$1200 gaming rig for friend

diduknowthat

diduknowthat

formerly liuliuboy
My friend wants to buy a new computer and asked me to put together a list for him. His budget is around $1200 USD.

Core 2 Duo Q6600 - $300
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115017

XFX 8800GTS 320mb - $250 ($280)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150171

Asus P5N-ELGA 775 Nvidio 680i SLI ATX Motherboard - $127
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131142

A-Data 4GB (1GB X 4) DDR2 800 RAM - $149 ($164)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820211066

Seagate Barracude 7200.10 SATA 3.0 Hard Drive - $80
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148140

Cooler Master Centurion 5 Black Case - $40 ($50)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811119068

Corsair 520 watt Powersupply - $99
http://www.buy.com/prod/corsair-520w-sli-certified-modular-atx-power-supply/q/loc/101/203270716.html

Lite-On DVD Burner - $35
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827106057

Thermaltake Big Typhoon - $45
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835106061

After MIR : $1135
Before MIR: $1200


Any suggestions/comments?
 
Last edited:
chupacabra

chupacabra

New Member
You can save some bucks on the corsair 520w by getting it off buy.com, adata ram is k but don't expect miracles and i hardly doubt he'll need so much ram or at least right now unless he's on video editing
 
diduknowthat

diduknowthat

formerly liuliuboy
chupacabra said:
You can save some bucks on the corsair 520w by getting it off buy.com, adata ram is k but don't expect miracles and i hardly doubt he'll need so much ram or at least right now unless he's on video editing
Click to expand...

Nice, I'll edit the list on my computer.


@XPS
It's also twice the price and less than half the capacity. He doesn't need the 10k rpm speed.
 
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PC eye

banned
Overall it looks good except for preferring a better brand video card like MSI, BFG, EVGA. Many would jump at Corsair xms series, Kingston Hyper X, or another brand of memory to go for fast timings and lower voltage requirements like the 1.95v Cas4 Hyper X memory ordered here. The Corsair model supply is one of the best one seen in the new sticky on supplies you can look over at http://www.computerforum.com/90118-useful-psu-guides.html

Many will point at the Zalman CNPS 9500 as the way to go for the cpu cooler unless you prefer to save on costs with the Artic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro. For hard drives the large WD Raptor is about 160gb leaving that out. Instead of Lite-On a Sony/Nec ide or sata dvd burner is something to consider or an LG model. That would be preferences there however.
 
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PC eye

banned
For the new AMD build here I simply went with the highest 6000+ X2 3ghz model over going for a lesser 2.4 or 2.6ghz model. This by itself will be a jump over the 2.2ghz single 939 3500+ in the current build. For the Core 2 Duos the E6300 is the ocers choice there. Usually a lower end to mid model ocs the best anyways whether Intel or AMD.
 
maroon1

maroon1

New Member
How can this be better when it is not even SLI ready?
Click to expand...
SLI is useless, it is not worth to SLI video cards........... It is better to have one powerful video card than having two in SLI
 
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ride3k

New Member
Dollar said:
How can this be better when it is not even SLI ready? Although this is good for overclocking and is most gamers' choice, you can't compare it this way.
Unless you are refering to the P35 DQ6 which supports multiple graphics, then yes the P35 DQ6 is perharps better than the nforce 650i.
Click to expand...

p35/p65 are superior chip sets to the 650i. SLi is never a factor in determining the quality of the board, and more often than not you give up other crucial functionality for that extra PCIe slot. For intel chips, p35 is the way to go, unless you need the 1333 fsb, then p65 is your ticket
 
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PC eye

banned
Are you planning any SLI setup or just going for a good single model to use? One thing you may find interesting if you go for an SLI model is the new PCI-E sound cards available since new boards now generally see only two pci slots. But the price on those is up there as well. Here I had to go for a non SLI model to get a third pci slot for tv tuner and video capture cards along with a newer Creative model.
 
diduknowthat

diduknowthat

formerly liuliuboy
PC eye said:
Are you planning any SLI setup or just going for a good single model to use? One thing you may find interesting if you go for an SLI model is the new PCI-E sound cards available since new boards now generally see only two pci slots. But the price on those is up there as well. Here I had to go for a non SLI model to get a third pci slot for tv tuner and video capture cards along with a newer Creative model.
Click to expand...

My friend is not planning to go SLI, so the gigabyte non-sli board is perfect fo rhim.
 
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PC eye

banned
SLI for the most part is over rated by a long shot. The only real application for that is seen when running multiple monitors for an elaborate setup and practical for the average user with one single display. Plus you have the added cost on top of that. The SLI slot on the board here at the moment sits idle with the single Radeon X1300 Pro in use. While the new build will see a far better card the new Asus model will only see one PCI-E slot for the third pci type slot offered! Asus M2N-E there.
 
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ride3k

New Member
besides, with the third pci slot, that means two tv tuners >=) get to record all the football and tv shows you want
 
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PC eye

banned
No what that means is a posiible need to still move the pci sound card to the second slot if any of XP's resource sharing problems come up on the new board. That would then force the tuner/capture card into the 3rd pci slot. Otherwise a Vista ready card is still being looked into.
 
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PC eye

banned
That's an older problem that can come up at times with expansion cards in the first pci clot. Most of this was seen with AGP model boards and not so likely with the newer PCI-E models seen since. The idea here is focused mainly on the analog devices that have to be used for video and sound. Presently the tv tuner card is veing used as a video capture card since the actual card was no good on receipt. Yet the softwares for that worked out for the XP MCE software tv card. No drivers or software patches for Vista means adding a second card for the new version of Windows.
 
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