Need advice on upgrades.

[moszis]

Heya! First time poster.

I finally decided to upgrade my 2 year old PC. Currently have Asus P5ND2-SLI deluxe MB, P4 3.0 processor, 7800gtx video card, corsair 4x1000 667 memory. Also 75GB Raptors in raid 0, but I will not be upgrading those. I am a little behind on hardware so I did some research and narrowed it down to couple of choices. I'm hoping you guys can help me chose between the options below or point me to something I haven't considered. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Note that this is purely gaming box, seldom used for anything else. Also I would rather not spend more than $600 for MB+CPU. I intend to OC but not to extremes.

Motherboard choices:
- ASUS P5E WS Professional : Newegg.com - ASUS P5E WS Professional LGA 775 Intel X38 ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail
or
- ASUS MAXIMUS FORMULA : Newegg.com - ASUS MAXIMUS FORMULA LGA 775 Intel X38 ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail
(I have seen allot of good reviews on these forums for Maximus but i'm leaning towards P5E. P5E seems to have all the major features identical to maximus but also comes with couple of extra secondary features like 8 sata vs 6 sata on maximus, 2 eSata vs 0 on maximus, also PCI-X port in case in need it in the future.. Can anyone point out any advantages of Maximus over P5E? How do they compare in stability, overclocking? )


CPU choices:
- Q6600 : Newegg.com - Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Kentsfield 2.4GHz 2 x 4MB L2 Cache LGA 775 Quad-Core Processor - Retail
or
- E6850 : Newegg.com - Intel Core 2 Duo E6850 Conroe 3.0GHz 4M shared L2 Cache LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Processor - Retail
(This is a tough one.. I have seen many reviews and comparisons of both , but many comparisons are conflicting.. Assuming that the game doesn't support multiple cores than E6850 is definitely better, but if it does than is Q6600 better? I would assume that no game would utilize all 4 cores evenly so you cant really know how good the processor will perform unless you looking at a specific game.. I wonder how MMOs utilize your processor considering that bulk of the game processing happens on their servers..?)


Video Card
- EVGA 8800GTX Superclocked Newegg.com - EVGA 768-P2-N835-A3 GeForce 8800GTX Superclocked 768MB 384-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card - Retail
or
- EVGA 8800GTX Newegg.com - EVGA 768-P2-N831-AR GeForce 8800GTX 768MB 384-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card - Retail
(As you can see I pretty much narrowed it down to one card.. the only choice is should I buy superclocked one or not? is it worth extra $50 for superclocked? What exactly does it mean? is it just same card overclocked? )

RAM
- G.SKILL 4GB(2 x 2GB) DDR2 1000 (PC2 8000)
Newegg.com - G.SKILL 4GB(2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1000 (PC2 8000) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory - Retail
(best memory for price.. dont really see anything comparable. Any suggestions?)


PSU:
- How do I figure out how big PSU do I need? I know that 8800gtx needs 450w psu and CPU needs 100w psu.. does that mean that I add 450 +100 or thats not how it works?

MISC:
- Newegg.com - Thermalright HR-03 Plus VGA Cooler - Retail
- Newegg.com - Thermalright Ultra-120 Extreme CPU Cooler - Retail

Thanks allot for any help!

[screwballl]

First things first, what is your total budget??

Your best bet right now would be a motherboard that takes DDR2 as the price premium for DDR3 is not worth it. If you will be using your current memory, it should be fine but look at the prices of some 2x 2GB kits or even 4x1GB kits of DDR2-1066. As for the boards, PCIX is generally only used for server based hardware versus video cards use PCIe. The inclusion of the 2 eSATA is a big plus. As both are based on X38, go with the board that has the features you are looking for.

That 7800GTX is still a very good video card and the step up to the 8800 will not see a very big jump in game performance until at least mid to late 2008 with some of the new games that can make use of it then. That is unless you play many of the new games out like Crysis, then you may see 10-20fps higher.

CPU: This is a toss up, we tend to suggest the Q6600 as they do have some decent overclocking room, but if you are not comfortable with an OC then the E6850 is a great deal.

PSU: Anything 700-800W should be fine for you. OCZ, Antec and some of the mainstream companies are the best way to go. If you stick with the 7800 video then 600+W should be fine.

