New PC, need advice

[adoado]

Hello all

I am planning on making a new gaming PC. I have made several extreme gaming PCs before, but as technology changes every year, I am not sure what is good and bad with all the new products out there.

I basically want to make an extreme gaming PC, while keeping the price as low as possible (a hard thing to do, I know ^^).

My first dilemma is whether to get dual 8800GTX graphics cards or go for the equivalent 9th series models. I plan to go dual-SLI if I use the 8x cards, or single for now with a 9x card. As for using crossfire, I have never used it before so I know nothing about it...

As for motherboards, another problem
I have been reading about the 780i chipset, but several places have not recommended it - one reason being its heat output. The 790i boards (Striker II) fix this, but there is no way I am paying 4 times the price for DDR 3 ram with very little improvement in speed...

And CPU - well, I will try to go some version of Intel quad core or, AMD?

I would really appreciate any advice, as I do not want to make a computer and find out it is not what I wanted it to be...

I want to run games like Crysis, Fear, etc. all relatively high, but I guess that means using Vista

Thanks
Adoado

 

[Bobert93]

running SLI is not necessary , theres not a good enough boost to pay an extra $350..

But either a 8800GTS or 9800Gtx there both great cards for gaming

For cpu get Quad coreQ6600 (or the newer ones), or Dual Core E8400 -E8500

 

[Neodude1123201]

As For Graphics card's,I Would go with the 9800GTX.Also as for Processors,I Would go with AMD Because of the price and also i have heard that they are better in gaming than intel.

 

[Bobert93]

As For Graphics card's,I Would go with the 9800GTX.Also as for Processors,I Would go with AMD Because of the price and also i have heard that they are better in gaming than intel.

Dont think that a AMD would be better then a E8400 @ 4Ghz

 

[Neodude1123201]

You have a point there.So Either you buy a cheap ass gaming CPU,or you buy an overclocking beast.Your Choice

 

[Bobert93]

You have a point there.So Either you buy a cheap ass gaming CPU,or you buy an overclocking beast(SuperGamingCPU).Your Choice

/

 

[Neodude1123201]

Lol,Well i have really only tried my dual core AMD i havnt actually tried an intel dual core in gaming.But Admittedly the intel e8400 is a mad overclocker.

 

[Bobert93]

so is the quad, i got another 1GHZ from mine.
shame intel locking the multipliers now

 

[Neodude1123201]

Yeah,I think thats where AMD can make a move on gamers.

 

[worshipme]

First, what resolution do you run? The only time I would recommend SLI/CF is for high resolutions and even then you don't need two. There are single-GPU cards available that powerful enough. If I were you I would go for ATI's upcoming HD 4870 card. It's supposed to be performing at least 25% better than the GTX and will be around $275. GDDR5 memory at 3.93GHz and 480 steam processors!!
And if you only go for a single-GPU setup, you can get an Intel chipset instead of Nvidia's 780i which is really just a 680i with PCI-E 2.0 and 3-way SLI support. P35 and X38 have much higher FSB potential.
Secondly, do you overclock? As this will have a big impact on the parts selection.

And CPU - well, I will try to go some version of Intel quad core or, AMD?

95% of games ATM run no more than two threads, therefore a quad core cannot be fully utilized and higher clock speeds will yield better performance. An E8400/E3110 is the one to go for.

I want to run games like Crysis, Fear, etc. all relatively high, but I guess that means using Vista

Vista is honestly not that bad. I wouldn't willingly go back to XP after running Vista for six months and I think the majority of people on this forum would say the same thing.

Oh, and BTW. The Nvidia 9-series are not new cards at all and are not worthy of the name. The architecture is nothing new and performance is definitely not revolutionary.