Advice on New Gaming System

[cubsftw]

1. What YOUR PC will be used for. That means what types of tasks you'll be performing.

Flight Sims and Racing Games:
MS Flight Simulator 2004 (Looking to start playing FS-X and/or X-Plane 9.0 as well)
Richard Burns Rally
GTR-2
IL-2

Occasional Audio Ripping and Editing

Mathematica, MATLAB, PSPICE

Day-to-day college word processing and web

2. What YOUR budget is. A price range is acceptable as long as it's not more than a 20% spread

Up to $1500

3. What country YOU will be buying YOUR parts from.

USA

4. IF YOU have a brand preference. That means, are you an Intel-Fanboy, AMD-Fanboy, ATI-Fanboy, nVidia-Fanboy, Seagate-Fanboy, WD-Fanboy, etc, etc, etc, you get the picture.

Definitely going with Intel; except for back in 2004-2006, never had any incentive to buy AMD. Know more about NVidia cards than ATI's stuff, but open to both brands for GPU's. Definitely WD for hard drives.

5. If YOU intend on using any of YOUR current parts, and if so, what those parts are.

Have an extra Antec NeoHE 430W PSU, but I doubt that will cut it for the type of system I'm planning on building

6. IF YOU have searched and/or read similar threads.

Yes.

7. IF YOU plan on overclocking or run the system at default speeds.

Won't OC CPU. Probably will end up OC'ing the graphics card.

8. WHEN do you plan to build it?
Sometime in the July-August time frame. I've read a bunch of threads about Nehalem, but I've decided to go ahead and build it when I have free time this summer since I want a faster PC.

So, my main PC right now is my Dell Latitude D620 laptop with 2GB of RAM, a 2GHz Core 2 Duo CPU, and an NVidia Quadro NVS 110M CPU. I bought it for college thinking that I would be using it all the time, but it mostly stays in my room collecting dust. The CPU is sufficient for most daily EE tasks, but the system is definitely not cutting it when it comes to games. Flight Sim and IL-2 get 35 FPS max, which is very playable, but it doesn't do 35 FPS consistently (dips down to 20-25 quite often when around AI's and airports). Richard Burns Racing feels sluggish and GTR-2 is completely unplayable.

So here's my part list so far and I greatly appreciate your feedback (particularly if certain parts are overkill for my tasks or are underpowered). One note- I absolutely won't consider any case with a door since from my experience, case doors are stupid and will only break off.

Case- Lian-Li PC-7B
PSU- Seasonic M12 700W
HSF- Scythe Ninja Mini
Case Fan- Scythe S-FLEX SFF-21F
Mobo- ABIT IP35 Pro
CPU- Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 (I don't think a Quad Core will benefit me, but I'm not sure).
RAM- Kingston HyperX 2GB DDR2-800 SDRAM (An exclusive Crucial RAM user for many years, but if there's cheaper stuff of comparable quality, I'm all for it.)
GPU- EVGA 512MB GeForce 9600GT
Optical Drive- Asus 20X DVD-RW
HD- Two WD 150GB Raptors
Card Reader- Lian-Li Reader to match the caseLian-Li 20-in-1
Floppy- Samsung Floppy (old school I know, but I still have some floppies I like to access).

 

[DSF]

For the system you're planning the 430W PSU probably would be sufficient provided it isn't too old. Can't blame you for wanting to get a new PSU though. At any rate, 700W is far and away more than you need. For your case fans I'd look at Scythe's Slipstream series. Less expensive than the S-Flex fans with similar noise characteristics.

Since you're not overclocking the CPU, there's no reason to bother with overclocking memory. For the amount of money you're spending on the RAM you could almost get 4GB of run-of-the-mill stuff which sounds like a better option for you. Something like this Mushkin 2x2GB kit would have you all set.

As for the hard drive, I would strongly consider the WD Caviar 640GB. It will be 1/3 the price of the Raptors, hold twice as much as the two put together, and be almost as fast. The Raptors don't have the dramatic speed advantage they used to. On the other hand, the VelociRaptor should be out by the time you build, which would give you 300GB of 10k RPM goodness and a speed bump over the older generation.

The bottom line though is that any of these recommendations could change quite a bit by August. With new GPUs set to come out soon, the 8800GT/S may very well be bumped down into your price range.

 

[cubsftw]

Thanks for the response DSF. One question I have: I'm not planning on installing Vista x64 (staying with XP Pro 32-bit), so will I be able to utilize the 4GB effectively? I think I remember reading an article on AT about the 3GB barrier or something like that.

 

[DSF]

You'll still see somewhere between 3-3.5GB. With RAM as cheap as it is, there's no reason not to go for it in my opinion. It won't hurt anything.

 

[Billy Idol]

A bit off topic but is GTR2 a good game? My pc has been needing upgraded since GTR on F12002 (lolz) so the Momo has been collecting dust. Perhaps I shall give it a look with new parts en route?

I'll pretty well echo what DSF said- 700w is definitely overkill for what you've penciled in. The 430w HE very well might be sufficient depending upon how many 12v amps it puts out.

The 9600GT might struggle a bit if you have a 22" or greater monitor. I'd go with an 8800GT or ideally wait one or two months until the new cards have been sussed and the prices react accordingly.

You could trim some more money depending what your needs are- just because you have $1500 doesn't mean you necessarily have to spend it. I wouldn't recommend the Raptors but if the rest of the stuff is what you want go for it.

 

[cubsftw]

I never played the original GTR, but GTR-2 is pretty awesome (especially since it has a special version that comes with GT Legends, although that game needs Starforce to run properly). According to my friend, the original GTR's cars were way harder to handle than in GTR-2, but then again, that's what he read in a driving-sim forum.
Interesting thing you noted about the 9600, Billy. I didn't know that the 9600GT struggles with high-res's.

 

[chinaman1472]

Originally posted by: DSF
You'll still see somewhere between 3-3.5GB. With RAM as cheap as it is, there's no reason not to go for it in my opinion. It won't hurt anything.

To add to that, having an extra 1-1.5GB is better than nothing.