ?
tnks

[Barbaric Soul]

If you want a quad, for your budget I suggest going AMD. The new Phenom 2 CPU's are great performers, equaling the performance of the q9550 and q9650. Intels new I7 CPU's do beat the AMD quads, but not by much in terms of gaming and they are alot more expensive(especailly when you add in the price of a motherboard for the I7). Make sure you pair the Phenom 2 with a motherboard that has a 790 northbridge and 750 southbridge for the best performance results.

As for which OS, they all work. Vista is actually a pretty good OS since Microsoft released the service pack 1 for it. As far as DX10 goes, yeah there are differences, but nothing earth shattering. The difference between DX9 and DX10 is about the same as DX8 compared to DX9.

[Mekabuser=12thVR=]

tnks for the ideas. Should i be concerned about future proofing in regards to ddr3 mem? WHile the specs and reviews seem awesome for cpu mb, the price is a little on the high side
Can I get away with a cheaper version of both? and still keep the same GPU?
Am curious, what do think the rig u posted would have cost a year ago?
tnks again.

[Mekabuser=12thVR=]

K .. Tell me if this is a nice option.http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103300
Doing more research and it seems like while the quads are nice, they are not exactly necessary for a good experience on crysis. I ran "crysis" through the word filter on the reviews and saw some pretty good feed back...
The only concern I would have is a bottleneck... If this can rock, it would be sweet and help with the battle domesticus 
From what ive read ddr3 aint that big a deal...
I will NOT be multitasking the comp when playing crysis if that info helps..

I also am NOT a serious overclocker... I can do some basics. I was able to overclock my old rig from like 1.6 to 2.1 to make it somewat playable for bf2142. So a MB with every overclockers dream features is probably not that important to me..
Would love to hear if anyone is running this chip...
tnks again.

[[MPB]OM_Sannyasi]

K .. Tell me if this is a nice option.http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103300
Doing more research and it seems like while the quads are nice, they are not exactly necessary for a good experience on crysis. I ran "crysis" through the word filter on the reviews and saw some pretty good feed back...
The only concern I would have is a bottleneck... If this can rock, it would be sweet and help with the battle domesticus 
From what ive read ddr3 aint that big a deal...
I will NOT be multitasking the comp when playing crysis if that info helps..

I also am NOT a serious overclocker... I can do some basics. I was able to overclock my old rig from like 1.6 to 2.1 to make it somewat playable for bf2142. So a MB with every overclockers dream features is probably not that important to me..
Would love to hear if anyone is running this chip...
tnks again.

i've got this processor- http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103242 coupled with a 4870 512MB and it does a pretty good job with mwll- i would say the processor you referenced (only 100mhz lower) would get the job done..... but i do get bottlenecked on occassion depending on what is going on-- I've monitored my computers perfomance alot in mwll and crysis- there are times when my cpu needs more attention and my graphics card suffers and can't make proper use of itself: bottlenecking- but not by alot.... i would say if possible get the amd 6000+ or better if you can afford it, and depending ont he gpu you plan on using of course

[Mekabuser=12thVR=]

k ... my tech cred has gone up 10 % which aint sayin much ,  but , ive done an awful lot of reading of benchmark this and that and lots of reviews and I have a few more questions...
concerning the MB that barbaric soul listed, It seems to be very nice yes, but its not SLI...
What I am thinking is that the lower end dual core amd
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103234
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103773

combined with the GTX 260 will be a pretty good combo... till its not... Then .. I was thinking of upgrading in a few years to the phenom quad or equivalent and sli another 260 in there
that should be something that I can look forward to right? but the MB linked aint sli.. but this one for 10 usd more is...
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131323
THe cheapo PSU case combos messed with my mind for a bit, but I figure staying with what was linked as long as its not a mail in rebate for psu...
I have ideas for case, but thats another post...
Thoughts greatly appreciated... Those cpus seem to be GREAT values... not sure which one is "that" much better for the xtra 30 bucks...

[Defender]

These are the parts I just put together a month ago for my new system, which is similar to what you're going for but more based around overclocking. You can find less expensive parts based on these but I think these could be a good reference for the core system.

Mobo
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131361

PSU
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139009

Ram
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231122

CPU
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103471

Together those parts cost $567.96 but you could probably get similar components down to $300-500.
Save some money, get a good video card and build around that. Crysis is more video intensive than anything. I left out the video card I purchased, which was a GTX285 because it went above your price limit.

I can honestly say, after watching little status meters for the past month, Crysis doesn't do much to my processor. It consumes about 40% of  all 4 cores while playing. Occasionally peaking to 60%. When overclocking from 3.0 to 3.7ghz it doesn't give a noticeable increase. I have 8GB of that Ram and I consistently use about 3-5GB while multitasking on Vista x64 and Win7 x64.

