Well, it looks like the bad luck with my ram has finally given me an excuse to just drop my current system and begin piecing together a new one, and this time, I'm not cutting corners.

Even when my ram was running fine, I was never impressed with the performance of my current system. I bought an ASUS A8N5X, 2 x 512 Crucial Ballistix CAS2 2-2-6 PC3200 DDR, Opteron 144, and a honkin' big Zalman heatsink, yet I couldn't muster anything resembling an overclock, and while normal-clocked, the performance felt virtually identical to my old, 2.2ghz Athlon XP setup. About the only thing that felt "upgraded" was my 3d performance, and that was due almost entirely to the X850XT versus the 9700 Pro I was so used to. Adding another 2 x 512 to the system made almost no improvement except in games like Battlefield 2, and even that didn't justify the cost or sacrifice ot 1T timing.

Well, 2 years have passed, and I'm starving for something that doesn't feel like a mild improvement over the old sauce. The things I'll be keeping from my old system will be my sound card (vanilla X-fi), optical drive, hard drive (7.2k RPM WD Caviar 250GB), monitor, kb, mouse, speakers, headphones, etc. Basically I'm looking to upgrade my architecture, video card, ram, case, and power supply.

The parts I have decided upon, but am still open to suggestions about are:

Architecture = Intel (C2D) unless the reviews and word of mouth are without merit.
PSU = PCP&C Silencer 750 Quad
CASE = Antec Nine Hundred

Assuming I have a budget of around $250-400 a month, and were able to purchase this new system piece-by-piece, what would you guys recommend, and how would you go about getting it? (remember, I have to answer to "her highness" on anything I purchase, so spending little chunks of money "sounds" better to her than blowing $1500-2000 all at once)

I have heard some fantastic things about Core2 Duo. Compared to AM2, is there a noticable difference as far as price/performance? Is it worth waiting for the price on Quad Cores to come down before spending?

Any feedback will be appreciated.

Quote: Originally Posted by Fu3lman Well, it looks like the bad luck with my ram has finally given me an excuse to just drop my current system and begin piecing together a new one, and this time, I'm not cutting corners. Even when my ram was running fine, I was never impressed with the performance of my current system. I bought an ASUS A8N5X, 2 x 512 Crucial Ballistix CAS2 2-2-6 PC3200 DDR, Opteron 144, and a honkin' big Zalman heatsink, yet I couldn't muster anything resembling an overclock, and while normal-clocked, the performance felt virtually identical to my old, 2.2ghz Athlon XP setup. About the only thing that felt "upgraded" was my 3d performance, and that was due almost entirely to the X850XT versus the 9700 Pro I was so used to. Well, 2 years have passed, and I'm starving for something that doesn't feel like a mild improvement over the old sauce. The things I'll be keeping from my old system will be my sound card (vanilla X-fi), optical drive, hard drive (7.2k RPM WD Caviar 250GB), monitor, kb, mouse, speakers, headphones, etc. Basically I'm looking to upgrade my architecture, video card, ram, case, and power supply. The parts I have decided upon, but am still open to suggestions about are: PSU = PCP&C Silencer 750 Quad CASE = Antec Nine Hundred Assuming I have a budget of around $250-400 a month, and were able to purchase this new system piece-by-piece, what would you guys recommend, and how would you go about getting it? (remember, I have to answer to "her highness" on anything I purchase, so spending little chunks of money "sounds" better to her than blowing $1500-2000 all at once) Any feedback will be appreciated.

I would definitely go with the PC@C psu and also get the Antec 900, i just got both of them myself and a friend of mine just ordered the Antec 900 from Fry's they had a hell of a deal on it for $69.99, the psu i got was this one here at zipzoomfly they where the cheapest on it only $169.99 with free shipping for the copper one and the black one is $185.00.

I also just had Twizted do a little modification for me on the fan adding 24 led's to that top 200mm fan.

Edit: the psu was highly recommended to me by SolidNecro and Twizted and the case was recommended by Lokie and Twizted since they are doing Project Jaded, here is the link to Fry's i think there sold out on those case so you might want to call them to make sure they have them in stock.
Here is some pictures of what Twizted did for me if your interested.

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I thought i add i few more pictures for you of my PC@C psu Silencer 750 watt Quad just to give you a idea what it looks like now this psu has a ton of wires for everything you need to connect to it along with a picture of my case what it looks like so far.

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Core 2 Duo should give you a helluva boost!

