Building a Gaming Rig

[weales]

My somewhat newer and cheap Asus mobo died last night on me, not OC'd. It has an 805d in it and I plan on using it in my next mobo. My main goal is to OC this thing to 3.2 - 3.4ghz and use it as my gaming machine for the time being and buy a Core 2 in 6 - 7 months.

Sold my old DDR and AGP card today and spent a better part of the day in reading up on the newer technology. Here's my list thus far.

Intel 805d - Own
Zalman Fan - Own
Asus P5B Deluxe s775 Motherboard - To Buy
OCZ VALUE PRO DDR2 4200 2 GIG -To Buy
BFG GeForce 7900GSOC 256mb or BFG GeForce 7950 GT OC 512MB - To Buy

I'm pretty much sold on the P5B. I guess my main concern is what to do about RAM. I plan on getting a core 2 in in 6 - 7 months and not sure if I should go for some PC5400 or PC6400.

Video card and PSU aren't a huge concern, I know enough on that subject. RAM is a different story, is the Ram listed decent to OC now on this chip and a future core 2?

Any advice is appreicated.

[Emoe]

IIRC, OCZ Gold and Platinum 6400 are only $250ish...almost the same price as valueram almost. Please, save yourself some money by buying the non wifi P5B-DEL. :D

[Emancipated]

IIRC, OCZ Gold and Platinum 6400 are only $250ish...almost the same price as valueram almost. Please, save yourself some money by buying the non wifi P5B-DEL. :D

Apologies to the OP for crowding in, but what are some good boards that support Conroe without the aforementioned frills like wifi? I don't want to spend $200+ on a board with features I do not need. A modest set of overclocking features would be nice but stability and ease of setup is more important. SLI/XF also not needed.

[chuck_himself]

This Team Xtreem Ram is supposed to be the best DDR2 800 that you can get right now. It allegedly OC's to 1066 with decent enough voltage.

http://www.directcanada.com/products/?sku=15390BD4846&vpn=TXDD2048M800HC4DC&manufacture=TEAM%20GROUP%20INC.

Kinda pricey though.

As for a mobo my buddy has a ASUS P5B-E and he has his E6300 at 3.1GHZ and it would go higher except he bought some crappy OCZ 800 memory. Also the Gigabyte GA-965P-DS3 is supposed to be just as good as the Asus.

[Emoe]

Apologies to the OP for crowding in, but what are some good boards that support Conroe without the aforementioned frills like wifi? I don't want to spend $200+ on a board with features I do not need. A modest set of overclocking features would be nice but stability and ease of setup is more important. SLI/XF also not needed.

Gigabyte DS3 and S3 (budget)
P5B-E / P5B

[weales]

I'd like to thank for all the advice. I'm going to act soon on buying these parts since some of the parts have a decent MIR that end on NOV. 30.

I've came up with 2 part lists thus far so you go ahead to critique if you like.

#1

Asus P5B Motherboard – $180.00
OCZ 2Gb PC6400 DDR2 EL Dual Channel Gold Gamer eXtreme XTC Edition $294.99
BFG Geforce 7600 GT OC $215.62

Comes to about $786 with tax minus any additional shipping, the reason for the 7600 gt is due to the fact that Vista/DX10 is close by so my thinking is use this for a year or so and the buy the next generation DX10 card.

#2

Asus P5B Motherboard – Price $180.00
OCZ 2Gb PC6400 DDR2 EL Dual Channel Gold Gamer eXtreme XTC Edition $294.99
BFG GeForce 7950 GT OC 512MB DDR3 PCI-E $349.99

Comes to about $940 with tax. I ignore my previous worries to go for the 7950 or 7900 GT.

There's about a difference of $154 between the two builds. I'm pretty much set on the mobo and ram but video card is abit of a toss up, guess it comes down to preference of gaming experience. I plan on playing the latest stuff like NWN 2 etc.

