New system, need help to max value

[sbjlsmtj]

Hey everyone,
I'm looking to get another computer and I have a budget of about 4k. I want to get the most bang for my buck and don't want to mess up by picking the wrong thing and I don't want to miss anything important. I play WoW mostly, which is my past time and searching the net of course. I want to not only have the game run to it's max but I want to have a computer that will stay up to par for a while in technology. So here is what I was thinking for the system:

AMD 4X4

Case (Nzxt Lexa Gaming Tower Case w/420W Power Supply Original Black )
Case Lighting ( Cold Cathode Neon Light Blue )
Power Supply ( 1000 Watt -- Thermaltake Toughpower W0132RU Power Supply Quad SLI Ready )
Processor ( AMD Athlon™64 Quad-FX74 CPU )
Processor Cooling ( Certified CPU Fan and Heatsink )
Motherboard ( Asus L1N64-SLI w/7.1 Sound, S-ATA Raid, USB 2.0, Dual PCI-E MB )
Memory ( 4096MB [1024MB X4] DDR2-800 PC6400 Memory Module Corsair-Value or Major Brand )
Video Card ( 2x NVIDIA GeForce 8800GTS 640MB w/DVI + TV Out Video )
Hard Drive ( 320 GB HARD DRIVE [Serial-ATA-II, 3Gb, 7200 RPM, 16M Cache] )
CD/DVD Drive ( Sony Q170A Dual Format/Double Layer 18X DVD±R/±RW + CD-R/RW Drive Black )
CD-RW/DVD-RW Drive (18X Dual Format/Double Layer DVD±R/±RW + CD-R/RW Drive Black )
Sound Card ( Creative Lab Sound Blaster Audigy SE )
Speaker System ( [Black] Logitech X-540 5.1 Surround Speakers + Subwoofer )
Network Card ( Onboard LAN Network (Gb or 10/100) )
Floppy Drive ( Mitsumi 1.44 MB Internal Floppy Drive Black )
USB 2.0 Accessories ( Build-in USB 2.0 Ports )
Meter Display ( Thermal Temperature LCD Display Black )
Operation System ( Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium 64-Bit )
Case Round Cable ( Rounded Cables for Floppy/HDD/CD/DVD/CD-RW/DVD-RW Drives )

I'm not opposed to Intel but I typically have stayed with AMD for performance. I'm not oppsed to only going with Dual core either but I figured more is better and I'd be future proof for a while.

Worry about the video cards whether they are too much or not enough? I normally stay with NVidia for performance.
Worry about the ram=sure it has a lot but would it be better to go with the faster corsair at 2 gb instead of the 4 gb? Again figure more is better.
Worry about having one hard drive, should I have 2 and should I go with a raptor or does it make that much of a difference?
Worry about on board network card, should I upgrade it or would it even make a difference?
Worry about Home Vista, haven't tried Vista yet, is this one good or is another Vista better?
Going with the Lexa case for only air flow and cooling, sound don't bother me, is there another that flows more air?
Am I missing anything that I should have but don't?
Misc: using 24in Dell 16x9 monitor and linksys wireless G with speed booster but I hard wire the desk tops and wireless the laptops.

Any help, ideas, opinions, options would be GREAT! I am looking to buy it in the next 2 weeks, and HELP IS NEEDED so I don't waste money or miss anything etc...
Thanks for any help!!!

[Major_A]

I'm sorry to say this but spending $4,000 on a computer is stupid. Since WoW is your game of choice why do you need a super SLi system? The only reason I would see to even get a 4X4 system or a dual socket server board would be for hardcore photo/video editing. Since you aren't going to be using your computer to edit your blockbuster movie I would pass.

Anyway here are my recommendations...
Gigabyte 3D Aurora $156.10 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6811233003
Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 $279.99 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6819115017
GIGABYTE GA-P35-DS3P Rev 2.0 $166.60 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6813128067
OCZ Vista Upgrade 4GB $185.98 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6820227195
Foxconn Geforce 8800GTX $475.83 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814186021
Corsair 620HX $139.99 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6817139002
Hitachi Deskstar 7K1000 750GB $199.99 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6822145208
Samsung 20X DVD Burner with LightScribe $37.83 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6827151154
Microsoft Windows Vista 64-Bit Home Premium $116.98 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6832116204
Thermalright Ultra-120 Extreme $71.32 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6835109140
Scythe S-FLEX 63.7 CFM/28.0 dBA $29.98 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6835185006
Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeGamer Fatal1ty Professional $142.53 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6829102005
Total= $2,003.12
Total without sound card, fan, heatsink= $1,759.29

HOWEVER
I would wait on Intel to release their Penryn line of processors. I would also wait to see what the new nVidia 8800GT and revamped 8800GTS are going to perform.

