It's upgrade time!

[hpkeeper]

Pardon my stupidity, but I haven't built a machine in a while... So I have many questions.

First off I'd like to start off by saying three things:

1. I'm a huge fan of Battlefield 2 (which I can't run on my machine currently without running it at a very low resolution AKA - boring)

2. I'm a Photography Major at my university.... I need a machine that is powerfull enough to run Adobe Photoshop CS2 without any problems.... which is essentially what my machine can do now.... so I figure if I can run Battlefield 2 without a problem, I won't have any problems with CS2.

3. I'm not looking to overclock so the suggestion is irrellivant

Onto the Technical stuff that I don't know that much about...

alright, first... the age old question: AMD or Intel?

if AMD... a 64 chip? why or why not?

What Motherboard should I get to compliment this?

within the range of $200 or so... what is the best videocard available for purchase that will get me the results I'm looking for? and just for kicks and giggles what is the best card that I can get under $400?

Should my motherboard have a AGP slot for my videocard? or should I just go ahead and get a PCI videocard?


How much is this all going to cost...? (roughly)


Thanks for the help guys, anything you can provide is well appreciated!!!!

- ~ThE KeEp~

Update: 5/24:



I went with the most common setup that you guys suggested... I got the

- AMD|A64 X2 3800+ CPU
- 2x 512MB RAM (which I'll probably upgrade at a later point when the money is available)
- Radeon 1800XT
Gigabyte board

I had to buy a power supply and a Heat sink which put it about $820... It should be here tomorrow 5/25! Thanks guys, that was about what I was expecting to spend!

Any further suggestions on how much RAM I should get? I figured about another Gig....

 

[Doctorweir]

Ummm...no overclock => AMD. If on budget, a single core would fit you, otherwise get a X2 3800+.
Time pressure? Socket 939...otherwise wait for AM2
Board: PCIe for sure, no AGP investments, please
Video: $200 gives you a 7600GT...better invest $300 and go for a 7900GT. No need to spend more for your purpose. Being an nVidia fanboy I dunno what you get from Ati in the range...

Including ram, prepare to spend ~800 bucks

 

[essasin]

Opteron 165 or x2 3800+. roughly $350 - dual core and its the best buy at the momment
2 gigs of value ram $140
forton source 450 watt $50
asus a8n-3, epox ep-9npa + ultra or dfi lanparty ultra D are all good boards avg $100
video card 7900 gt for about $300

Hope that helps

 

[JSFLY]

AGP died years ago. RIP

 

[dug777]

Originally posted by: essasin
Opteron 165 or x2 3800+. roughly $350 - dual core and its the best buy at the momment
2 gigs of value ram $140
forton source 450 watt $50
asus a8n-3, epox ep-9npa + ultra or dfi lanparty ultra D are all good boards avg $100
video card 7900 gt for about $300

Hope that helps

for most games he'd see more benefit out of a faster single core if he isn't overclocking...and you can get a pretty fast single core for that money

 

[krotchy]

Since you do not upgrade regularly, I suggest going for a dual core now. In the long run it will be better. Probably an X2 3800+ or if you have 2 months, wait for a conroe dual core from intel. So now AMD, 2 months Intel is my answer to your age old question.

I definitely suggest dual core though. People who still prefer single cores like them because they overclock higher, run cooler and run faster in games. However people who overclock also tend to upgrade their systems alot more often, and need cooler chips for higher clock speeds, but since your not OCing stock speeds/temps will be fine. I do not recomend an opteron at all since you are not overclocking. Mainly because Athlon X2 chips are cheaper per clock cycle. Plus if you want the bigger cache of an opteron, you can get a 4000+ which is the same speed as a 3800+ but has a bigger cache.

For video cards I suggest a 7600GT or 7900GT nvidia card for 200 or 300 respectively. Right now I cannot suggest ATI in the 200-300 dollar range, but their top of the line stuff bests nvidia. If your playing BF2, the 7900 is the way to go.

As far as motherboards go, Asus is reliable and easy to setup in general, so you cannot go wrong there. However im not familiar with their non sli boards, so I dont have a suggestion here.

 

[TheArabian]

Gaming :AMD

Video/Graphic Editing/Rendering: Intel

 

[dug777]

Originally posted by: krotchy
Since you do not upgrade regularly, I suggest going for a dual core now. In the long run it will be better. Probably an X2 3800+ or if you have 2 months, wait for a conroe dual core from intel. So now AMD, 2 months Intel is my answer to your age old question.

