Building a new PC

[SagaLore]

In my current tower, I have:

- replaced 3 power supplies
- replaced 2 hard drives
- replaced 1 motherboard
- replaced several fans
- replaced the cdrw

Right now its got a nice 380W Earthwatts PS, MSI NForce II Delta, 512mb mushkin DDR2 running in dual channel mode, AMD XP 1700+, 120GB sata drive, Radeon 9600.

To be honest this thing still has great performance and until more components die, I don't really need a new computer, but...

I'd like to try out some of the new online games that are graphic intensive. Also, I'm having intermittent problems with my USB ports - I think they might be going bad. I just wiped them out in safemode and let the drivers reinstall hoping this is just a software glitch, but we'll see...

So, while I catch up on whats been going on in the computer industry, give me some pointers:

- Who is leading right now, Radeon or Nvidia?
- What is the latest and greatest AMD processor?
- How fast is RAM these days?
- Any breakthroughs in hard drives lately, or same old design?
- Which is winning, bluray or hddvd?
- What is the leading heatsink?

And to go along with this lovely new system, I think I'll get a nice widescreen lcd. Who is selling a quality but affordable model right now?

 

[MegaVovaN]

Originally posted by: SagaLore

- Who is leading right now, Radeon or Nvidia?
Only 4 cards on market worth buying:
nVidia:
8800GTS 512mb (fastest card after 8800GTX and 8800Ultra). Not very expensive compared to GTX and Ultra at about $320-360. [note 8800GTS 640mb and 320mb are older versions and not worth buying)
8800GT 512 mb - top choice for new builds. Loads of power and affordable - MSRP $250. Depending on store priced from sub-$250 to $290 due to high demand.

AMD offers good options for those who can't afford 8800GT:
3850
3870

- What is the latest and greatest AMD processor?
Some quad core (Phenom) I would guess. Intel GGPWNS high end/mid end segments of the market with their affordable Dual and Quad core CPUs.

- How fast is RAM these days?
Very fast and cheap I'm taking 2gb DDR2-800 for $35. DDR2-800 is the standard. Lower are DDR2-533 and DDR2-667. Higher (not needed really) are DDR2-1066. There is also DDR3 but it is insanely expensive and not worth buying yet.

- Any breakthroughs in hard drives lately, or same old design?
Bigger disks of same old design (500GB, 750GB, 1TB).
Cutting edge tech is called SSD (solid state drives) - mad fast drives but ultra expensive with questionable long term reliability.

- Which is winning, bluray or hddvd?
neither, and don't start this shit here :| There are many pages of this trash in off topic and audio/video forums

- What is the leading heatsink?
Stock heatsink on Core Duo/Quad is excellent and aftermarket may not be needed;
that said, Arctic Freezer Pro 7 for CPUs and I believe Accelero S1 for GPUs


And to go along with this lovely new system, I think I'll get a nice widescreen lcd. Who is selling a quality but affordable model right now?
Anything but bottom-of-the-barrel is fine.

 

[BOLt]

Originally posted by: SagaLore
So, while I catch up on whats been going on in the computer industry, give me some pointers:

- Who is leading right now, Radeon or Nvidia?
- What is the latest and greatest AMD processor?
- How fast is RAM these days?
- Any breakthroughs in hard drives lately, or same old design?
- Which is winning, bluray or hddvd?
- What is the leading heatsink?

And to go along with this lovely new system, I think I'll get a nice widescreen lcd. Who is selling a quality but affordable model right now?

nvidia > amd (ati) in terms of raw performance, but the hd 3xxx series from amd is pretty competitive in terms of price/performance. check out the anandtech article covering nvidia and amd's current vga generation battle. i'd link to it for you but i can't do all of the work, now can i?!

intel > amd right now in terms of raw performance, but the a64 x2's are still competitive on price/performance (especially when you factor in the cheap socket am2 mobos that can be found vs the rather more expensive lga775s). in terms of quad core, it's the same story.

ram is fast... lol. latencies are coming down a lot on ddr2 thankfully, but still no 2-2-2 chips like we saw with ddr1. ddr3 is around, but expensive as hell and the latencies are pretty atrocious. ddr2 is SO cheap, too.

ssd is coming soon, but until then you must satiate your storage needs with good old sata 3.0gb/s. capacities are 1TB+ for single drives, but the sweet spot for price/size is 500gb. pick up a samsung spinpoint t166 500gb drive for an all-around winner. the seagates are hit and miss because they're manufacturing a lot of drives in china to drive down the price and boy oh boy is quality slipping. i know this first hand. my drive came with "made in china" stamped on it and it clicked and chirped at me from day one. i'm a seagate fanboy, btw. get a samsung t166. please.

lol @ high capacity disc wars. just l-o-l.

"tower-style" heatsinks are leading the performance edge right now in terms of air cooling. prices are getting higher and higher but there's some good -- and cheap -- ones still left with sane dimensions and weight. dailytech has an rss feed for "hardware reviews around the web", or something to that effect. subscribe to it and keep a look out for heatsink reviews and round ups. there was one posted for 1/11/08. pretty exhaustive and well written from what i recall. don't remember the name of the website or the winners though.

lcds? you got me. if you find out lemme know, willya? hehe.