[Stormcrow]

Originally Posted by screwballl

That 7800GTX is still a very good video card and the step up to the 8800 will not see a very big jump in game performance until at least mid to late 2008 with some of the new games that can make use of it then. That is unless you play many of the new games out like Crysis, then you may see 10-20fps higher.

I gotta beg to differ, screwbie. The 8800GTX is a monster, even in the twilight of it's reign as king. DX9 games are just eaten by these cards, while they give respectable performance in DX10. Which is here now, no need to wait. A lot does factor into it, like a CPU that can't keep up (not a problem with a Q6600), or resolutions like 1024x768 which don't take full advantage of the hardware. Not knocking ya man, but the 8800 walks all over the 7800. 128 shader processors or 24 pixel pipelines? If you're going for a system that can take advantage of the sheer raw horsepower, there will be quite a notice in performance.

As for Crysis, Vista tends to give lower performance, as does the DX10 selection. Running under XP with DX9 looks just about as good with higher performance. It is still a good choice like you said to hang on to the current 7800GTX (is it the standard GTX or the 512mb model? The 512 is a revised and faster 7800 with more memory). While the 8800's own the board right now, if you can hang on to that money the next generation is due out sometime after the start of the year and you can get that instead.

Originally Posted by moszis

(This is a tough one.. I have seen many reviews and comparisons of both , but many comparisons are conflicting.. Assuming that the game doesn't support multiple cores than E6850 is definitely better, but if it does than is Q6600 better? I would assume that no game would utilize all 4 cores evenly so you cant really know how good the processor will perform unless you looking at a specific game.. I wonder how MMOs utilize your processor considering that bulk of the game processing happens on their servers..?)

Out of the box, the E6850 is the better pick for strict gaming use by clock speed alone. Some games are starting to come around to fully utilize quads though, and if your handy with overclocking or wouldn't mind giving it a shot the Q6600 can easily reach the same frequency as the E6850. As for MMOs, most of these are more reliant on the GPU, and usually feature less vivid detail and other goodies like physics so that they'll run decently well on a wide range of systems. More users that can play comfortably means more dough for the company. The rendering does take place on the system itself like any other game, and what takes place on the game servers is receiving and transferring of data and information which tells the game client to load instances or place NPCs or enemies. That's how I understand it.

Again, if you're willing to wait until after New Years, Intel should be rolling out the new Penryn line like the Q9550 and E8500. The Wolfdale cores are really interesting, a cheap price point for a dual core that's shown to easily break the 4GHz mark. The new quads follow suit as well, very nice and worth the wait over the Q6600 Kentsfield.

[fstroupe]

I like your choices, pretty close to what I would pick if I were building a new rig today.

Personally, I like the first mobo, I like the external serial port bracket in the bundle...but I am probably one of the very few people here that actually uses the serial port. Either mobo is fine.

As far as the CPU, unless you are going to build a new rig next year, buy for tomorrow...not today. Get the quad.

If the extra bucks aren't really an issue, I'd probably pick the superclocked video card...but really, either card is probably going to blow you away.

Nothing wrong with the memory. Keep in mind that unless you use a 64-bit O/S, you won't use but about 3 gigs of the RAM.

PSU:
- How do I figure out how big PSU do I need? I know that 8800gtx needs 450w psu and CPU needs 100w psu.. does that mean that I add 450 +100 or thats not how it works?

That's really not how it was intended to work, but nVidia's minimum is never enough. LOL...their minimum for the 6800 GT was a 350 watt PSU...they upped that to 400 when noones 6800s were working.

I suppose so as to not lose sales to someone that wants to upgrade their system with just a new card. And they usually end up having to buy a new PSU after the fact.

But your idea is correct, a 550 PSU would probably power your system ok...but just barely.

Personally, I feel that PSU headroom is important. I.E., I was running an 850 watt PSU on my rig. Of course, that is overkill. I recently reviewed a 630 watt PSU. After a couple of hours, I noticed fan noise on my otherwise silent rig. The PSU was blowing warm air, and the fans had spun up. Yes, the present PSU still powers my rig fine, but it is having to work at it. (harder work = shorter life and possibly instability) The larger PSU lazily (and silently) ran things.