My new pc (hopefully) what would you guys change?

[resu]

Ive been out of the component loop for some time now .. and my old desktop:
athlon 3200xp
1gb ram
180gb hdd
5200 fx 256mb

has done me fine so far but juts recently thd goog ol' 5200fx has given up the ghost
ive bought me a 7600gs 256 in replacement juts so my gf can use it etc while i use my lappy

eventually my old rig will become a dedicated media center machine so ill cram it all in a smaller better looking case and make it alot quieter (prolly water cooled)

if im honest with myself im itching to build a new rig!
as im an architect (in training) i need something that can handle 3ds max well .. with vray renderer etc
plus to be able to play gta 5 (the new one coming out) and oblivion .. and stalker
on good to max settings

anyway this is what ive gone for so far .. i prefere to use ebuyer.com as we have a business account with them and iff all goes well i should be able to get VAT off some things with them

Coolermaster Elite 330 Black Mid Tower Case
Asustek M2V AM2 VIAK8T890
Athlon 64 x2 5200
Corsair 2GB Kit
Maxtor 320gb (SATA)
8800gts 320mb PCI-E
XP media center edition

it all came to £460ish ex VAT

im amd thru and thru so any cpu will have to be AMD ... im a bit of a Nvidia fanboy aswell as i havent had much luck with ATi drivers and cards in the past.

as i dont know much about current products the mobo was a complete stab in the dark

MCE is a must as im not gonna make the leap to vista just yet plus i bought 22" widescreen HD monitor/tv taht should be arriving next week

anyway any comments and suggestions are welcomed
[i dont wanna spend silly money on this rig as i wanna buy a new car: cupra r 255 !! lol]

cheers
resu

 

[k.jacko]

if you're stubborn enough or to put it more politely, set in your ways to be AMD through and through then you're already on a losing streak matey. Intel whoops the bejesus out of AMD for processes like vray and 3dsmax.
I've recently built 2 x core2duo rigs and 1 x core2quad rig for our rendering dept at work running max vray sketchup w/podium and w/vray add ons.
I already have 2 x AMD X2 4800's pc's and they just don't cut it. The 5200 is no big leap from a 4800.
Oddly enough the 5200 seems to outperform the 6000 in many benchtests
As for the 800gts, yeah great cards but what do you call max. settings? I use my 7900gs for stalker at 1280x1024 which is fine for me.
And the 8800 won't hugely increase your 3dsmax performance much either.
I put a cad gfx in ours and it didn't make a noticeable difference to either rednering time or final output quality.
So, if you don't really need all the power the 8800 gives, why not drop down a bit and get a better cpu? More ram as well (especially for rendering) 4gb over 2gb makes a difference to us.

ps....standard benchtest on our 4800 for a sample render file was 9:12. Core2duo was 6:09 and core2quad was 2:56. Hope that helps.

 

[resu]

cheers for the quick reply

lol yea i know im a bit on the stubborn side

hmmm i guess i could drop the gfx .. but im worried about dx10 etc
havent really looked into recent gfx cards.... i just assumed the 8800 would be a little more furture proof?
if the 7900gs can handle stalker tahts awesome.. may have to give gfx cards a bit more thought

for the cpu .. yea thats kind of why i chose the 5200 coz ppl didnt get a massive boost from the 6000
the reason for my adoration of the AMD is coz in my experience they seem to run cooler and use less power ... i know i shouldnt really get hung up on it.

intel seem more work base cpu s which is cool .. but i love to game aswell
hehe
cheers for the advice may have to hit the drawiung board again

thanks

 

[raybay]

AMD is fine, if your budget is limited. It lasts forever. It is totally reliable. It is just not competitive for the very few top gaming machines... in every other way, you will be proud of it. They do not run cooler, however, in my experience. They run hot, and require a good cpu cooling system.
I would avoid the Maxtor hard drive at all costs, because they have an early failure rate, and Seagate doesn't have all the bugs worked outyet. You can get a Seagate (now same company) with a five year warranty for about the same price at www.zipzoomfly.com or www.directron.com or www.tigerdirect.com

 

[k.jacko]

ok, Intel core2duo/quads have the no.1 spot for just about everything right now; overclocking, gaming, multi-processing.
The newer AMD's do run at lower power on idle, but...well.....big whup!
Core2duos tend to run at low temps even when overclocked.
Core2quads do run hot though. Mine has just peaked at 67°C on stock speeds with an Arctic Freezer Pro7 attached, whilst rendering and set the alarm off.

