As for me, I'm probably going to try waiting to upgrade my laptop until we start hearing Galciv3 rumblings...

My laptop I set the Specs to Civ 4 recommended Specs.

SLI and Crossfire make absolutely no sense unless you're going for ultra-high end performance regardless of cost and you get 2 high end cards right away. The buy-one-card-and-add-another-later approach just doesn't work out. By the time you add another card for SLI there will be a single card out there that will trounce your older SLI cards and cost less than the 2 of them as well.

For less than ultra performance, SLI/Crossfire doesn't deliver either. 2 midrange cards don't equal one high end. It just doesn't scale that way.

FYI, SATA/300 is backwards compatible. Older SATA drives will work fine (not even any slower, really, since few if any SATA drives can reach the full theoretical speed of a SATA/150 bus anyway...).

ah ha! see, newegg's PSU calculator told me 650 would suffice. there's a deal for -$100 on a 1K PSU when you buy the second case i linked, IIRC (and if it's still available). either way, better PSU, check. some of the reviews for the Antec Nine Hundred case suggest getting one with modular cabling, since the PSU mounts at the bottom of the case instead of the top.



well to be honest, i was planning on keeping the option of SLI open for future upgrades. on the other hand, i've heard that SLI and Crossfire only add marginal improvement for the cost (basically it's something you do if you've got money to burn).



sweet! honestly i think keeping the door open for SLI is probably a pipe dream and a waste of money for me, so i should just go with the better chipset. one nice perk about these chipsets, they open the door for faster memory. definately can't afford DDR3 but with the nvidia chipsets DDR2 800 was the best available from what i could find.

okay, i've got more window shopping to do  and oh to be sure i'll be getting XP Pro. i really just don't want to deal with Vista.

thanks Craig! btw i've been curious, the "HB" isn't for Huntington Beach, is it?

heh so i totally didn't notice this went on to page 2...



you know i was thinking about this, and you're absolutely right. i doubt i'll ever want to spend top dollar for either option, so i'm not even going to leave it open for myself. i'll get better performance i think with Craig's chipset suggestions.



thanks Kryo! i remember looking for an answer to this exact question, but i must've got distracted (actually, my computer probably crashed).

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so for MoBos, i'm now debating between the ASUS P5K-E and the GIGABYTE GA-P35-DS3P Rev 2.0.

as far as video cards go... those GeForce 8800's are just so dang expensive. i'll probably just stick with an 8600GTS, they're about half the price on average. i can always upgrade down the line.

but i will probably look into DDR2 1066 instead of 800 since these boards above support it. a bit more pricey, but probably worth it (and memory goes on sale all the time).

You sometimes have to be sure about the benefit when going for the latest and greatest stuff. I've gotten burned that way before. For example, as Kryo mentioned, I sort of went out of my way to upgrade to SATA 3.0GB some time ago and found I got no increase in disk speed. It turns out that disks can only fully utilize SATA 1.5GB speeds anyway. Another example, I got a marginal increase in tested memory speed going from DDR2-400 to DDR2-800. You would expect it to be double but, as mentioned before, things just don't scale that way. Don't get too hung up on getting the very fastest architecture out there. In some cases, you can pay a lot of extra money for a marginal increase in visible performance.

I would be fine with the DDR2-800 right now. The 1066 is more expensive and the benefit is marginal. DDR3 is still pretty new. It's expensive and the motherboards that support it are pricey.

There's no reason to go for ddr2-1066 unless you're going for extreme overclocking . . . and I mean really, really extreme. I've got the fastest air cooled Q6600 (3708 mhz) in the HardOCP database (hardware site with over 80,000 members) and I use 800.

If you're a gamer rather than someone who runs memory bandwidth benchmarks as a hobby, the extra cash would be far better spent on faster video.

Yes, they are. I always give the video card top billing in my builds. I usually skimp on the processor. However, next build, I'm going to skimp a little less on the CPU. I dug in a bit too deep last time.

Just wanted to clarify, the 750W minimum power supply is only required for operating *dual high-end* video cards. I'm running a PCP&C 450W which is fully capable for any single card, single CPU system. However, PCP&C uses continuous ratings so that would be more like a 600W for a maker advertising peak ratings.


No, but I lived close to there in Seal Beach for a time. The HB is my last two initials. I've just never been able to come up with a good handle. Hehe, it's amazing I actually came up with a couple game characters to use.

good advice guys. my ultimate goals is to avoid breaking my bank account. i'll probably buy at least half the stuff on credit and try to pay it off within 3 months, but still, i haven't even totally finished paying off my current POS (piece of "stuff"). at the same time, i'm excited about doing this, but i don't want it to become a total addiction (no offense Craig ). i make pretty good money now, but i plan to go back to grad school in a few years, so i'm trying to avoid building up excessive debt. i'll still keep the advice on getting an 8800 in mind, however. it would be cool to play the game with AA on regularly  

i have one lingering question. should i go for XP pro or XP pro 64? is there any special annoyance to look out for with regard to the 64 bit version? they're priced identically on newegg. (after reading a bit, it looks like getting drivers could be something i don't want to deal with).

