Rhino wrote:In the market for a new box, here is what I came up with. Any ideas on how to get the same performance for less?
1 Antec Nine Hundred Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case - Retail
$149.99
1 BFG Tech BFG680i SLi LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 680i SLI ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail
$279.99
1 EVGA 320-P2-N811-AR GeForce 8800GTS 320MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16 HDCP Video Card - Retail
$299.99
1 Thermaltake Toughpower 850W W0131RU – NVIDIA QUAD-SLI APPROVED, FOUR +12V RAIL READY - Retail
$274.99
1 Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 Conroe 2.4GHz LGA 775 Processor Model BX80557E6600 - Retail
$314.00
1 CORSAIR XMS2 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model TWIN2X2048-6400 - Retail
$204.00
1 Western Digital Caviar SE WD2500JS 250GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM
$69.99
1 LITE-ON 20X DVD±R DVD Burner with 12X DVD-RAM write and LightScribe Technology Black E-IDE/ATAPI Model LH-20A1H-185 - OEM
$35.99
1 ZALMAN CNPS9500 AT 2 Ball CPU Cooling Fan/Heatsink - Retail
$47.99
Subtotal: $1,676.93
My opinion would be to build the system for now, and not for later when things will be cheaper and better. Save money!
Another thing is, why go all the way with one part if you aren't going all out on the whole system?
You could get this guy for a lot less and have the same performance if you want. Regardless of what parts you do go with it will be a high performance system.
Changes I would recommend and others have taken and not regretted:
- $80 430-500w Power supply would do instead of $250
(I recommend finding a quiet one, its a perk)
The below graph shows that the 8800GTS uses less power than the X1900XT and I have that card. This shows that my 430w quiet power supply does do the trick if i were to get a 8800GTS. Therefore I would not recommend spending $250 on a powersuppply. I paid $80 for mine and its working fine so far, even for overclocking.
- $124 motherboard Asus P5B was $279
(Racer went with this board and is super happy, i have the p5b deluxe and I realize the p5b would have been just as good and cheaper)
-$222 intel e6400 was $304
e6400 vs e6600
This thread shares the same thoughts that i have developed from reading reviews that the cache doesn't make much of a difference.
http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1089149
$34 case was $149
I admit $34 is cheap and you get what you pay for, but how often are you going to move your case. Why pay $149 for a case that doesn't come with a nice powersupply? Check out what Aerocool has, they got one that looks like a jet engine on the front and its far less then $149.
Total saved $560
I think the ram that you have selected will do the trick, and especially if you decide to overclock. This system will easily be able to attain 2.9 ghz @1333FSB which then gets you the CPU power of the X6800 for far less. You can get to 1333FSB easy with the P5B and e6400. And if you wanted you can go right for 1600FSB without any issues. All this can be done on air cooling. The bus speed is where you get the real performance increase versus just having a faster processor.
If you have zero plans of overclocking, i would say skip the zalman heatsink, because the stock cooler does very well. And you could get cheaper 2gb of memory as well.
If you do plan on overclocking a little bit, I would recommend a sweet heatsink like the zalman that you have picked, and the RAM that you have selected. For me it was a toss up between Zalman and Scythe Ninja's large and quiet coolers. I went with a 12 heat pipe Scythe Ninja, it is super quiet and works great at 3.46GHZ, but i run at 2.8 @1604FSB
Another thing I can recommend that you should price this rig up on
www.Newegg.com and seeing if you can make it for any cheaper.
If you do go with the Asus P5B series motherboard and if you need help overclocking I would be more than happy to post more information and screenshots on recommended BIOS settings.
In Closing, some things a person could spend $560 on:
- $250 Cougar
- $450 FSSB R1
- Car payment
- Rent
- almost half the price of a $1000 computer
- Watercooling for the computer. ( Gigabyte has one that is pretty nice)
- Corsair memory Cooler $20 (super quiet, i got this with mine)
- extra fans (don't go crazy, the more you get the louder it gets)
- $5 good CPU paste (excellent choice)
- $560 could get a nice display or a few
- $560 could buy a nice used high resolution projector off of ebay
- the list can go on.
Enjoy the new system Rhino, the Core 2 Duo is a significant performance increase over other CPU's and coupled with the 8800GTS will make for a killer rig.
Cheers!
Rotorblade
