Help with entry-level gaming PC build

[winterlight]

This is kind of a long post, but I desperately need help! I want to really, really thank anyone in advance who takes the time to read and respond to this!

I was a huge PC gamer in high school, but when I went to college I didn't have any money for about 5 years and thus completely fell out of the loop. Now I have some money again (though I ain't rich!) and I'm looking to pick up my old hobby again. I want to build a desktop PC for less than 1,000 that's mid-range-ish, that can be upgraded over time (9 - 18 months) to a high end gaming machine.

I plan to start out with 2 GB of RAM and a 256 MB 8600 GT, but the rest of my choices are still up in the air depending on what kind of feedback I can get.

I have three questions:

1) I don't know what kind of motherboard I need to get. My target spec by the end of a year and a half or so of upgrading will be:

Quad core Intel at least 2.4GHz
SLI - 2x GeForce 8800 GT 512MB
At least 4 GB of RAM
Possibly an Ageaia PhysX card or a nice soundcard but those are not huge priorities

Possibly the above will be adjusted upwards depending on the release of new options and price drops over the next year.

So I want something that will be functional after that point. I've looked at the nForce 680i motherboard, but it's much, much more expensive than the 650i. Do I need to go with the 680i for longterm upgrading potential? Or is the 650i okay? What are some affordable alternatives the the nForce mobos? I'd really prefer not to spend more than 150 or at most 175 bucks on a mobo out of the gate but that seems unavoidable unless someone can help me find an alternative to the 680i!

2) I need to know how much wattage I need in the power supply. I've Googled this and I've found wildly varying responses ranging fro 550W to 1000W. The price difference between 550W and 1000W is enormous; I don't think I can afford to buy more than I need. So what do I need?

3) Is there a good entry-level dual core Intel CPU for 100-150 dollars that I can get now and replace with a high end Quad core 6-9 months down the line? It seems like the Core 2 Duos are all almost as expensive as the Quad core options that are out now, so I might as well go all out now. But I want to make this initial purchase as inexpensive as possible while maintaining longterm upgrading potential.

In other words, as long as I can run Unreal Tournament 3 and Lord of the Rings Online on high-ish settings at 1360x768 at more than 40fps, and preferably Crysis on medium at 1360x768 at 30fps in the short term, I'm fine. I want to buy all the expensive stuff to do better than that later.

Keep in mind I'm coming from a Dell notebook with a single core Pentium M 2GHz, 1 GB of RAM, and a 6800 Go, so no matter what, in the short term this is going to be an enormous performance increase over what I'm trying to live with now.

4) I have a 1360x768 Samsung 720p LCD HDTV. I do not have another computer monitor, and I don't want to get one. This HDTV has 2 Component, 1 VGA, and 1 HDMI inputs. I notice that all the GPUs now come with DVI. Are there affordable and decent quality DVI-VGA converters? I'd prefer to keep the HDMI for my PS3/Blu-ray player, plus my TV seems to have issues with PC over DVI-HDMI. The TV is specifically designed to handle PC input over VGA, so can I convert DVI to VGA?

Thanks so much every one! Ya'll are the experts. I have no idea what I'm doing anymore, things have changed so much in the past few years.

 

[BlueAcolyte]

Processor recommendation would be any of the intel E2XXX or E4XXX series, depending on how long you will take to upgrade it. All can OC to over 3GHz.

For the RAM I would recommend DDR2 800, whatever color or speed floats your boat.

I wouldn't really recommend a PhysX or sound card, integrated sound is fine and support for PhysX is... weak.

If you want Sli, you can wait for the 780i chipset, I dunno how good the 680i chipset is for quad-cores. If you went Ati, you could get a P35 or X38 mobo for Crossfire, but you want Nvidia right?

I don't know about your connectors, but monitors come with DVI connectors, so I figure they can't be that expensive.

The 8600GT is a good buy @ around $100 but look for GDDR3 memory.

There is a link to a PSU calculator here:link

700Watt or so should be fine I guess...
Go with PC power and cooling, seasonic, or corsair for the MOST reliability, but those are extra expensive.

Don't get a Q6600, by then the Penryns will be out. Find one and hold onto it for dear life.

 

[Denithor]

Ok, here's the laundry list for a nice budget gaming system.

Abit IP35 $100 at Mwave (after $25MIR)
Intel e2180 $82.50 at Mwave (add in CPU Options drop-down on motherboard page)
Kingston N5 2x1GB DDR2-667 $44 at Newegg
EVGA 8800GT 256MB 650/1800 $220 at Newegg (best value in GPU at the moment)
Seagate 250GB (16MB cache) $70 at Newegg (5 year warranty)
DVD burner $25-30 w/free shipping at Newegg
Antec Earthwatts 430W $30 at Newegg (after $30MIR)
Total internal parts: $570

Choose a case you like, along with mouse and keyboard, and you are done for probably $700 total. Overclock the e2180 to ~3GHz (easily doable on this setup) and you are done for about a year. Late next year get a Penryn Quad (drop in upgrade with these components) for about $150-200 and you are done with the system for about two more years, unless you decide to upgrade the GPU at some point.

