CPU Confusion

[Professor S]

I'm finished saving for a ring, and am now in the process of saving for my future PC. Due to the fact that my current PC is slowly falling to little itty bitty pieces, my time frame has been moved up and I will not be able to wait for Vista (which is probably a smart move) nor will I be able to spend upwards of $4,000.

So here is the build I as thinking of:

CPU - Core 2 Duo 6700
Memory - 2 Gig Corsair "Xtreme", upgradeable to 4
Video - SLI: x2 nVidia 7900 256mb
OS - Windows XP Professional (its more stable)
Price - About $2,000 with other peripherals from Cyberpower + a 3 year warrantee and customer service.

The Core 2 Duo Extreme is way too expensive for not inceasing performace by very much over the 6700. BUT... the specs on the 6700 and 6600 are very similar, is there a big speed difference between the 2?

When having an SLI, how important is it to have 2 beastly vid cards? Would upgrading or downgrading affect the performance that much?

DirectX10 is only going to be available with Vista. Will that crush my gaming dreams when Vista finally comes out?

[Null]

how much are you looking at with the core 2 duo you selected?
while the core2duos are top right now in terms of speed... AMD processors have droped in price like crazy. the processor i just bought at 200 is now 99, and i can get a some duel core amd's at under 200 which were just recently over 400.

Intels have the best performance for another year till the new amd's come out. but AMD has the better prices right now i think.


SLI mode just increases whatever graphics card you have... i think you need 2 exactly the same, but im not sure. so you dont need the tops one, you could get any 2 that can do sli mode (that are the same) and run em for a performance gain..
altho it might be better not to mention cheaper just to get a nice single card. if you get a SLI compatable board, you can always buy its mate to put in sli mode later on.


Are you going to buy Vista and install it on your PC when it comes out? comes will certainly come with options to run in DX9 and below mode, you wont get the performance gain and extra features of DX10 tho. thats not saying they'll look bad at all. but a lot of the spiffy new special effects might be missing.

if you wanted thoes features later on, you'd simply have to buy vista and install it, then buy a dx10 compatable gfx card. (perhaps another reason not to go full out on a gfx card right away, maybe buy a resonably priced nice card now with an upgrade in mind later)

When i recently upgraded my computer, i bought a motherboard that had both AGP and PCIe slots, so i could keep my current agp graphics card, and im buying a new dx10 PCIe card when i get vista.

theres many options to think about.

[Professor S]

Yes there is a LOT to think about. So much it makes my brain hurt.

CPU - The 6600 is around $350 and the 6700 is about $550, but its gotten crazy good reviews to the point that it says its as good as if not better than AMD's top of the line right now (cnet.com gave the 6700 a rare 9.0!). They are both similar with the same L2 cache and the only diff is clock speed. What is AMD's top going for right now? Keep in mind, I'm not afraid to unload on a good processor, as I want this to last fro a good bit, but the 6800 performance improvement is minimal over the 6700 and 6600 with the main difference being ease of overclocking.

Video - I think I'll go with the single card option with SLI MB, especially now that you told me I'd need to get new video cards that are DX10 compatable. Had no idea that would be an issue.

Thanks for the help, anyone else have any suggestions?

[Null]

well if you want tops in the processor department stick with the core 2 duo right now. as i said. untill AMD's new stuff to match em comes out next year, the core2duos have top honors in processors.

if its in your price range, i'd stick with the core 2 duo 6700 or 6600

[Professor S]

FYI, I just experimented with the Cyberpower customization tool, and I have exciting news...

I used their configurator to design my first PC, and it came out to $2,086 before rebates.

Then I opened a "bundled" PC package and cusomized it until it was exactly what I built with the configurator... and it came out to $1, 923 before rebates. Thats over $150 in savings for just going about things a little differently :-)

[Jason1]

wow, that cyberpower site does seem to have some good deals. I can get a PC on there that kicks my ass for just over a grand.

The one I have now I bought from www.ibuypower.com and ive had few complaints, check them out if your in the mood.

[Professor S]

I've actually been looking at ibuypower too, and they seem to be on par with Cyberpower, if not almost identical. It'll come down to whoever can build me what I want for the least amount of money and the best warrantee and customer service.