Penryn - Yorkfield (aka Quad Core) Preview
http://www.hkepc.com/?id=171&page=3#view

[ibleet]

I must agree, I would not sink that much into a desktop. Major makes some very good points indeed. You can only future-proof so far ahead because technology will pass you by every time no matter how much you spend. I am waiting to build my next rig for the exact reasons that Major just listed. But, I am waiting more on the line of processors because, for me, the XFX 8800GTS XXX is plenty. I am still undecided between the dual core and the quad core simply because of the amount of programs and games that can take advantage of that technology.

[dkarko]

Plus even with 100cores you wont see any difference in wow or in typical desktop usage.
You spend alot of money for such things while ignoring something important performance wise.
The hard drive. A faster hardrive does make big difference since hard drive is a common bottleneck for a system.
Now 4k for a desktop-gaming rig is overkill.. Your computer will just be sitting idle (the processors) even when you are playing a game, while sucking a load of power.
And the funny thing is that someone with a system half the price will have the same performance with you in games - desktop stuff. In fact it could also be faster just by having some better ram and harddrive.

The system is just a waste of money for you, really.

Look at Major_a's build, or wait for the amd quads for desktop boards if you can wait.

[Zelig]

For $4000, you can do better. Major_A's system is a good base point, if you want to customize or add to that, you'll end up with something better than the AMD system. Have you considered a monitor and speakers? With money like that to spend, you could go all out and grab a 30" panel, which would go well with the video card, you need a lot of gpu power to push games at 2560x1600.

Worry about the video cards whether they are too much or not enough? I normally stay with NVidia for performance.
Worry about the ram=sure it has a lot but would it be better to go with the faster corsair at 2 gb instead of the 4 gb? Again figure more is better.
Worry about having one hard drive, should I have 2 and should I go with a raptor or does it make that much of a difference?
Worry about on board network card, should I upgrade it or would it even make a difference?
Worry about Home Vista, haven't tried Vista yet, is this one good or is another Vista better?
Going with the Lexa case for only air flow and cooling, sound don't bother me, is there another that flows more air?
Am I missing anything that I should have but don't?
Misc: using 24in Dell 16x9 monitor and linksys wireless G with speed booster but I hard wire the desk tops and wireless the laptops.

Questions answered in order:
nVidia is good atm, I'm not a big fan of SLI, I'd probably just get a single faster card instead.
You're right, more is better. For a system like that, I'd be thinking 4 GB minimum. I'm currently running, and very happy with my 4GB of DDR1, don't worry too much about the speed.
1 hard drive is probably fine if it has enough space for you. Raptors are nice too, not a huge difference, but they cut down on load times. (Although, so does having lots of ram.)
Onboard network should be fine, most performance motherboards include dual gigabit lan now.
Vista Home Premium should be good for most people. See here for features in different versions.
Don't know about that case in particular. Cases are mostly a personal preference, read some reviews to make sure it doesn't have any major problems.
I missed that you already have a 24" monitor (though I'm assuming it's 16:10, not 16:9) when I typed the start of the post. Have you ever tried dual monitors before?

I would wait on Intel to release their Penryn line of processors. I would also wait to see what the new nVidia 8800GT and revamped 8800GTS are going to perform.

Anytime anyone asks for computer part recommendations, someone always recommends they wait... I say just buy parts when you need them, everything is going to go out of date quickly anyway.

[Major_A]

I normally say pick up the parts too but he wants to spend a nice used car on a computer. For his "investment" sake it might be worth it to wait. The 8800GT is being released at the end of October and the revamped 8800GTS is appearing mid November. That isn't a long time to wait to make sure you spent your money wisely.

