I need a gaming computer

Latest Ars Technica system guide:

Brian

Their hot rod guide is pretty solid. They recommend DDR800 ram for $85, but note that at newegg, the same g.skill stuff rated at ddr1000 is the same price at the moment. It’s most likely the same chips, only difference being the binning - the ddr1000 stuff was tested to run at a higher level.

I was just talking about how people overestimate their wattage needs, but I wouldn’t be comfortable on the 330 they recommend.

I won’t lie, I got a lot of advice from the SA Goons, and according to them, if I do not plan to overclock, the stock heatsink that comes with the processor should be sufficient.

Likewise, they unanimously agreed on the case if you want the PSU attached, and although it is more expensive than many cases, cheaping out here is bad.

I’ll check around on the hard drive. I noticed too about the price jumping up, and really the only reason I took it over the 500gb was the minor price jump. The floppy drive will likely rarely get used, but nostalgia kicks in sometimes on my old games so it’s nice to have, and it’s cheap.

Lastly, I’m not a huge Vista fan either and was thinking about XP still, but the wife has Vista on her new laptop so I’ll give it a shot too. I’m still going back and forth on it though.

It should be… I think it would come with its own thermal grease though (not sure about that) so it seemed a little strange that you’d buy a high end thermal grease for a low end cooler.

Cheaping out is indeed bad. It’s a fine case/psu for your needs.

Many of them have a brace plate behind the motherboard.

Why not overclock? A decent after market cooler shouldn’t run you more than $30. And that processor can reach 3.6 on air easy, even 4.0 on air depending on other settings and the cooler you get. That’s a considerable overclock that will provide you with performance gains you will notice.

I suggest using the guide from Sharky Extreme

May 2008 Value Buyer’s Guide ($1000 limit)

Yeah, I recommend this. Overclocking is something completely veiled in ignorance to the computer buying public. It’s not anywhere near as dangerous as most people think, and most CPUs are rated at much lower than their capabilities to reduce the need for good cooling, reduce the number of failures for the few chips per batch that aren’t that good, etc.

You could get an extra 600-800mhz out of the e8400 without really trying.

My last 3 systems have been AMD. I’m an AMD fan. If the performance were even close, I’d have gone AMD. But it’s not. Intel kicks the living crap out of AMD at every price point at this time. So any guide that suggests buying a $160 AMD cpu when the $190 e8400 (way way better) and $130 e7200 (better) are available is pretty flawed.

I realize they’re probably just trying to cover all the bases, but even throwing the two in the same page is implying recommending both.

The guide is decent - better to grab an e8400 with a higher binning, higher stock speed, and better multiplier for $10 more, and a WD500AAKS over a 320 for another 5-10.

SenorBeef, I’m wondering if you can help me.

I want a machine with many cores for a custom app. I would love to get a machine with 4 q9450’s, but to get 4 procs I only see servers w/xeons and they are about $10k.

So maybe the best I can do in a non-server machine is 2 q9450’s. Someone suggested the mac but I would prefer a PC. I don’t want to build it myself and I’m willing to spend some money, but I don’t even see the option for dual q9450’s at hp, dell, etc.

Any thoughts on where I can purchase a PC like this? Or any other thoughts on getting a machine with lots of cores etc. My app is entirely integer number crunching, not too memory intensive, I turn on the graphics only when I want to see progress visually so that’s lower priority, and it’s already coded for parallel operation.

Hearing a lot of good things about the e7200 if price is an issue. It’s a Wolfdale for $130.00 with all the overclock ability as its bigger brothers.

Sorry, I can’t help you with that. Pretty much no one in the desktop market runs multiple CPUs anymore - quad-core CPUs are more than adequate. I didn’t come across any information whatsoever about running core 2s in SMP.

I wouldn’t say “all the overclock ability” - they’re most likely made from lower binned chips and they have half the cache. On the other hand, at a stock 266x9.5, they have the flexibility to go really fast without forcing you to have fast ram.

They may beat the E8400 in terms of the percentage amount of the overclock, and in terms of value per performance (it’s probably close), but you won’t get the same amount of raw performance most likely. Still, it’s easy to recommend if you can’t afford $190 for the E8400.