Advice please

[sbjlsmtj]

I'm looking for a new system to build. I used to be a AMD only type guy because they were the fastest but now, I have no idea. I've been out of the new edge scene for a while but now I'm trying to catch up. First off, my old system...

AMD 64x2 dual core processor 4400
2 gig ram
Asus A8N32-SLI Deluxe motherboard
Nvidia Geforce 7800gt cards
SB Live 24 bit sound
Seagate HD 320 gig 7200
XP Op sys
30" Dell monitor

Is the basics. What I'm looking to do is mostly Gaming. I play World of Warcraft...if anyone knows this game...I want to run all my mods while listening to media player in the backround, and 25 man raid. Right now, I can't do that. The sound keeps skipping while playing. While trying to raid, if I don't turn off the mods, I can't even move because of all the lag (I run cable modem btw). If I do turn off most of the game mods, it's really jumpy and laggy but I can move around a bit.
I also figure that if I'm going to buy a new system, I might as well get one that has the bells and whistles and be the fastest that I can get.

I'm leaning towards a 4x4 type set up, but could go with 2 video cards instead of 4...whatever the best performance is.

Things I don't know: Which processor is the fastest? Which video card has the best performance? Overall what should I be looking for with the other pieces, like what's the better motherboard, hard drive and so forth. I'm just starting to look to build this, so this is why I'm so wide open right now. Kinda thinking i7 would be the faster processor. Not sure if crossfire is faster than sli. Not sure on the better power supply or how big I need to run a 4x4.

I'm looking for advice to get the biggest bang for the buck. My budget is around 3000.00 and yes I understand that for some of the stuff I do on the computer, I might not need all the power I can build for that much money, but I still want to get the fastest/best I can get right now...so it will stay above par for the future.

Thanks for any idea, even if just case advice or whatever.

[Skippman]

I was all set to give you my recommendation until I read about your budget. That's a pretty good chunk of cash to throw at the machine.

True, i7 is the fastest beast on the block right now but Intel just announced 35nm is arround the corner...

Personally what I would do is get a good Quad Core Core2Quad chip, a decent board, and about 8GB of RAM. That's basically what I've done. The Core2Quad chips overclock wonderfully and can be had very economically.

Given you're a WoW player I'd say stick with nVidia as from what I've heard/read WoW loves nVidia. I'll leave recommendations to the nVidia guys here as I'm an ATi user. That also means I can't recommend a motherboard as you'd want to use the nForce chipset so you could support multiple GPU's in the future.

The problem you seem to be having is mostly one of RAM/Swap file managment. The more applications you run at the same time the more RAM you need otherwise the PC will constantly be shunting data to the hard drive to make up for the lack of available memory. Going to 8GB will help a ton with this and with RAM getting as cheap as it is there's no reason not to go full boar and fill the board.

[toodimes]

I would recommend getting the i7 920, even though it is the basic i7 it easily overclocks to 3.2GHZ on stock cooling. I am running my i7 920, which i got on launch day, at 3.6GHZ with an aftermarket cooler and it doesnt run hotter than 42 degrius.
The easiest motherboard to use with the i7 is no doubt the Asus P6T, easy to use, overclock, troubleshoot. and if you are lazy like me you can use the expressgate on it to check emails and LegitR without booting up the computer.
You cant get much better than the nVidia GTX 295, unless you get two of them, and if you do that you can run just about any game for the next coupla years at the highest resolution with all the settings maxed out.
Since you would have an i7 you can use triple channel RAM. Get theCorsair Dominator 6Gb kit, http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6820145224,maybe even two kits for 12 gigs RAM. Cant go wrong with that.
You would need a powerful power supply to power all that, I am using the Ultra modular 1 kilowatt power supply, on 2 GTX 280 and it easily powers all that, the GTX 295 has a better power consumption so 1kilowatt should be enough.
Oh yeah also get at least two velociraptor hard drives, when i did a fresh boot off two raptors vista booted up in inder 20 seconds. and than you can get like a seagate 1tb or something for storage.

[sbjlsmtj]

Ok, well I'm leaning towards this:

Case ( Nzxt Tempest Gaming Tower Case w/420W Power Supply Black )
Power Supply ( 1000 Watt -- Ultra X3 Energy Efficient Modular Power Supply Quad SLI Ready )
Processor ( Intel Core i7 Processor 920 (4x 2.66GHz/8MB L3 Cache) )
Processor Cooling ( Asetek Liquid CPU Cooling Fan System Kit )
Motherboard ( Asus P6T Deluxe Intel X58 Chipset CrossFire and SLI Supported w/7.1 Sound, Triple-Channel DDR3, Dual Gb LAN, S-ATA Raid, USB 2.0, Three PCI-E MB )
Memory ( 12 GB [2 GB X6] DDR3-1333 Triple Memory Module Corsair XMS3 Dominator w/DHX technology )
Video Card ( 2x NVIDIA GeForce GTX 285 1GB w/DVI + TV Out Video - running SLI mode )
Hard Drive ( Gaming HARD DRIVE [Serial ATA-300, 10,000 RPM] WD Velociraptor WD3000GLFS 300GB 16M Cache Hard Drive )
CD/DVD Drive ( [Lightscribe Technology] LG 22X Dual Format/Double Layer DVD±R/±RW + CD-R/RW Drive Black )
CD-RW/DVD-RW Drive ( [Lightscribe Technology] LG 22X Dual Format/Double Layer DVD±R/±RW + CD-R/RW Drive Black )
Sound Card ( Creative Lab Sound Blaster Audigy SE )
Meter Display ( Thermal Temperature LCD Display Black )
Operation System ( Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium 64-Bit )

Couple questions...I've never had more than one hard drive in a system, is it better to have another hard drive for performance or for back up? I normally use the onboard Lan card, am I loosing performance by not buying an upgrade to that? (like Killer 1 makes an expensive upgrade but not sure it's worth it). I also have stayed away from Vista because of all the problems, but I was looking to go with it on this one, is it worth doing it now? I also looked at the specs for video cards and prices...running 2 295's instead of 2 285's doesn't seem to be a very big boost but it sure is more expensive, so I had pick the lesser of the 2 but should I? I also looked up cases and the airflow vs the price, the tempest seemed like a good case, is it? And lastly, this liquid cooling was one of the only ones I could find for the i7, is it ok or should I go with a fan/heatsink upgrade like thermaltake for the i7?

Thanks for all the help.

[sbjlsmtj]

Ah one other thing I was wondering that I forgot to ask. I seen that one of the commentors was using a TV for the compter screen...does that work? I have the 30" dell right now...is there a 40" TV out there that has the same resolution/refresh rate/contrast ratio as my dell? The reason I don't have a TV as a monitor was because I thought that it would look as good as the dell or that it wouldn't respond as well as the dell. Is this not the case?
Thanks again!

[sbjlsmtj]

Anyone had time to read my "couple questions" things? Or have an idea on the TV vs the Dell monitor thing? Was just checking in lol. Now that I think I have an idea of what I want, I'm getting kindy itchy to get order up lol.
Thanks again for any ideas/comments