[sbjlsmtj]

As I was taking Major’s advice, I was looking on NewEgg and run into some questions.

I looked at this mother board and it has DDR3 but looks like only on 2 slots.
GIGABYTE GA-P35C-DS3R LGA 775 Intel P35 ATX Intel Motherboard – Retail
Which is the better motherboard for the price and features?

This leads to my next question, how important is the ram? DDR2 compared to DDR3, is there a huge difference or is it something that will be hard to tell I have. Another question about ram speed DDR2 800 ram compared to DDR2 1000 ram like this one:
G.SKILL 4GB(2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1000 (PC2 8000) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory – Retail.
Is this another thing that I won’t be able to tell the difference on?
The last question on ram, would 2 gigs of DDR3 be better than 4 gigs of DDR3 (if I went with the listed MB that only can use 2 gigs)? I know that DDR3 is faster but is it fast enough to be worth the missing 2 gigs?

Now a vid card question…What’s better 2 mid sized video cards (by mid I mean mid priced and mid memory amount), or 1 big card (like the one Major suggested), or 2 big cards? Can you really tell the difference compared to the money they cost to have 2 cards compared to one? I know 2 big cards is the best but would it be something that I really never use or that I couldn’t tell the difference?

Hard drive question, is it worth getting a 10K or 15K speed hard drive? Can you tell the difference in the seek time? I know that it is twice as fast but is it that much faster to be able to tell the difference? Since the hard drive is normally the bottle neck, would it be worth spending the money on one of these drives? Also,
the high speed drives are either ATA150 or SCSI, so will I have compatibility problems trying to find a MB that goes with these since most are SATA now?

Matter of fact, I’m not sure what the difference is between the 3 types of hard drives. I know there is a cable difference but I don’t know which is better or if it’s just the SATA is a smaller cable? Are all MB compatible with ATA150 (and what’s the difference between that and ATA100)? Or does the MB have to list compatibility for each of the types? … Yea I know kind of dumb questions but if I don’t ask, I’ll never know!

How much better are the new graphics card supposed to be that Major said was coming out, compared to the one he recommended? Big difference and worth the wait? Will the cost be a lot more? Will there be problems at the beginning with these? Will I be able to tell the difference normally?

How much faster will the new processor be that Major suggested compared to what’s out there now? Will they cost a lot more, will they have problems, and will I be able to tell the difference normally?

Sorry for all the questions but I'm trying to learn and make a good desicion. Thank you for any ideas/answers/help!

[Major_A]

As I was taking Major’s advice, I was looking on NewEgg and run into some questions.

I looked at this mother board and it has DDR3 but looks like only on 2 slots.
GIGABYTE GA-P35C-DS3R LGA 775 Intel P35 ATX Intel Motherboard – Retail
Which is the better motherboard for the price and features?

Skip DDR3 for the time being. From a price/performance perspective it doesn't add anything.

This leads to my next question, how important is the ram? DDR2 compared to DDR3, is there a huge difference or is it something that will be hard to tell I have. Another question about ram speed DDR2 800 ram compared to DDR2 1000 ram like this one:
G.SKILL 4GB(2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1000 (PC2 8000) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory – Retail.
Is this another thing that I won’t be able to tell the difference on?

If you aren't going to be overclocking you won't see the added benefit of DDR3 at this point. Just get a DDR2 800 kit.

The last question on ram, would 2 gigs of DDR3 be better than 4 gigs of DDR3 (if I went with the listed MB that only can use 2 gigs)? I know that DDR3 is faster but is it fast enough to be worth the missing 2 gigs?

The more RAM the better. But in order to use that 4GB of RAM you will need a 64-bit operating system. Like I said do not get DDR3, if the board I posted is one of those hybrids (meaning has DDR2 and DDR3 slots) find one that only has DDR2 slots.

Now a vid card question…What’s better 2 mid sized video cards (by mid I mean mid priced and mid memory amount), or 1 big card (like the one Major suggested), or 2 big cards? Can you really tell the difference compared to the money they cost to have 2 cards compared to one? I know 2 big cards is the best but would it be something that I really never use or that I couldn’t tell the difference?

