Bang for the Buck

[DarkCrown]

I've managed to convince my wife (and myself) that I really need my own gaming PC. Given my current WoW addiction it's the only way the rest of the family will get any tiime on the current machine.

It's been a while since I bought a computer for myself. I've been getting by on office hand-me-downs, and I am very out of touch with current hardware. I wouldn't be adverse to putting a machine together myself if this meant a significant cost savings, though it's been 10 years since I last did such a thing.

Do any of you have any suggestions for how I might go about spending my hard-earned cash? Buyer's guides, reputable suppliers, hardware suggestions, any and all of these would be welcomed. The budget for this machine is at most $1500 and need not include a monitor. Any advice you could offer would be greatly appreciated.

-DarkCrown

[Kevin]

I think Anand's January Mid Range Guide would be a decent place to start. Since you don't need a monitor you can upgrade components as need be. If you go AMD on an SLI motherboard (not a bad idea) you might want to consider checking over their NForce4 SLI round-up as I think there might be a better choice than the recommended ASUS board that the mid range guide suggests and I'm a huge Asus fan. The MSI K8N Neo4/SLI board with the onbaord SB Live! audio just seems to be a better way to go. That kind of onboard allows you to save $70 or so on a sound card and doesn't chew the CPU. Yeah an SB Live! may be 3 or 4 generations back now, but it is very adequate for most games still. You could also pick up some good info in the Beating the System: Upgrading Guide.

Since those are just some basic guidelines you may want to check some of their video card reviews or just take a look at Tom's PCIe VGA charts or if you decide to go with an AGP only board (I don't recommend that) Tom's AGP VGA charts as they are wonderful summaries. Keep in mind if you think about going SLI then you are looking at an NVidia video card. You'll have to watch which card you get since with the 6800's the pre series 400 would not do SLI. But it is something to keep in mind as you can start with one 6800 or 6600 now and a year or two later you can add the 2nd to get your video performance back up there. I actually did this years ago with the Voodoo2 cards. I had one, it worked fine and then a year later I got my 2nd one and SLI'd them and was quite happy with it's performance for another year and half.

There is a lot of other info out there, but I feel that these basics should help you figure out where to go with a bunch of it. Ars Technica Guides are good as well but they aren't updated as frequently as Anand. And of course all 3 of the sites listed are good for specific hardware review, but you can poke around on them for that.

[DeeBye]

Keep in mind if you think about going SLI then you are looking at an NVidia video card.  You'll have to watch which card you get since with the 6800's the pre series 400 would not do SLI.  But it is something to keep in mind as you can start with one 6800 or 6600 now and a year or two later you can add the 2nd to get your video performance back up there.  I actually did this years ago with the Voodoo2 cards.  I had one, it worked fine and then a year later I got my 2nd one and SLI'd them and was quite happy with it's performance for another year and half.
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Does anyone seriously think SLI is going to take off? I think it's a nifty thing, but I really don't see any future for it outside of the hardcore niche market. I really can't see any average gamer dropping down the cash for a pair of 6800 Ultras, when just a single one will play any game on the market at the highest resolution and at maximum texture details. And when a single 6800 Ultra becomes outdated, there will be another generation of cards that will play the current games without requiring SLI. I think it will always be more practical to buy a single next-generation card than to add another card to a SLI system.

But then again, playing Half Life 2 with a pair of SLI 6800 Ultras on a 22" widescreen LCD at a ridiculously high resolution with ridiculously high texture detail would be pretty sexy.

[jahcs]

Easy questions first:

Your budget
AMD or Intel
Gaming or High Power Gaming
Ripping DVD's?

I am not a person to ask about specific parts and builds but before I buy these questions are what I would ask myself.

[Kevin]

Does anyone seriously think SLI is going to take off?  I think it's a nifty thing, but I really don't see any future for it outside of the hardcore niche market.  I really can't see any average gamer dropping down the cash for a pair of 6800 Ultras, when just a single one will play any game on the market at the highest resolution and at maximum texture details.  And when a single 6800 Ultra becomes outdated, there will be another generation of cards that will play the current games without requiring SLI.  I think it will always be more practical to buy a single next-generation card than to add another card to a SLI system.

