The Raven Council

Thinking of buying the following (with around 2k euro budget for it):

- Core 2 Quad Q9300 - 279 euro
seemed to be the most affordable of the new models and should perform well. I don't mind spending up to 300 euros on the processor.

- motherboard (not sure yet). I don't mind spending up to 400 euros on this if it is a really good motherboard. Basically I'm looking for the best but not priced at 500+. The striker motherboards seemed nice, but a bit outdated already. For the rest I have no idea where to start looking for a good one.

- Point of View GeForce 9800 GX2 1GB - 449 euro
Alternatively I could get a 9800 GTX 512MB for around 300 euros, but 512 sounds a bit low. I have 640MB even on my 8800 GTS at the moment. An extra 150 euro for double the memory and a newer model doesn't sound too expensive to me (I haven't upgraded much in the last 2.5 years, so I'm willing to spend a bit again)

- Antec P190 + 1200 - 292,50 euro
I have an antec p180 right now which I was satisfied with. The 1200W seems a bit overkill though and I'm wondering whether I should really go for the P182 instead (I'm selling my whole computer, so I'm not keeping my P180). P182 is around 127 euro, but the almost 300 euro price tag on the p190 doesn't hold me back if it's worth it.

- memory, well looking at 4GB or more if possible (which I'm wondering is possible with vista 64, 8GB e.g. would be really nice if it works)
Anyone have any idea what the fastest (but still viably affordable) memory would be? According to tomshardware, going for ddr3 instead of ddr2 is simply not worth it (2-3% speed increase), so I could simply go for ddr2 1066MHz memory.

What I don't want, is having to search through millions of reviews to find that which will give me the most pleasant gaming experience. All I want is basically the fastest experience I can buy right now. If I can find a combination of the above items that accomplishes that, I'm done (don't really need to look at other parts, I'll just take a soundblaster x-fi e.g. and the harddisk I've already bought.

So, any help is appreciated .

Is quadcore really worth it? Most of the games are *still* single-threaded affairs, only exception that comes to mind being Bioshock.

Zarhan wrote:Is quadcore really worth it? Most of the games are *still* single-threaded affairs, only exception that comes to mind being Bioshock.

Age of conan is said to take full use of multi-core. By the way, I have dual-core 4400+ amd right now (2.5 years old).

in games you will notice no difference over your current. unless you are talking crysis which may show a 10 fps max change.

also the 8400/8500 cpus are better imo you dont need quad core yet. as zar says nothing uses it.

and you really dont need more than 4 gig. unless you are doing ludicrous amounts of photo editing/video/audio stuff at thesame time. which noone does.

and striker kicks ass ( i have one). but theres a striker 2 now.

and who cares if one game does it? the difference between dual and quad core will be tiny owing to other bottlenecks. so dont bother

also i would wait till the next Proper next gen card comes out. the 9800 is minor, very minor. unlike say 7900-8800 which was huge.

Thanks for the info, but as I was saying, I'm not upgrading, I'm buying a new computer which should be considerably faster and able to hold for 2 years (like mine has up till now). I wanna play any game out now to the max, no compromises in turning down a few settings here and there. Now I'm getting about 25 fps on 'max' settings in AoC and I want that to be the max which is capped at 64 fps or so. Don't tell me that my current setup, which I bought 2.5 years ago is still up for it and any upgrade only minor .

Also, since I often do other stuff on my other monitor, I need to be able to multitask fast without it being slowed down. For that I need more memory (4 gig is probably enough) and if windows can efficiently divide it over cores, then that should be nice.
For example, I often watch video while playing wow, and ofcourse I run a lot of other stuff like a browser, e-mail etc.

And about waiting for next-gen, it depends on whether that'll be multiple months or weeks. Buying another 8800 at marginally lower price seems a waste.
Point of View GeForce 8800GTS 512MB incl. Game € 265,00
Point of View GeForce 9800GTX 512MB € 299,00

The striker 2 sounds appealing. Then there's the choice between asus striker II NSE or the extreme version. The latter is priced at 362 euro while the former is 40 euros cheaper.

I can chip in with an opinion on the P182 case as I got one of those earlier this year for myself. Probably the best case I've had so far (after a long line of Coolermasters and one Lian Li).

