hathcockb

I am fairly new at the whole computer building activity. I am trying to build a system for general internet shenanigans, as well as some gaming. I don't play any FPS games on the computer, or action games. I play those on my consoles. I will be using it for RTSs, Spore, and Civ style games. I know they can get fairly resource heavy, however I don't want to spend a ridiculous amount on a computer that will be way more than I need. So far what I have comes out to about $1800 USD when you add in operating system and all of that junk. I would like to be able to run those few types of games at high settings, but would like to see if there is anyway for me to trim down the cost. Let me know what you think. Here is what I have so far:

Power Supply: 650 Watt PSU Corsair CMPSU-650TX - Quad SLI Ready

CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad Q9450 @ 2.66 GHZ 1333 FSB 12MB L2 Cache 64-Bit

MoBo: Asus P5N-D nForce 750i SLI Chipset LGA 775 FSB 1333 DDR2

Memory: 4GB (4X1GB) PC6400 DDR2/800 DCM Corsair

Video Cards: 2x NVIDIA GeForce 9600GT 512MB

Hard Drive: 250 GB SATA-II 3.0 Gb/s 8MB Cache 7200RPM

Your comments are appreciated. I can spend the 1800, but would rather get it cheaper if this is too much computer for my needs. Thank you all.

[-0MEGA-]

For $1800 you can buy a much better computer, where are you buying this through? The best option would be to buy the parts and build it yourself.

To save some money, do not get two 9600GT's, you don't need them. You say you don't do a whole lot of gaming, so either a 9600GT or 3870 would be a good choice. You also don't need a Q9450, for the price the Q6600 is still very attractive, you may want to consider that. I would also get a larger hard drive, you can get a 500GB hard drive for around $80-$90 today.

__________________
Desktop // Laptop
Core 2 Quad Q9550 @ 4.0GHz // Core 2 Duo T9300 2.5GHz
Asus Rampage Formula X48 // Intel PM965
ATI 4870X2 2GB GDDR5 // Dual 512MB GDDR3 8600M GT's SLI
4GB (2x 2GB) DDR2 940 // 3GB DDR2 667 DC
750GB SATA 3.0Gbps w/32MB // 400GB (2x 200GB) 7200RPM
Creative SB X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty
SilverStone 750W +12V@60A
3DMark06: 21366 // 7394

aSc1@3

yeh, go with the q6600.

__________________
MSI PM8M-V--Celeron 478 2.5ghz OCed to 3.0ghz
Stock HSF--2X 512mb DDR 400 Ram
DVD Burner--200gb HDD
ElitePc Case--Allied 300watt PSU
nVidia GeforceFX 5200 AGP 8x--XP Pro SP2

Looky, Looky, Clicky, Clicky!

KevinKevin

Umm.. I wouldn't even buy a Quad Core if you're not into hard-core games which need high powered processors. I'd go for either the high powered dual-cored AMD or Intel processors. Even they can play the hard-cored games but cost less.

__________________
Motherboard: ALiveNF6G-VSTA
CPU: AMD Athlon X2 64 4400
GPU: nVidia Geforce 6150SE
HDD: Western Digital Caviar SE 160GB
RAM: 3GB DDR2
OS: Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium 64bit
Sound Card: Realtek 7.1 CH Windows Vista Home Premium Level HD Audio

hathcockb

I had figured I would get the quad-core, only because it's not that much more expensive and from what I read, games in the future will utilize the quad-core. I just don't want to have to upgrade in a year.

I have been shopping on Cyberpowerpc.com

I have searched some other sites and they are very comparable in price.

elron-jethro

you really dont need 2 graphics cards and you might not even need a quad core

__________________
Intel E4700 2.6GHz 800MHz FSB 2MB cache
Asrock 4CoreDual-SATA2 R2.0
2GB DDRII 400
HDDs:20GB Linux Ubuntu
80GB Windows XP
ATI 9250 128MB AGP 8X