I wouldn't bother with 64 unless you have a specific reason for using it. Driver support isn't as good, and some software doesn't get along with it.

I recommend looking at the new Radeon 3850, in the same price range as the 8600 but a much better card.

Or, for a more future-proof rig, wait until the current buying frenzy/price gouge on the new 8800GT dies down. When you can actually get one for retail price it'll be a great value -- 8800GTX performance for about $250.

Hehe, none taken. One of the things I do that me keeps from spending *too* much money is to sell the old parts on eBay. For instance, I'll probably get a couple hundered for the 8800GTS so I'll only need to dish out about a hundred to make up the difference for an 8800GT. eBay usually does pretty well for computer parts if they're not too old. If that wasn't the case, I'd be doing these builds only once every few years. It's worth it for me to have the latest hardware all the time. The way it works out, the budget system I build tomorrow ends up being equivalent to the pricey top-the-line system I could build today.


Yea, the 8800GT is a super hot seller right now and it's listing over retail. However, my favorite video card maker is eVGA and you can buy it online from them right now at retail. Though, I imagine the price will drop below that at retailer sites in a few months which is prefect for my schedule.

For a less expensive card, I'd go for the Radeon. Low-end GeForce GPU's are really slow. I had a 7900GT die on me and put one in my system while the failed card was out for warranty replacement. I couldn't do much other than email and web browsing with it.

heh, i had an idea of writing customer service at Dell, and explaining that their tech support wasn't ever able to help my problem, politely ask them to fix it for free now even though my warrenty expired, and if, in the case of longshot, they did, turn around and sell the damn thing. just to be clear, i'm not pinning any hopes on this or anything.

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it's been a slow day so far at work, so i've had some time to browse a bit more. taking into account some of the advice i've received so far (again, i really appriciate everyone's wisdom), it seems the prevailing point of view is "don't bother getting it if you don't really need it."

i'm looking at the Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3L. while i'd prefer to stick with Asus, Gigabyte seems to have pretty high customer satisfaction rate. at $90, it seems like a pretty good deal (i might shop around to see if someone else carries Rev 2.0). it looks like the major complaints are with sound drivers and the north bridge cooling, but i'm hoping it won't be a problem with that Antec 900 case.

that got me thinking about a couple of the less significant components i (might) want - CPU cooling and possibly a sound card. i've heard lots of people say onboard sound is usally good enough, but i'm a bit of an audiophile. i do, after all, have that pretty nice speaker set. i think i'll hold off for now and see how the on-board sound works out. i can always add a sound card later if i have problems.

it doesn't seem like the CPU or mobo come with a CPU heatsink/fan, so i was looking around. i assume i need some kind of CPU cooler, but it's hard for me to tell what i need from what i can do. how do you guys approach cooling and heat management?

edit: the Core 2 does come with a heatsink, but i might still be interested in hearing your thoughts on cooling. i still might like something more beefy down the line.

All retail boxed CPUs come with an HSF. Unless you're doing serious overclocking, the standard HSF is plenty good enough on current-gen chips.

Are you sure the cpu doesn't come with a cooler? Most Core2s are box retail units with an Intel HSF.

I use Thermalright heatsinks -- very good quality, and they don't come with a fan but are designed to accommodate the aftermarket fan of your choice, allowing you to choose your own best noise/performance ratio and not forcing you to replace the heatsink when the fan fails. Thermalright is pretty good about producing bracket kits so you can keep your old heatsink when you change platforms, which is nice. Something like a an Ultra-90 or SI-128 would let you run a dual core at stock speeds with a very quiet fan.

I use a Thermalright IFX-14, which is pretty extreme even for me With 3 x 120mm fans and 1 x 80mm, it's quieter than the stock Intel cooler, so freedom to choose a quality fan does make a big difference.

heh thanks for bearing with me guys, again i'm really thankful. like i said, it's like being a kid in a candy store - it's nice to have more level-headed folks telling me when i might really be over-doing it.

that doesn't mean i won't over-do it, but it does mean i'll make a more informed choice if and when i do. to admit the truth, some of the 'bling' components kinda appeal to my vanity

You don't need to tell me about bling A much more, umm, sane cpu cooler would have given me at least 90% of the performance. But what the heck I got a good deal, so for only five bucks more I went with insane:

  now that's what i call bling!

i was checking this one out: GIGABYTE GH-PCU22-VG

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also, i think i might just go ahead and get this 8800GT since it comes with a free copy of Company of Heroes. and while this one has only half the memory, it also comes with the game and is only $100 after rebate.