But then again, playing Half Life 2 with a pair of SLI 6800 Ultras on a 22" widescreen LCD at a ridiculously high resolution with ridiculously high texture detail would be pretty sexy.
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SLI was big for 3DFx it really did help drive sales and it was one of the major pieces of IP that NVidia was after when they bought up 3Dfx a few years back (the other biggies being some of the AA and ansio stuff that 3Dfx had developed as well and several other smaller IP's). The current implementations on PCIe are not as slap and go friendly as the older PCI set-ups were, but they also are higher quality and performance (those external hook-up cables where a good place to get signal interferance). I don't strongly recommend it and you can save money on the mobo by not going for it, but it is something to think about.

Other economic situations where it can make sense is if you are maintaining 2 or more systems (you have a gamer spouse). In that case you are buying a pair of cards quite often. Here you can get the two 6800's and put one in each box. A year and a half to two years later you can get one new single card solution and put it in one box and SLI that other to keep them up (assuming SLI stays around). Sure the now 2 carded box might not have DX11 support only DX10, but it can help on the econ side some. Of course you maybe looking at a new mobo for new bus and chip interfaces at that stage so it might not work. But that is still a very few people in that situation.

Though really in the desktop market it is more of a power builders option like you said. Of course it doesn't really hurt to have 2 16x PCIe slots on a board though right now it doesn't really help either (except for SLI options). Everything is eventually going to migrate to PCIe, it's just a better architecture. I'm just waiting for the SLI workstation cards and boards. With 4 proccessor Opteron boards out there and 8 Opteron boards on the way it would be sweet to SLI a couple of Quadro cards in there, that would be a workstation with some processing and graphical horsepower. Though NVidia hasn't made any SLI enable workstation card yet. Rumor mills suggest they will.

[Walkiry]

But then again, playing Half Life 2 with a pair of SLI 6800 Ultras on a 22" widescreen LCD at a ridiculously high resolution with ridiculously high texture detail would be pretty sexy.
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You shouldn't think 6800 Ultras. Think getting a 6600 today (a single one), and getting the second one in a year+, cheap, to bump your performance and keep up with the market.

I'm considering selling the innards of my current rig (KT800 chipset MSI, Radeon 9800 Pro, Athlon XP 3200+ and a gig of Corsair DDR400) and getting a SLI system going just for the upgrade path.

[Drasca]

You shouldn't think 6800 Ultras. Think getting a 6600 today (a single one), and getting the second one in a year+, cheap, to bump your performance and keep up with the market.
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important nitpick: 6600 regular does not have SLI capabilities. 6600GT does.

[Walkiry]

important nitpick: 6600 regular does not have SLI capabilities. 6600GT does.
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Really? And I though all 6 series did, thanks for the nitpick!

[Concillian]

$1500 sans monitor is a pretty killer system. You could be pretty well off with only $1000 buying parts on your own.

I would go with:
AMD64 s939 3000+ ~$160
nForce4 motherboard ~$100-150
ATi PCIe x800XL ~$300
Seagate 160GB HD ~$100
1GB value PC3200 ~$130
Case + PS ~$100
Mouse ~$50
Keyboard ~$30
DVD-ROM/CDRW ~$50

Comes to around $1100 and has some pretty nice components. Those prices are just general estimates, some are high-ish, and some are close, just giving an idea.

If you're not terribly into games, you can scale back to a 6600GT for closer to $200, this is still enough to run WoW very well at 1280x1024 with all the goodies. The x800XL is MSRP for $300, and you can get that in brick and mortar stores, but online resellers are charging well over that, this is one case where it makes sense to buy it at Fry's or CompUSA. CPU can go higher, but there's really no reason to.

For gaming, generally video card is the limiting factor rather than CPU, so if going for stock systems from HP or Dell and the like, look for the cheapest system that has an acceptable video card for your needs. Avoid "gaming systems" as these are generally full of crap nobody really needs, and a regular desktop system with an optional video card upgrade is usually 95% the performance for hundreds less than the "gaming systems" cost.

If gaming, and going for value, unfortunately you have to dissect the video card market, which is probably the most confusing of anything in the PC industry.

Given that you are the type to not upgrade very frequently, I would definitely tend towards a PCIe solution instead of an AGP solution, as I doubt there will be much AGP support at all in the coming year, and since the release of the 6600GT and x800XL, there are some pretty good values on video cards for PCIe, both of those are better values than what you can get for AGP at their price points.