If I were you I'd hold off on your CPU pick for a couple of weeks to see where the core 2 pricing lines up. Yes there are quad core price drops, but with AMD's rock-bottom prices at the moment - you might find Intel cutting selected dual core models in response. The new 45nm, 1333FSB core 2's may also be within your reach (even though the pricing will be at a premium - you never know )

Another thing is that most current apps (unless you do heavy multimedia creation/serving etc) don't really make that good use of more than 2 cores - by the time they do, you'll probably be upgrading again anyway.

My If you aren't inclined to run SLI, my recommendation would be picking up a P35 chipset based motherboard as it supports native 1333FSB (just in case you get a new-fangled intel chip) and perhaps some good DDR2-800 or DDR2-1066 RAM - The DDR2-800 is pretty much the market staple at the moment, so you'll find good pricing on it - then overclock it's pants off

But that's only my opinion - I'm sure that there'll be some even better suggestions coming up soon

Wasn't the Intel price drop around the 21st of July?

Regarding the choice of video card, a 320mb 8800GTS is currently the videocard bargain of the year. They're extremely cheap for how much power you get.

I would go for a new model 1333mhz FSB Core 2, as they're supposed to be very overclockable (I would suggest the E6750). However, future games are rumoured to be supporting quad-core quite soon (Alan Wake is definitely one, and I've heard that Crysis and Bioshock will as well) so maybe you might want to consider the Q6600, which will be about the current price of the E6600 by the end of this month.

P35 boards are probably the way forward at this point as MasterP states, so have a look at Asus' P5K and Gigabyte's range.

Yup. Come July 22nd Intel will drop the prices which'll mean you'll be able to get an E6750 for ~$175, or a Quad Core Q6600 for $266. And as reflux said the 320mb GTS is the way to go atm unless you're going to be gaming above 1680*1050. Currently you can pick up a 320mb GTS for $270 at Dell, or the 640mb version for $330.

Gotta validate the responses above mine as well. I will be getting the E6750 (most likely) when the prices drop later this month or early next month as well as an 8800gts to go with it.
I would get the case first as the price is less likely to fluctuate in the near future (or the Antec P180 or one of it's variants, it is a nice case also), then the vid card, and by the time the CPUs drop in price, you may be able to afford the CPU and RAM at the same time depending on the quantity of RAM you will get.

Speaking of RAM, these guy's have a great deal on it. It does have a rebate but....almost everyone that's ordered one (or 5) of these has gotten D9 chips.

Thanks guys, I'm getting a real clear picture of what to go for here...

- Stick with the case and psu I had originally wanted.
- P35 chipset since I won't be going SLI or overclocking heavily.
- 8800GTS 320MB (is it that much more powerful than an X850XT despite DX10?)
- 2 x 1GB decent 800Mhz DDR2

- Buying case first since the price fluctuates less and its the cheapest part of the equation (and a great motivator to finish the damn thing).
- Waiting until after the 3rd week of this month before making any serious CPU decisions.

I guess at this point it wouldn't be out of the question to start asking which motherboard, RAM, and video card I should go with.

Thanks again for the help everyone.

A few RAM suggestions, last one being the most attrtactive to me due to the tighter timings and the voltage range.

Newegg.com - SUPER TALENT 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory - Retail
Newegg.com - G.SKILL 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory - Retail
Newegg.com - GeIL Esoteria 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory - Retail

I'd likely be looking towards a Gigabyte or Asus offering for the mobo since you are not the hardcore OCer (although I am sure you will OC some). If only Asus would ditch the whole heatpipe cooled mobo idea....

Quote: Originally Posted by Fu3lman - 8800GTS 320MB (is it that much more powerful than an X850XT despite DX10?)

Check this out:

hwbot.org - Compare Hardware

Also, the X850XT doesn't fully support DX9c, and there are quite a few games out at the moment that refuse to run if you don't have SM3.0 support.

I say the Asus P5K Deluxe motherboard. I have one and it has lots of great features.

Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Kentsfield 2.4GHz ..........I luv mine......coupled w/ 8800 GTX and you got framrates in FEAR btwn 60-100 fps........WITH ALL THE EYECANDY ON

Newegg.com - Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Kentsfield 2.4GHz 2 x 4MB L2 Cache LGA 775 Processor - Retail
Newegg.com - EVGA 768-P2-N831-AR GeForce 8800GTX 768MB 384-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16 HDCP Video Card - Retail

Wait till price drops a Q6600s are gonna be 266$