My GTX285 gets me 20 FPS - 50 FPS with everything cranked @ 1920x1080 in Crysis, which is playable, especially considering that's the fps I had on Medium on my last PC (AMD 3800+ X2, 2GB Ram, 8800GT).

In Summary;
I wish I had enough money for two videocards.

[Barbaric Soul]

k ... my tech cred has gone up 10 % which aint sayin much ,  but , ive done an awful lot of reading of benchmark this and that and lots of reviews and I have a few more questions...
concerning the MB that barbaric soul listed, It seems to be very nice yes, but its not SLI...
What I am thinking is that the lower end dual core amd
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103234
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103773

combined with the GTX 260 will be a pretty good combo... till its not... Then .. I was thinking of upgrading in a few years to the phenom quad or equivalent and sli another 260 in there
that should be something that I can look forward to right? but the MB linked aint sli.. but this one for 10 usd more is...
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131323
THe cheapo PSU case combos messed with my mind for a bit, but I figure staying with what was linked as long as its not a mail in rebate for psu...
I have ideas for case, but thats another post...
Thoughts greatly appreciated... Those cpus seem to be GREAT values... not sure which one is "that" much better for the xtra 30 bucks...

Persoanlly, I would not get a dual core AMD system over a Intel dual core system. I've had a AMD x2 5200 system before my current Intel core2duo e8400 system and the speed difference is incredible. That system I speced out for is a mid to high-end AMD rig. You can save some money getting the x3 710 tri-core( http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103648)which out performs Intels dual cores. That would save you about $50. Or you could get the AMD x4  9950 ( http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103291) which performs about the same as the venerable core2quad q6600. But I wouldn't go any lower CPU wise for building a new computer. You would be better off buying a used system from ebay.

[Mekabuser=12thVR=]

Heres a nice link to about 40 different cpus on crysis on one page..
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/cpus/2009/02/11/amd-phenom-820-810-720-710-am3-cpus/5
 For some reason i never linked the KUMA which, I think Im going with... Its the money... I played bf2142 on low n med@ 17 fps if i was lucky and lOVED it.. so Im sure my experience will be 1000 times better in LL with this rig...
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103300
ANy bad thoughts on the MB i linked b4.?. I like it that its sli. In 2 yrs prob be able to get another 260 for 50 usd..
Gonna need a new case too... and was psyched to get what i thought was a decent cheapo one.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811119068

but Im concerned about space for the vid cards... esp if I sli in the future... And to be quite honest, I want as much space as possible to work putting it all together which I am nervous about... It was bad enough troubleshooting putting in a new vid card , if it didnt work properly, and I dont want to contend with clutter... I am not concerned with asthetics, though the mid tower antec 900 did look really nice... but I think ill go with this.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811103010
 I know... 40 more bucks on a stupid case, as compared to the cpu... but That case... will never be replaced... and a 59 usd cpu is a bargain... that wont hurt to upgrade in a few years... THe case looks like it would set up a nice airflow esp with a nother 120 mm fan exhaust..

[Barbaric Soul]

if you're gonna go dual core go intel, ALOT more bang for the buck. Check the build a did for you again, I've changed the motherboard and CPU. Any AMD dual core system will bottleneck the hell out of a GTX260. Why spend the money on a GTX260 if your only gonna get the performance of a 9800gt

[Mekabuser=12thVR=]

that wish list is empty but Im researchin intels now.. tnks

[Barbaric Soul]

that wish list is empty but Im researchin intels now.. tnks

no it's not. Anyway, here's a pic of the list

[Cauldron Borne]

Do the above. OR

X3 720
Some DDR2 4GB
AM2+ mobo
GTX260 or HD4870

Decent Corsair psu as mentioned the 650 or 850 TX's are great value. Nice HDD that fits ya needs, a cheapo case like the ANTEC 300 and ya away laughing

[Mekabuser=12thVR=]

tnks barbaric.. Though.. WHen I hit the first link u sent to me, it still sez empty.. But its all good.. TNks for ze effort.. THats exactly the CPU I came up with .. the wolfsdale. I also took a good look at that board because i was looking into crossfire for a while till I came across stuff that sez crossfire is a no no in crysis... Something Im still trying to determine.. Am trying to broaden my search for MB, because I know there is a good one, that OC good, that can  accommodate  SLI with the new 260 n up cards for under 130.. I just have to find it.

my goal is to drop a nice quad in in 18 months for like 75 bucks.. and to add the second 260 or better for the same price , around 75 bucks... Thats... my vision... Lol.. 

[Barbaric Soul]

if you want a board that does SLI, I suggest looking into the the EVGA 750 or the ASUS 750 boards. Don't get a 680 or 650 board as thier PCIe ports don't do the x16 speeds needed to get the most out of a SLI set-up