Now that I read the PSU...

1200 W?

You really want to install electric heater?-)

The problem is that in general PSUs will always radiate about 1/3 of their power as heat, regardless of load, so you are just installing a 400W heater..

I'm getting a 600W one and thinking that even that's overkill. Only reason why I'm taking it in the firs place is the RAID array with 4 HDDs. Without it, 400W's would probably be enough..

Kolos wrote:Thanks for the info, but as I was saying, I'm not upgrading, I'm buying a new computer which should be considerably faster and able to hold for 2 years (like mine has up till now). I wanna play any game out now to the max, no compromises in turning down a few settings here and there. Now I'm getting about 25 fps on 'max' settings in AoC and I want that to be the max which is capped at 64 fps or so. Don't tell me that my current setup, which I bought 2.5 years ago is still up for it and any upgrade only minor .

Also, since I often do other stuff on my other monitor, I need to be able to multitask fast without it being slowed down. For that I need more memory (4 gig is probably enough) and if windows can efficiently divide it over cores, then that should be nice.
For example, I often watch video while playing wow, and ofcourse I run a lot of other stuff like a browser, e-mail etc.

And about waiting for next-gen, it depends on whether that'll be multiple months or weeks. Buying another 8800 at marginally lower price seems a waste.
Point of View GeForce 8800GTS 512MB incl. Game € 265,00
Point of View GeForce 9800GTX 512MB € 299,00

The striker 2 sounds appealing. Then there's the choice between asus striker II NSE or the extreme version. The latter is priced at 362 euro while the former is 40 euros cheaper.

you think this new pc will give you 64? its highly unlikely if your current only gives 25. its REALLY not 3 times faster.

have you seen the performance difference between the two cards you listed above? within 10% which is within 20% of yours now.

oh and any game max settings, forget about it . it still wont do crysis all max. not at an fps above 40 (for sli) and 35 (for single card)

So what you're saying, is that nothing much has happened in 2.5 years and the 2/3 years I got this 8800GTS.
People in AoC chat were saying they were getting 64 fps with max settings.

How much fps did you get again in shattrath or terrokar forest e.g.?
I get about 20-25 in a window.

The power unit is what I'm worried about on the p190, why is it so much?
I wanted an upgrade to my current case (too much of a deja vu if I buy the same case as 2.5 years ago). Maybe the p182 is enough of an upgrade.
I am currently using a 500W one: antec phantom (extra quiet).

Anyway, I wanna buy a dream gaming-pc and if you're saying I already have it minus 10-20% that sounds really depressing.

Kolos wrote:So what you're saying, is that nothing much has happened in 2.5 years and the 2/3 years I got this 8800GTS.
People in AoC chat were saying they were getting 64 fps with max settings.

How much fps did you get again in shattrath or terrokar forest e.g.?
I get about 20-25 in a window.

The power unit is what I'm worried about on the p190, why is it so much?
I wanted an upgrade to my current case (too much of a deja vu if I buy the same case as 2.5 years ago). Maybe the p182 is enough of an upgrade.
I am currently using a 500W one: antec phantom (extra quiet).

Anyway, I wanna buy a dream gaming-pc and if you're saying I already have it minus 10-20% that sounds really depressing.

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/nvidia-ge ... 590-7.html

see for yourself. its so marginally better its unreal. also the 8800 cards have only been out a year and a half, not even that.

on pure benchmarks your cpu will be massively better. but in real games. well you saw the review above..

if you want a proper dream pc, either buy the 9800 gx2 (the 2 in 1 solution) or wait for the next true card. as this one is based on the old tech anyway.

with the gx2 its effectively sli but without the need for two slots. as you know probably. its pretty nice vs single card things - http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=12294&page=7 but even thats not massively higher.


and dont forget people talk shite in games about how well they run. they may say max settings but unless they have all the same AA AF etc which is hard you can never be sure.

in conclusion dont buy a single card if you want that big of a boost, unless its a gx2 of course.

In conclusion, I can get a computer upgrade but shouldn't waste money on the best gfx card yet. I can wait a bit and then upgrade my gfx (maybe even not sell my current yet).