 

[BlueAcolyte]

I would recommend the case you see in my sig, the Cooler Master 690.

Look for offers on zipzoomfly.com or newegg.com

It goes for $70-80 down to $20 when I got it after rebates.

 

[winterlight]

This is all extremely helpful input. Thanks again! Some final questions on all this:

At this point I am, thanks to the input here, considering 3 CPU options.

1) E2180 for $80. 2GHz, 800MHz FSB, 1M L2 Cache
2) E4500 for $125. 2.2GHz, 800MHz FSB, 2M L2 Cache
3) E6650 for $180. 2.33GHz, 1333MHz FSB, 4M L2 Cache

How much of a performance difference are we talking about here, between these three CPUs?

How much of a difference will I see in the 8600 GT for $100 vs. the 8800 GT for $220?

Finally, am I interpreting all this info right: to have the option of ever going SLI, I would have to spend 200-250 dollars on an mobo instead of 100, and 180 dollars on a power supply instead of 50?

Every penny counts and no matter what I want to try (if even remotely possible) to stay below $700 for the initial build.

 

[winterlight]

Oh, and a third question on the side... this affects my decision about SLI...

What kinds of upgrades is nVidia planning to their GPUs? I mean if I have 300 bucks to spend on a GPU in 2009 to extend the life of this machine, what might I buy? Will there be anything this machine supports? Are they moving up to the 9-series by that time, and if so will this system support it?

If the sky is the limit with GPU replacement upgrades, SLI is not important, but if the GeForce 8800 cards are the highest end I'm going to get on this sytem, SLI could be important.

 

[winterlight]

Another question still:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16811164060

Is there any reason I should not buy this for my case/power supply?

 

[BlueAcolyte]

The performance issue is really how much you will overclock. The E6550 is really a rather odd choice with a low multiplier, might as well get a E6320, I would go with the E6750 which is better for overclocking. The E2180 and E4500 are fine, but the E2180 will be limited by the cache.

Yes, you will have to spend a lot of money for Sli... Crossfire is more affordable but you are going Nvidia.
Speaking of which, the difference is HUGE. The 8800GT has perhaps triple or more of the 8600GT's power, go with that for right now if you can. Try to get the 8800GT with 512MB of VRAM, 256 doesn't really cut it at higher resolutions, and it won't really cut it at all with new games. Dell has a XFX for $263 right now.

BTW, DO NOT GET THAT CASE. If you are getting other high-quality components do not skimp on the case and PSU. That case also happens to have recieved REALLY BAD feedback, such as being extremely flimsy. Linkworld tends to make weak products... Try a Cooler Master case with a name-brand PSU around 500W, like thermaltake, OCZ, seasonic, PCP&C, corsair, xclio, or enermax, among others.

 

[winterlight]

Okay, here's a draft of my final purchasing plan:

ABIT IP35 Intel P35 Motherboard ($120) (http://www.mwave.com/mwave/vie...=BA23928&RSKU=BA23928)
Intel Core 2 Duo E6400 2.13Ghz 1033MHz FSB 2M L2 Cache ($100) (My friend's old CPU, which he's selling to me.)
XFX nVidia GeForce 8800 GT 512 MB 256-bit 512 MB GDDR3 GPU ($250) (http://www.newegg.com/Product/...?Item=N82E16814150252)
2GB G.SKILL 240-pin DDR2 SD-RAM DDR2 800 PC2 6400 ($55) (http://www.newegg.com/Product/...?Item=N82E16820231121)
Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 250GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3Gb/s Hard Drive ($70) (http://www.newegg.com/Product/...?Item=N82E16822148262)
Antec Earthwatts 430W Power Supply ($60) (http://www.newegg.com/Product/...?Item=N82E16817371006)

$30 and $25 rebates for a total of $55 for the power supply and mobo.

And I already have a hand-me-down DVD drive and Antec ATX case, and a mouse/keyboard that I already use for my notebook when it's plugged into the TV.

Total cost before rebates: $655
Total cost after rebates: $600

Any final input on this?

And BTW, thanks very much to both of you for the help!

Edit: Forgot to mention; I just talked to a friend and he is offering me his E6400 for $100 because he's about to buy an E6750, hence the outrageously low CPU price.

 

[BlueAcolyte]

Uhh, your links seem to be deactivated, but that should be fine. Also, try to find the link on this site to dell, who is selling an 8800GT for $263 right now.

 

[Denithor]

Links are deactivated because he closed his parenthesis as part of the links. Oops.

That build looks great, jump on the power supply pronto because Newegg is notorious for raising prices on those great deals and turning them into not such good deals. Hopefully you will get the same OC performance with it I have seen with mine (3GHz on stock volts). That's going to be a great system for $600.

If you have any issues or run into any problems or just want to brag about your OC, come back and give us an update.