In general, the A64 systems are a little better value if buying parts seperately, though the pricing now is a lot closer than it used to be. Truthfully, I doubt you'd notice a difference between the Intel and AMD64 solutions. If gaming, you should go with the best video card you can get before worrying about processor. The BASE model processors offered now (AMD64 2800+/AMD64 3000+/Intel 2.8GHz) are enough to be able to run all current games at acceptable speeds at any resolution.

Online resellers I've had personal and positive experience with:
www.newegg.com
www.monarchcomputers.com
www.mwave.com
www.zipzoomfly.com

[Concillian]

Does anyone seriously think SLI is going to take off?
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Personally, I don't think so. And I definitely don't think anybody like the typical Lurker would be thinking too much about SLi. Single card solutions are more economical in every sense until you get to two 6800 Ultras, and then you're talking about ridiculous amounts of graphics power that will be wasted on playing WoW.

an x800XL is more than enough power to run WoW at 1600x1200 with all the goodies and it's only $300 (I should know, because it's faster than an x800Pro, and that is what I use to run WoW at 1600x1200 with LOTS of graphical goodies). A 6600GT is only $200 and can probably do 1280x1024 with all the goodies, and 1600x1200 if you turn down some options. Nobody who is currently primarily playing WoW should even be thinking about SLi.

[Taem]

You shouldn't think 6800 Ultras. Think getting a 6600 today (a single one), and getting the second one in a year+, cheap, to bump your performance and keep up with the market.

I'm considering selling the innards of my current rig (KT800 chipset MSI, Radeon 9800 Pro, Athlon XP 3200+ and a gig of Corsair DDR400) and getting a SLI system going just for the upgrade path.
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I have a comment to make about SLI (specifically the nVidia 6600), but first let me tell my story:

In my area, a huge power-surge passed threw town and fried certian components in my computer and a few other people I know. I had a power strip, but no surge protector on it :( . I took my computer to a technician and he took inventory of what still worked. I lost the following components: Video card, case fan, CPU fan, and the power supply. The tech. said there was a good possibility the motherboard was fried too. Inside the computer, I still had the USB 2.0/Firewire Combo Card, NIC card, two hard-drives, DVD-r/rw ROM and CD ROM, Floppy drive, 1056MB of SDRAM, and mid-sized tower, not to mention the keyboard, mouse, 19" monitor, speakers, and headphones. The question then became rather I should get a NEW computer that had the components I wanted, or salvage my old components and build a new computer.

I researched prices for:
1.) All the computer components I would need to build my computer,
2.) Complete desktops PC's.

I checked websites from Gateway, Dell, Compaq, Alienware, HP, Cyber PC, eBay, C-NET, Outpost.com, and Powerhouse PC's and after many [days] of comparing prices, I determined I could purchase the components I needed from Fry's cheaper than I could buy a new desktop PC. I made a "shopping" list with everything I would need, I called Fry's the day before I left to verify what I needed was in stock and I double-checked on prices. I decided on a new tower with fans on the side and a 600W power supply to go with that, 2GB of PC3200 DDR RAM, and two nVidia 6600-GT (w/PCI-Express, SLI, 128MB DDRAM) to go with my ASUS motherboard with PCI-express and SLI compatibility and an Antholon 64 proccessor. Financially, two good, low-priced, SLI compatable video cards works better and are cheaper than the newest video card!

The next day when I got to Fry's, they didn't have the memory I asked for so I had to purchase Coursier, which was $70.00 more that budgeted for this computer. I asked the video tech if they had any cheaper priced video cards that were PCI-Express and SLI ready and he pointed me to the nVidia 6200 with PCI-Express - I found out many days later this video card does not support SLI! I went looking for my motherboard found out they were out of them, however a few minutes of looking for a new motherboard with everything I desired, someone put there ASUS motherboard back and decided they didn't want it. I immedialty picked it up and was on my way. I finally asked for the tower I wanted and a staff member got me one in an open box, prommising she would be "right back," but she never returned. Once at front to pay, the salesman informed me that the towers box was open and that he'd need to get me a "new" one in a closed box. He ran off and did this tower swap for me. I decided to have pay to have Fry's put togeather my computer and they told me it would take no longer than 2-days at the most, and that the process (reffered to as a "put-togeather") itself would not take more than 1-hour. When I finally got my computer back from Fry's after 7-days (I called everyday after the second day, once in the morning and once at night) with all its installed components, I could plainly see I had been give the wrong tower in the swap at the front desk - correct components, just wrong tower! I then quickly realized my video cards were not SLI compatable while reading threw my video card and motherboard manual. I didn't want to install the components driver and reinstall windows just to have to do it again when I got the correct video cards, so I couldn't use my computer! I called Fry's and asked the tech again what their cheapest video cards with PCI-express and SLI were, hoping to find a good deal. I was struck dumb when he recomended to me the 6200's - the same ones I had been recommended before. Obvioiusly the staff was unknowledgable about SLI... I then called Fry's trying to get in touch with their manager to see if he could give me the correct tower and video cards and install them at no cost since I wan't at fault. The staff who answered could not seem to find the General manager, nor did they have ANY idea what-so-ever where he was. I then composed a letter to the managers of the store and faxed them this night.