As for your 8800, if you want DX10 then you need Vista. And last time i checked with Autodesk there isn't a vista patch for 3dsmax due out until at least october, so beware of this. I think vray already has a patch though.

Personally? i'd go for:
Gigabyte DS3R mobo
Core2duo (E6600) or Core2Quad Pro Q6600
4gb ram (for your rendering pleasure)
X1950 Pro 512mb (pcie) - quite cheap now and better than 7900gs

This will give you a great system, plus you can upgrade later without having spent a fortune on a gfx card.

 

[resu]

sounds good to me
better start doin some price checks then


cheers again

 

[CMH]

I'd recommend the Core2Quad for you, given you really need that CPU power. However, if you don't, you might want to hold off the upgrade just yet. You're still studying, right? Give it a year, and you can be true to your AMD fanboyish attitudes, when they release their true Quad processors, instead of the current 2 Core2Duos on a stick that Intel's calling their Quad cores at the moment.

We don't know AMD's potential just yet, but if they're gonna repeat what they did with their Athlon's family, Core2Duos will go down in history just like P4s were to Athlons.

As for the graphics card, I'm using an X1950Pro 256mb, and I can play Oblivion at medium settings, 1280x1024. Outdoors it still hasn't lagged, and I actually have customized the settings to have more details, and slightly farther grass (although grass shadows are turned off). No AA/AF though, but if you're getting the 512mb version, you might be able to do those.

Graphics are still impressive at those settings, I've turned it up to max just to try it out, it looks slightly better, but you shouldn't miss it.

 

[resu]

hmm .. i didnt know taht AMD were bringing out a quad core
maybe i will hold out for a bit longer then

 

[CMH]

A true quad core.

With computers, the longer you wait, the better. Upgrade only when necessary, really. Prices would either go down, or performance go up. Either way, it would benefit you.

 

[k.jacko]

yeah, but its a crazy vicious circle. Intel have had the title for over a year now. Maybe when AMD bring out the quad cores they will have ownage rights. But if you're think or 'investing' in a pc, i think its the wrong way to look at it. You lose money as soon as you open the box. In 3 months everything will be cheaper. But if you wait for say a quad core to come into your budget range, when that time comes you could just as easily say "aah...its old now, it won't do what i want it to do", so then you look at the newer, more expensive 8 cores again and wonder what to get.
I bought my E6600 for £213 6 months ago, its now less than £140.
So rather than buy again, i'll overclock it.
The new AMD's are touted to be damned good, but then again.....
Remember when the E6300 was £150 the equivalent AMD was more expensive.
It really is a crazy to and fro race. If it were me, i'd make sure i have the money in my hand and only then would i go buy what i could afford and what was the best right there and then.

 

[CMH]

All that is true, but you forget we've got an AMD fanboi here, who needs alot of computing power sometime in the future, not immediately.

So waiting for that new product would be a better idea.

 

[resu]

hehe

well found my old rig dead last night ... the mobo broke and i cant find any reasonably priced socket A mobos so a new PC in the next month i reckon
im a bit pissed off coz i thought it was the gfx card so now i have an AGP 7600gs sitting in my house which i cant use
i dont wanna stick it up on ebay coz ill get £20 for it i reckon

oh well

 

[CMH]

I'll take it off ya for 20 bux

 

[k.jacko]

Bummer!!!!
resu.... where are you thinking of getting your components from?

 

[resu]

Bummer!!!!
resu.... where are you thinking of getting your components from?

i usually use ebuyer.com
they've been pretty good with me so far plus their orders always come in on time and the stuff is delivered in the morning which leave me the rest of the day to play

i sometimes use savastore but on my last order they took 2 weeks (quoted 3 days) to deliver

why? can you suggest anyone better?

 

[k.jacko]

yeah, well as already posted www.overclockers.co.uk are good for quality components.
www.aria.co.uk are also good too.

 

[resu]

cool
ill have to give them a look after i get back from site

they wouldnt happen to do any socket A mother boards ?