I personally think that SLi/Crossfire are a giant waste of money. For the added cost you don't get all that substantial performance gains. I know someone will argue with me here but bottom line is it's not worth it. On top of that SLi/Crossfire still have to have "profiles" in the drivers and I still read about people with driver problems when using SLi/Crossfire. I think it is better to buy one top of the line card.

Hard drive question, is it worth getting a 10K or 15K speed hard drive? Can you tell the difference in the seek time? I know that it is twice as fast but is it that much faster to be able to tell the difference? Since the hard drive is normally the bottle neck, would it be worth spending the money on one of these drives? Also,
the high speed drives are either ATA150 or SCSI, so will I have compatibility problems trying to find a MB that goes with these since most are SATA now?

I don't think so. The load times will literally be a second or two faster. I think the added cost to those drives coupled with the lower amount of storage space makes them a bad buy. Just stick with SATA drives, SCSI is faster but like I said they aren't going to be that much faster in the real world and the storage space is that high.

Matter of fact, I’m not sure what the difference is between the 3 types of hard drives. I know there is a cable difference but I don’t know which is better or if it’s just the SATA is a smaller cable? Are all MB compatible with ATA150 (and what’s the difference between that and ATA100)? Or does the MB have to list compatibility for each of the types? … Yea I know kind of dumb questions but if I don’t ask, I’ll never know!

SATA drives use a SATA cable. ATA drives use an IDE cable. Intel is trying to kill off the IDE header/drive so don't bother with them. That is also why I listed a SATA DVD burner.

How much better are the new graphics card supposed to be that Major said was coming out, compared to the one he recommended? Big difference and worth the wait? Will the cost be a lot more? Will there be problems at the beginning with these? Will I be able to tell the difference normally?

Well we don't know for sure. But the pure speclutation from what I've read so far is that the 8800GT is faster than a current 8800GTS 640MB. It is also a lot cheaper, $250-$300. The new 8800GTS is speculated to be almost as fast as the current 8800GTX.

How much faster will the new processor be that Major suggested compared to what’s out there now? Will they cost a lot more, will they have problems, and will I be able to tell the difference normally?

Did you look at the preview link I posted? It is supposed to be roughly 10-15% faster but consumes less power and runs cooler. The upside is if you buy now you might be able to use your current motherboard (maybe with a BIOS flash) with the the Penryn line of processors.

Sorry for all the questions but I'm trying to learn and make a good desicion. Thank you for any ideas/answers/help!

This is how you learn, by asking questions then building the machine.

[Zelig]

Was going to respond, but Major_A covered it quite well. Keep in mind that speculation about future products is just that.

[Methious]

Some thing outa left field here,

Spring for 2 sata 320 and mount a raid 0 array (or 2 160 sata) that raid array helps with the hard drive speed bottleneck tremendously (as long as you keep it defragged)

And for the nay sayers, if ya want a monster system you might go over to TOMS hardware site and see what they been testing, a lot of building is opinion, there or PC Mags site do hardcore testing. Have A look at this:


# System Components: Processor: AMD Athlon X2 5400+ 2.8GHz AM2 CPU with Scythe Infinity CPU cooler.
# Memory: Patriot Extreme Performance 2GB (2x1GB) DDR2 800 dual channel memory.
# Motherboard: ASUS Crosshair Socket AM2 motherboard with nForce 590 SLI chipset, dual channel DDR2 800, dual Gigabit LAN, 8-channel onboard audio, and dual 16x PCI-E lanes for full bandwidth SLI.
# Video: nVidia GeForce 8800GTX video card with onboard SLI and 768MB memory.
# Audio: onboard 8-channel audio.
# Storage: 2x Western Digital Raptor 150GB 10,000RPM SATA hard drive in RAID 0.
# Optical: 18x dual layer DVD-RW burner.
# Case: Cooler Master CM Stacker 830 performance computer case.
# Power Supply: Thermaltake Toughpower 650W power supply with active PFC, SATA, SLI, and CrossFire support.

$1847 and you can upgrade or change what you want.

http://www.directron.com

Thas a lotta machine! Leaves a lotta green to improve.

[Zertz]

Recommending an AMD based high-end computer right now isn't the greatest idea. Fact: currently, Intel simply performs better.

[stopthekilling77]

be prepared for LOUD system noise if you get a raptor... i love the speed but i wish it were quieter