So far, this computer has been "in the shop" for about one month now to the day and I'm hoping to finally get my compter installed correctly and up and running by tommrow evening - after I speaek with a manager of course. I'm greatly anticipating playing Doom 3 on my dual-SLI nVidia 6600's with PCI-express!

The only thing I should mention is when I told the computer tech.'s who originally checked out what was fried told me the Asus motherboards are made poorly and usualy break after one-year. I never heard about this, but I'm making sure to get an extended warrenty.

[Concillian]

I have a comment to make about SLI (specifically the nVidia 6600), but first let me tell my story:

Moral(s) of the story:
Do not trust what ANYONE at Fry's says or does.
Do not buy components at Fry's you are not 100% informed about.
Do not buy anything with a rebate that you cannot take home, try, and return because it is DoA in the same day.

These are the golden rules of Fry's. If you violate them, you are either out lots of money, time, or both.

I've actually bought CD-Rs at Fry's that somebody had failed writing on and returned and they put them back on the shelf. The sales people at Fry's are less knowlegeable about computers than an average DMV employee. The management actively tries to pawn off broken merchandise in hopes that people won't bother to return it.

[TPJ]

$1500 sans monitor is a pretty killer system.  You could be pretty well off with only $1000 buying parts on your own.

I would go with:
AMD64 s939 3000+ ~$160
nForce4 motherboard ~$100-150
ATi PCIe x800XL ~$300
Seagate 160GB HD ~$100
1GB value PC3200 ~$130
Case + PS ~$100
Mouse ~$50
Keyboard ~$30
DVD-ROM/CDRW ~$50

Comes to around $1100 and has some pretty nice components.  Those prices are just general estimates, some are high-ish, and some are close, just giving an idea.

If you're not terribly into games, you can scale back to a 6600GT for closer to $200, this is still enough to run WoW very well at 1280x1024 with all the goodies.  The x800XL is MSRP for $300, and you can get that in brick and mortar stores, but online resellers are charging well over that, this is one case where it makes sense to buy it at Fry's or CompUSA.  CPU can go higher, but there's really no reason to.

For gaming, generally video card is the limiting factor rather than CPU, so if going for stock systems from HP or Dell and the like, look for the cheapest system that has an acceptable video card for your needs.  Avoid "gaming systems" as these are generally full of crap nobody really needs, and a regular desktop system with an optional video card upgrade is usually 95% the performance for hundreds less than the "gaming systems" cost.

If gaming, and going for value, unfortunately you have to dissect the video card market, which is probably the most confusing of anything in the PC industry.

Given that you are the type to not upgrade very frequently, I would definitely tend towards a PCIe solution instead of an AGP solution, as I doubt there will be much AGP support at all in the coming year, and since the release of the 6600GT and x800XL, there are some pretty good values on video cards for PCIe, both of those are better values than what you can get for AGP at their price points.

In general, the A64 systems are a little better value if buying parts seperately, though the pricing now is a lot closer than it used to be.  Truthfully, I doubt you'd notice a difference between the Intel and AMD64 solutions.  If gaming, you should go with the best video card you can get before worrying about processor.  The BASE model processors offered now (AMD64 2800+/AMD64 3000+/Intel 2.8GHz) are enough to be able to run all current games at acceptable speeds at any resolution.
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I was going to reply with my info, but this post is IDENTICAL to what I would have written. Well done. Great advice!

Here is the info on what I bought and some suggestions from other Basin folk.

[Guest]

Good advice. One thing I would suggest is if your going with Dell upgrade the vidio card yourself. Often they only offer the good vidio card if you buy a PC with extra stuff you dont need.


I havent looks at Dell since PCIe came out, but this was always a good plan before.