I definitely suggest dual core though. People who still prefer single cores like them because they overclock higher, run cooler and run faster in games. However people who overclock also tend to upgrade their systems alot more often, and need cooler chips for higher clock speeds, but since your not OCing stock speeds/temps will be fine. I do not recomend an opteron at all since you are not overclocking. Mainly because Athlon X2 chips are cheaper per clock cycle. Plus if you want the bigger cache of an opteron, you can get a 4000+ which is the same speed as a 3800+ but has a bigger cache.

For video cards I suggest a 7600GT or 7900GT nvidia card for 200 or 300 respectively. Right now I cannot suggest ATI in the 200-300 dollar range, but their top of the line stuff bests nvidia. If your playing BF2, the 7900 is the way to go.

As far as motherboards go, Asus is reliable and easy to setup in general, so you cannot go wrong there. However im not familiar with their non sli boards, so I dont have a suggestion here.

you forget the x1800XT 512mb, best value beast atm in my book

 

[Henny]

Don't buy old technology.

If you can wait untill July then go with Conroe. It does everything better then current AMD and Intel offering's.

 

[l31itz]

How much is Conroe going to cost?

 

[Henny]

Originally posted by: l31itz
How much is Conroe going to cost?

Conroe E6700 2.67GHz/1066MHz 4MB Q3'06 $530
Conroe E6600 2.40GHz/1066MHz 4MB Q3'06 $316
Conroe E6400 2.13GHz/1066MHz 2MB Q3'06 $241
Conroe E6300 1.86GHz/1066MHz 2MB Q3'06 $209

 

[RichUK]

nm

 

[hclarkjr]

here are my suggestions with links at newegg for you keeping in mind you just mentioned chip and video card with no mention of if you need memory or power supply -
AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ Manchester 2000MHz HT 2 x 512KB L2 Cache Socket 939 Dual Core Processor - Retail $297
SAPPHIRE 100134L Radeon X1800XT 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 VIVO PCI Express x16 Video Card - Retail $299
Gigabyte GA-K8N Pro-SLI Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce4 SLI ATX AMD Motherboard - Retail $98.99

 

[kalrith]

Since no one has listed links, I will go ahead and do so and make my recommendations (all prices included shipping):

Case ($61): Cooler Master Centurion 5
Power Supply ($58.50): Fortron 450W
Mobo ($100): EPoX EP-9NPA+Ultra
CPU ($235): Athlon64 3700+
Memory ($131 AR): Patriot 2x1GB
DVD-RW ($39): NEC 3550A
Hard Drive ($85 AR): WD 250GB SATA2
Graphics Card ($214 AR): X1800XT 256MB

Total: $923.50

Obviously, if you don't need a new case or a DVD burner, then you can remove them from the list. I would second the recommendation to wait for Conroe. Even if you don't purchase Conroe, then the prices of current hardware will go down when it's released. If you can't wait, then I think the above system is the best you can get with the money. Definitely go PCI-express, and I wouldn't spend $175 on a 7600GT when you can get an X1800XT for $40 more. Also, don't skimp on the power supply. That Fortron is the absolute least-expensive one that I would recommend. It's a very good one though. I would also recommend going with with the X2 3800 for $60 more. It will run a little (200MHz) slower than the 3700, but I think the advantages of dual core far outweigh the lower clock speed. I listed the single core, because that's what you said you wanted.

 

[hpkeeper]

Wow, thanks you guys, I'm seeing a dispute between Radeon and Nvidia... what's that about? I'm hearing a lot of praise about the Nvidia 7600 and 7900GT's but this new Radeon X1800XT is suddenly popping up...

Up sides? down sides? mere preference?

 

[hclarkjr]

well me personaly it was a near top of the line video card that has 512 meg of memory for around $300

 

[kalrith]

ATI will be releasing the X1900GT very soon, and this is going to replace the X1800XT. The prices for this card have come down about $50 in the past two weeks. The X1800XT came out some time ago, but it's basically on par with the 7900GT at stock. Some games favor Nvidia and some ATI, but the average performance of the two is about the same. You're not going to overclock, so it doesn't matter which one overclocks better. I still haven't found anything conclusive about the difference in performance between the 512MB and 256MB versions of the card. I looked at the reviews on Newegg (I know you can't base much on them, but I think it helps in this situation), and owners of the 256MB cards said they scored 8800 on 3DMark05, which is the same score cited by the owners of the 512MB cards. I think for the money the 256MB version is definitely the best buy right now.

