Thinking about a new game PC...

[TarJak]

My "current" rig is down for the count at the moment with a dead mobo (under warranty but the place I got it from is closed until 12 Jan!), and I'm thinking about what my next buy should be as even with a new mobo the current is starting to look a little tired.

These are two that I'm comparing and wanted to get some advice from those in the know about whether the AMD or the Intel have any drawbacks or advantages over the other:

AMD AU$970.00
AMD AM2 x4 Core Quad 9950+
ASUS M2N68 Nvidia Chipset -Multi-Layers Socket AM2 940 Motherboard
(AMD Approved Motherboard) “Genuine” AMD COOLING FAN & HEATSINK
AMD AM2 Technology & Re-Programmable Flash Plug & Play BIOS
Genuine Super Fast Synchronous Pipeline Burst CACHE Built-In On CPU
On Board 2xEnhanced “Ultra DMA 133/100 (ATA100) Bus Master Ready” IDE Controller, And Floppy Drive Port,4 Memory Slots
On Board 2xPCI-E Ports, 4 x Enhanced USB Ports, 1 x 16550 High Speed UART Serial Ports,1 x SPP/ECP/EPP Parallel Port
1TB 7200rpm Ultra DMA 100 (ATA-100) Enhanced Cached IDE Dual Channel Hard Disk Drive
2GB DDR2 800 (Double Data Ram)–PC640 0Memory High Speed RAM With EPROM (AMD Approved)
512MB Nvidia GF 9600GT 16x 3D PCI-E Video Display Card
Support DirectX 9 with Full Screen MPEG/DVD Playback True Colour Graphic Accelerator Card
1.44MB 31/2” High Density Floppy Disk Drive
Integrated Gigabit Network Card (Integrated)
Dual Layer DVD RW Drive - Enhanced Cached ATAPI IDE CD-ROM
ASUS “6 Channel” AC97 Digital Audio Stereo Plug & Play Sound Card(Integrated)
Aopen H500Y Deluxe ATX Medium Tower Case

Intel AU$1060.00
775 Pin NetBurst Micro-Architecture Pentium 4 Processor
ASUS P5QC – Intel Chipset Motherboard – Support Intel Celeron, Dual Core, Core 2 Duo, Core Quad CPUs
Pentium 775pin ICH7, Hyper Threading, Prescott and MMX Technology & Re-Programmable Flash Plug & Play BIOS
Genuine Super Fast Synchronous Pipeline Burst CACHE Built-In On CPU
On Board 1xEnhanced “Ultra DMA 100/66 Bus Master” IDE Controller (Up to 2 IDE Devices), 4x DIMM Slots And Floppy Drive Port
On Board 1 x (16x) PCI-E Port, 4xEnhanced USB Ports
1 TB 7200rpm Enhanced Cached IDE Dual Channel Hard Disk Drive
2GB DDR2 800 (Double Data Ram)– PC6400 Memory-High Speed W/EPROM (Intel Approved)
512MB Nvidia 9600GT 16x 3D PCI-E Video Display Card-Support OpenGL Full Screen MPEG True Colour Accelerator
Dual Layer DVD-RW Drive-Enhanced Cached IDE (Support CDRW, MP3, Digital Audio Extraction)
ASUS ”6 Channel” AC97 Digital Audio Stereo, Plug & Play Sound Card(Integrated)
AOPEN H500Y Deluxe ATX Medium Tower Case
Integrated Gigabit Network Card and Firewire 1394

[Zachstar]

The thing that is frankly getting disturbing is the definition of a "Gaming" PC.

I am not talking about your PC but just the whole thing in general.

Why get an expensive ATX when a 150 dollar microATX has 1 slot for a video card AND has onboard which these days can SLI, Crossfire with the right card? Did I mention that many of these now have the ability to play BluRay with 7.1 audio to HDMI?

I was thinking back to the time I was planning on getting a 900 dollar or so monster build. It would have been obsolete in less than a year (Obsoluete has in modern games would not run at 200 FPS afterwards)

For anything source engine, Crysis, SH4 (and likely SH5), DCS Black Shark, Falcon 4 AF with Freefalcon, BluRay, HDDVD, HD youtube, etc... This with an Hybrid SLI will work JUST fine.

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...211&CatId=2417

(NOTE You WILL need a cooling fan)

[TarJak]

Cooling goes without saying. I haven't decided whether to go for liquid or air cooling. Liquid concernce me a bit but air depends a lot on ambient temp which where I live can get pretty high (30degC plus in summer).

Interesting thought on the micro ATX though. Might be worth looking into.

[Zachstar]

Believe it or not with modern Mobos it is better to go with air.

That is because most of the modern Mobos with good (Not intel) onboard graphics depend on the waste air from the CPU fan to carry that extra bit of heat that it can't radiate away.

I forgot to mention that Windows 7 can run just fine on an OLD POS 800mhz Pent 3 with crappy SLOW 512Mb ram! So that means on such as say AMD 3.0GHz dual it will be SCREAMING fast!

[AVGWarhawk]

I have studied both the AMD and Intel quad cores over the past 4 weeks because I was purchasing a new computer. The AMD can overclock with little effort from my readings. Most believe that the Intel are better but you will pay a bit more for basically the same performance on equal CPU. I also took into consideration were OS and games are headed. From my study, just about everything is going quad. I then studied OS some more and the mainstream looks to be going 64 bit. Vista/Windows 7. Many complained about driver issues for 64 bit but this has become a thing of the past. A lot are now singing the praises of Vista. Also, 64 bit allows for 8 gig RAM to be recognized and purchases of 64 bit Vista have skyrocketed. Personally, I could not see much of a difference in CPU from AMD and Intel, with exception of price. The only thing I would change in either of your builds is up the the RAM to 4 gig and get no less than a 9800gt card.

My build and has shipped:

Phenom X4 9850
4 gig DDR 800 Ram
Asus M2N 560 SLI mobo
600 watt PS
9800GT 512mb vid card
SATA hard drive (same specs as you have on your build)
Usual ROM/DVD, etc
Integrated network
Integrated 7.1 sound
OS Vista 64 bit with SP1

This cost me $924.00 put together and shipping.


Plans:
Add up to 8 gig of ram (the crap is cheap these days!). Also, I can go up to faster RAM with the mobo I purchased.
Upgrade PS for SLI of 2 9800GT

Also, cooling. Reading up on the Phenoms, overclocking and cooling with the standard AMD approved air cooling worked fine. No over heat. I have seen claims of up to 3.2 Mhz on the AMD 9850 quad core. Some reviews by the overclocker fan club show very stable at 3.0-3.1. I have seen the standard cooling set up approved by AMD. It is a monster already and keeps them cool. Another important part is your box you plan on jamming this stuff in. Coolmaster are about the best boxes I have seen and are excellent for keeping the heat moving out of the box.