I'm not worried about the $ factor but more concened about throwing $ into something which might not last for a good decent time which in this world seems to be 6 months tops, hehe.

[enko]

If you want to play the latest games, you might regret jumping on the 7600GT.

Maybe a used 7800/7900 from BST? Although you probably want something "now" :)

[champ91]

My somewhat newer and cheap Asus mobo died last night on me, not OC'd. It has an 805d in it and I plan on using it in my next mobo. My main goal is to OC this thing to 3.2 - 3.4ghz and use it as my gaming machine for the time being and buy a Core 2 in 6 - 7 months.

Sold my old DDR and AGP card today and spent a better part of the day in reading up on the newer technology. Here's my list thus far.

Intel 805d - Own
Zalman Fan - Own
Asus P5B Deluxe s775 Motherboard - To Buy
OCZ VALUE PRO DDR2 4200 2 GIG -To Buy
BFG GeForce 7900GSOC 256mb or BFG GeForce 7950 GT OC 512MB - To Buy

I'm pretty much sold on the P5B. I guess my main concern is what to do about RAM. I plan on getting a core 2 in in 6 - 7 months and not sure if I should go for some PC5400 or PC6400.

Video card and PSU aren't a huge concern, I know enough on that subject. RAM is a different story, is the Ram listed decent to OC now on this chip and a future core 2?

Any advice is appreicated.


are you indesperate need of a gaming computer right now?
I would definitely get the 6400 ram but ocz doesn't oc as much as other brands.

to be honest, the video cards arn't worth buying right now. the 7950gt isn't that good actually from what I've read. But if you want that i suggest that you wait a little bit because the 8800's just came out so i'm sure the price of the 7900 series will drop soon. If you can't wait, AT LEAST wait for tomorrow's ncix sale

if you can wait, then wait till christmas

[matkun]

Any particular reason you seem to have the 7x00 series in mind? From recent benchmarks, for ~$300, the X1900 XT 256 MB or X1950 XT 256 MB are better performers then the 7950 GT and are cheaper, and will keep you going at max settings for another half a year. Similarily the 7600 is easily beaten by an 1950 pro, which is ~ the same price.

[Emoe]

I'd like to thank for all the advice. I'm going to act soon on buying these parts since some of the parts have a decent MIR that end on NOV. 30.

I've came up with 2 part lists thus far so you go ahead to critique if you like.

#1

Asus P5B Motherboard – $180.00
OCZ 2Gb PC6400 DDR2 EL Dual Channel Gold Gamer eXtreme XTC Edition $294.99
BFG Geforce 7600 GT OC $215.62

Comes to about $786 with tax minus any additional shipping, the reason for the 7600 gt is due to the fact that Vista/DX10 is close by so my thinking is use this for a year or so and the buy the next generation DX10 card.

#2

Asus P5B Motherboard – Price $180.00
OCZ 2Gb PC6400 DDR2 EL Dual Channel Gold Gamer eXtreme XTC Edition $294.99
BFG GeForce 7950 GT OC 512MB DDR3 PCI-E $349.99

Comes to about $940 with tax. I ignore my previous worries to go for the 7950 or 7900 GT.

There's about a difference of $154 between the two builds. I'm pretty much set on the mobo and ram but video card is abit of a toss up, guess it comes down to preference of gaming experience. I plan on playing the latest stuff like NWN 2 etc.

I'm not worried about the $ factor but more concened about throwing $ into something which might not last for a good decent time which in this world seems to be 6 months tops, hehe.

I'd just build a whole new system atm. It's not going to be much more expensive than your current aim.

e6300 - 200$
P5B-E - 180$
800 ram - 300$~
keep your hard drive.
7900gs - 200$
keep psu and case lalala

200+180+300+200 = 880$.

The 7900s is going to last you half a year. Midranged DX10 cards aren't coming out until Feb~, so I wouldn't depend on extreme graphics heavy games to come out until at least 2 months after that.