That looks like a good cooler for the price. And while the 8600 has half the memory, it is far less than half the card compared to the 8800GT.

stupid dyslexia! i thought that was another 8800. guess that was way too good to be true. yeah, i decided i'll probably just suck it up and get an 8800.

btw rls669, i like the look of your machine, the dominant blue light with hints of red here and there. very swank.

edit: so i was just browsing case modding gear for S's & G's... check out this system i found on xoxide.com: WWW Link. the UV + green is just amazing.

My Husband is thinking of putting Vista Home Premium 64 on my next computer.

It will have high specs and heaps of RAM.

Any thoughts on this would be appreciated.
I think Kryo said driver support for XP 64 was not good and some programes did not like it.
Is this true for Vista?

I have read conflicting reports on this.

Embird, i'm probably not the greatest expert along these lines. i'm personally going to avoid Vista until there's absolutely no support for XP. at that point, i'll consider Vista vs. Linux.

i've also read that Vista comes in four flavors: super lame, standard lame, premium lame, and Vista ultimate. it might be worth it to spend the extra money for the ultimate version, but you should also probably get a more informed opinion.

When I got Vista Ultimate I kept XP in a dual boot configuration. The big deal with Vista is DX10 support, but so far DX10 either doesn't make a noticeable difference, or does make a difference but with an unacceptable performance hit.

So I've still been using XP 99% of the time. I do 3d animation and level design as a hobby and it's very, very rare that I run into a situation where I'm in XP and find myself needing support for 4gb of ram. In Vista I have that ram available if I need it, and I need it more often simply because Vista needs more ram for everything.

I've actually got the P31 version of that Gigabyte board in my wishlist. The only difference between the P35 and P31 boards is the number of peripherals they support. Speeds are the same. Since I only run a couple hard drives and only need a couple USB ports, the P31 is sufficient for me. Why pay for stuff I'm not going to use.

I've got an ASUS board in my sytem right now. I'm not particularly impressed and don't really see why they're so popular. Their web site isn't anything special either. When it comes to OEM websites, eVGA kicks their behinds. For the last few years, my favorite motherboard maker has been EPoX, but I haven't been able to get them lately. The last one I had (with the nForce 4) really scored on the benchmarks. It was a great board, and stable too.


I think the onboard sound codecs makers use these days are not all that great. You may want to look into an add-on card. I settle for the onboard sound mostly because it's convenient, but I'm not real picky about sound anyway.


Before the 65nm process, I used a better HSF than what came in the boxed CPU. However, with the lower power consumption of these new 65nm and 45nm processes, it's really overkill unless you're into heavy overclocking. Looking at my 65nm Athlon, it's running at 102F right now with the stock HSF. Before that, I was lucky to see temps that low with a good after-market unit.

Re the operating system; the big advantage of Vista is that is supports large amounts of physical and virtual memory. I believe (not positive) regular ol' 32 bit XP can provide up to 2GB to an application and supports up to 4GB of physical memory. Unless you have applications that require large amounts of memory, I don't see why XP shouldn't be able to do whatever you need it to. Also, there's DX10. It's supported only by Vista which I think is a ploy on Microsoft's part to force people into upgrading (using the term loosely here). From the screenshots I've seen, it looks like a bunch of hype to me. I really can't tell that much difference.

With respect to GC2, it's been getting memory optimizations for TA so it should be fine with XP. Even with DA, I've not had any trouble lately with 2GB of physical memory. BTW, if you don't know this already, get a matched set of two memory modules so you can take advantage of the dual channel memory architechture newer motherboards support. You get a big boost in memory throughput that way.

Re 32 bit versus 64 bit; to take full advantage of 64 bit processing, I believe you need to be running 64 bit applications along with a 64 bit processor and operating system. Personally, 32 bit has always been adequate for me. Also, drivers are generally more developed and more widely available.

4 gb is a theoretical limit of 32 bit addressing, in reality you won't be able to use more than about 3 gb with a 32 bit OS. Unless you're doing some heavy duty image editing or 3d rendering you shouldn't need that much in the near future anyway.

Another good cheap mobo to look at is the Abit IP35-E. Much cheaper than the Pro version but still uses all solid state caps, very high quality. I have the midrange IP35 board myself.

One thing to check for is support for the newer 45nm Penryn/Yorkfield chips. For example, the nvidia 680i chipset itself supports these processors . . . but all current boards built around the 680i don't support the Yorkfield quads because of a design flaw. Stick with P35 or newer chipset for max longevity.