Building A Gaming Rig - A Living Document. (A HEXUS Project)

[Xenctuary]

Be wary to the time of the last updates on each post though (!). Although still very much relevant, the prices and product recommendations may be a little outdated as they are from last December.

[jamena]

yes, not quite up to date, but then these things are very hard to keep up to the minute, now that SLi and crossfire are competing, 7800 chips are available, and the FX-55 has been superceeded, plus the 939 chips are onto their what, 3rd or 4th core revision?

Still all good advice though and well done that man for putting the time into writing it up! my relatively recently purchased 9800pro (£76 new, AIW too) is happily managing BF2 after I sorted out the motherboard agp drivers with my outdated xp2400+ cpu!

[NuShuttle]

Great thread... it has already got me thinking about my next GFX card...

The Sweet Spot - 200Gb Maxtor Plus 10 (7200rpm, 8MB) SATA. £70

Having had Maxtors for the past 2 years and put up with their noisy, unreliable ways I would whole-heartedly recommend Samsung Spinpoint drives to anyone. From my experience they are easily as fast as the Maxtor but half the noise. 200GB Samsung SpinPoint SP2004C 7200rpm, 8MB, SATA II Fluid Dynamic Bearings, 25dBA is £64.45 from Scan...

[CountStex]

Nice collection of info everyone.. given me some food for thought despite the somewhat age-ing details as I'm in the market to move on from my Athlon 1700 XP which is undoubtable holding back my 6600GT (2fps difference in Far Cry from 640x480 to 1280x1024 8xAA 16xAF !!)

[TooNice]

Is the A64 currently still the best bang for buck once you take overclocking into account?

Have the price for AMD dual core changed much in the last 2 months?

[poonsies]

Not as much as id have liked, the 4600 and 4800 are still pretty steep.

[Thorsson]

Many would currently say 939 Opterons FTW. Of the X64 I'd say the SD 4000+ and 3700+ are excellent value in SC, aand the 4200+ Manchester is excellent for DC. Prices above this mean that these chips are for score hunters only. 4800+ and FX55 are pushing £600.

Video cards have moved a lot since this was originally put together. Top end is the new 7800GTX 512Mb, better value is pre-OC 7800GT, but those unlockable ATIs are the best bang per buck around.

Memory - it is generally accepted that 2Gb is now the way to go. Question is not resolved on best way to get there. Technology is beginning to move rapidly in this area as manufacturers realise this is where the next big upgrade path is happening.

Nothing really exciting happening in storage. TFT monitors are coming down in price and going up in spec, soon we may be able to use the full power of those video cards without having to break the bank...

[tanman]

Happy new year all

Not sure if this is the right place but hear goes

Lookin at building a new pc with a comfotable budget what would / can you suggest to buy

main features are

case, cpu, graphics card, power supply, motherboard also would / do i need windows 64 instead of xp if i went down that road.

Indeed a much needed penny for your thoughts

Thanx

[dannyboy83]

Great thread... it has already got me thinking about my next GFX card... Having had Maxtors for the past 2 years and put up with their noisy, unreliable ways I would whole-heartedly recommend Samsung Spinpoint drives to anyone. From my experience they are easily as fast as the Maxtor but half the noise. 200GB Samsung SpinPoint SP2004C 7200rpm, 8MB, SATA II Fluid Dynamic Bearings, 25dBA is £64.45 from Scan...

My SATA Maxtor 250Gb has gone down the tubes. Apparantly it has 110Gb in bad sectors! and funnily enuf I just ordered a sasmsung spinpoint 200gb from Scan.

2 x 1Gb (2 x 512 Mb) Corsair TwinX, DDR, PC3200C2PT, Cas 2, Lifetime Warranty

I had 4 x 512Mb Corsair TwinX (2 twinned pairs), but have recently had problems. I'd get 2x 1Gb pair for better reliabilty and compatibility with ur mobo.

[nvening]

Is it only me that does not see any updates? ITs still £140 for a 9800 and no mention of 7800s etc.

Also i would suggest anyone wanting to spec up a system to start a new thread in the hardware and overclocking forum.

[nvening]

is anyone ever gunna update this lol

[LuNi9]

just from readin the following you can tell this is a lil out of date now :S

Key Points.

1) AMD currently hold all the aces over Intel. The price \ performance crown is firmly atop AMDs head at the moment. Like it or not, for gaming, AMD is the obvious choice.
2) An X800XT will not be able to do its thing if you pair it with a CPU from the dawn of human civilization. Upgrade both so you are not badly CPU limited when gaming.
3) 64bit CPUs no longer bring with them as many drawbacks as they do improvements – socket 939 and the Winchester core now make 64bit CPUs a joy to purchase and use, as well as gaming powerhouses.

Cheap as Chips – AMD Athlon XP-M 2500+ Barton Core. £65
The Sweet Spot - AMD Athlon 64 3200+ Winchester Core 90nm. £130
Pricy Perfection - AMD Athlon 64 FX-55. £545

[zaphox]

Brilliant thread, but yeah it does need updating, if only the "Cheap as Chips" "Sweet Spot" and "Pricy Perfection" sections. If I knew what I was talking about I'd help

[awm]

Should read more like:

Key Points.

1) Intel currently hold all the aces over AMD. The price \ (performance\watt) crown is firmly atop Intels head at the moment. Like it or not, for gaming, Intel is the obvious choice.
2) An X1950XT will not be able to do its thing if you pair it with a CPU from the dawn of human civilization. Upgrade both so you are not badly CPU limited when gaming.
3) 64bit CPUs are standard. Do not buy a non 64-bit CPU.

My how things change in a few short years. [old man's voice]back when I was a kid...[/voice]

[UpTheToon]

This thread is a great idea, hopefully it will be updated by the time I get back to the UK and build my next system... in february

[nvening]

Im happy to update this if no one cba lol