 

[Ika]

Originally posted by: kalrith
ATI will be releasing the X1900GT very soon, and this is going to replace the X1800XT. The prices for this card have come down about $50 in the past two weeks. The X1800XT came out some time ago, but it's basically on par with the 7900GT at stock. Some games favor Nvidia and some ATI, but the average performance of the two is about the same. You're not going to overclock, so it doesn't matter which one overclocks better. I still haven't found anything conclusive about the difference in performance between the 512MB and 256MB versions of the card. I looked at the reviews on Newegg (I know you can't base much on them, but I think it helps in this situation), and owners of the 256MB cards said they scored 8800 on 3DMark05, which is the same score cited by the owners of the 512MB cards. I think for the money the 256MB version is definitely the best buy right now.

X1800XT beats 7900GT in the majority of games; X1900GT loses to 7900GT in majority of games.

 

[TheArabian]

Originally posted by: Henny
Don't buy old technology.

If you can wait untill July then go with Conroe. It does everything better then current AMD and Intel offering's.

Can you give some more info about Conroe... Ur telling me use it over AMD and Intel?

 

[anandtechrocks]

Conroe is Intel's next generation architecture code name. Intel "claims" that it will be ~20% faster than AMD's latest stuff.

Here is an article from Anand:

http://www.anandtech.com/tradeshows/showdoc.aspx?i=2716

 

[theMan]

just to keep in mind, AM2 really doesnt offer any advantage over S939. just DDR2, which is faster, but you will need to spend a lot on ram to make it faster than 939. the only hope is that AM2 will bring faster speeds at lower prices, but it doesnt seem like that is going to happen until a while after it is released. either get a 939 Dual core now, or wait for conroe. however, you probably dont want to get conroe right when it comes out, so you will have to end up waitng 3 or 4 months to get it. so, my suggestion is to just get a S939 X2 or a S939 dual core opteron.

 

[CCityInstaller]

Originally posted by: krotchy
Since you do not upgrade regularly, I suggest going for a dual core now. In the long run it will be better. Probably an X2 3800+ or if you have 2 months, wait for a conroe dual core from intel. So now AMD, 2 months Intel is my answer to your age old question.

I definitely suggest dual core though. People who still prefer single cores like them because they overclock higher, run cooler and run faster in games. However people who overclock also tend to upgrade their systems alot more often, and need cooler chips for higher clock speeds, but since your not OCing stock speeds/temps will be fine. I do not recomend an opteron at all since you are not overclocking. Mainly because Athlon X2 chips are cheaper per clock cycle. Plus if you want the bigger cache of an opteron, you can get a 4000+ which is the same speed as a 3800+ but has a bigger cache.

For video cards I suggest a 7600GT or 7900GT nvidia card for 200 or 300 respectively. Right now I cannot suggest ATI in the 200-300 dollar range, but their top of the line stuff bests nvidia. If your playing BF2, the 7900 is the way to go.

As far as motherboards go, Asus is reliable and easy to setup in general, so you cannot go wrong there. However im not familiar with their non sli boards, so I dont have a suggestion here.

Not to start a flame war here, but your quote about not recommending ATI for the 200-300 range is just plain crazy. The X1800XT is still considered to be a high end card by many, however it has a great mid range card price. You get on par or better (most of the time) performance for almost $100 less then the 7900GT. He can take that extra money and invest it in a faster cpu or put it towards a new monitor if he needed one. I was stuck between the 7900 series and the X1800XT, and I feel I made the right decision with the X1800XT. He can slap a $30 Accelero X2 cooler on there and it will be dead silent, something that cannot be said about the 7900GT. I am not an Nvidia hater, but I feel that ATI has a solid lock on the mid range market with the X1800 series.

Josh

 

[hpkeeper]

so when's the 1900 scheduled to come out?

 

[hpkeeper]

UPDATED!!!

 

[Bullhonkie]

Sounds good. Although I would try to go with more RAM. BF2 is one of those games that can benefit from 2GB and if you regularly work on large files in Photoshop it would help there too. In my experience Photoshop slows to an absolute crawl when it has to hit the pagefile.