High End PC Purchase

[subodhpatil]

Hello
I have decided to buy new PC.
My main requirements are working with Visual studio 2008, Playing games, home entertainment, working with office 2007. The high performance is must. The budget is less than 70,000. It’s ok if it goes 10-15 thousand more.
I have decided the configuration as below. Please provide your view.


1
Processor.
(Any one of the following)
Intel® Core™2 Extreme Processor QX9775
Intel® Core™2 Extreme Processor QX9770
Intel® Core™2 Extreme Processor QX9650
Intel® Core™2 Extreme Processor QX6850
Intel® Core™2 Extreme Processor QX6800
Intel® Core™2 Extreme Processor QX6700
Intel® Core™2 Quad Processor Q9550
Intel® Core™2 Quad Processor Q9450
Intel® Core™2 Quad Processor Q9300
Intel® Core™2 Quad Processor Q6700
Intel® Core™2 Quad Processor Q6600


2
Mother board
I would like to go with high end Asus mother board.
I prefer ASUS Striker Edition
But a good board in range of 15000+/- will do.

3
Even a DDR3 1333Mhz will do as it costs Rs.4000/GB.
But please suggest compatible one with my board.

4
Hard disk 500 GB Seagate

5
Graphics card:
Currently I want to by only single card with latest GEforce chipset and around 512+ MB memory.
Please suggest

6
Monitor.
22” Samsung LCD Monitor
(Don’t want to go with Dell as they have glossy panels )
Please suggest.

7
Power supply (Cooler Master or Tagan)
I think 600W or 800W is enough.
Please suggest

8
Cabinet. Don’t want to spend too much.
Still cooling is important.

9
Speakers. Required 5.1 Decent one.
Logitech is my preference. Cost should be less than Rs. 10,000/-

10
Keyboard Mouse: Any basic cordless from Logitech or Microsoft.

11
Printer/Scanner.
The printer will be used for 10-15 Continuous days. Will stay off for next 1 month.
I would prefer MFD without FAX and with less cost.

12
DVD Writer with Light Scribe


Please provide cost, brand and model name for each component.

 

[desiibond]

Just wait for two more weeks. With the release of Phenom x4 and 4850/4870, there will be a serious price drop from Nvidia and Intel. Then you can decide on the config.

FYI, Phenom x3 is now a direct competitor to Q6600 and Phenom x4 running at 2.6GHz is direct competitor to Intel's 2.6GHz Quad core processors. Bind them with 780G chipset and new gen ATI cards like 4850 and 4870 and it results in an awesome platform for gaming.

Just wait!!!

 

[spikygv]

plz remove that font. the default is better to read . just my opinion.

1. q9450 - 15.5k ( i doubt if u can find the extreme series , but if u do for a decent price , grab it ) . along with this u'll need a good cooler. i've read that thermalright ultra 120 extreme is pretty good ( source xbitlabs ) - 2.5k

2. intel x38 / x48 based mobo . i suppose abit ix38quadgt may suit ur needs . .i'm not certain of this. ask others . - 13k

3. i dont think its wise to invest in ddr3 now. .agreed , its becoming mainstream . . but 4gb @ 16k bucks isnt all that good. plus they have pretty huge latencies. so i recommend u to go to ddr2 . get a 2 x 2gb sticks from corsair / gskill / OCZ .. read some reviews or wait for others to tell u which exactly is a good model / which has best bang for buck. .. dont invest too much here. rather invest on a better g-card or go crossfire.

4. u said it. get the one with 16mb / 32mb buffer.

5. wait and get a radeon 4870 or 4850.

6. i am also in a dilemma .. i'm considering dell sp2208wfp ( glossy finish ) or samsung 2232bw ( matte finish ). . cant seem to get the price of the latter. .. if u come to a decision here , let me know.

7. corsair hx620W / tx650W should do - 6k .. if u've got cash to burn cooler master real power pro 850W ( make sure its got pcie 8 pin power connector ).

 

[subodhpatil]

I think I should go for ASUS board.
Which intel processors are availble in the Lamington road Mumbai market

 

[adithyagenius]

I am also planning to buy high end system. But the prices of high end graphic cards in India are right now double the prices in US. Have to wait for 4870 to be released in India. Anyways, here are my suggestions
1. Processor: Go for E8500 as this is the best for gaming. No quad core comes near to it. You can actually get away with E8200 if you want to save money. If you really want quad core, go Q9450+ as they have sse4.1 or wait for nehalem.
2. For motherboards, if you are planning SLI please rethink your decision. SLI requires nvidia motherboards, which are having lots of serious issues like not being able to watch videos without your system crashing. They aren't as good as Intel mobos for ocing. Get p45 for single gfx or get x48 for crossfire 4870.
3. DDR3 1333 RAM has insignificant performance increase compared to DDR2 800 mhz and not mention tremendous money wastage. But its upto you.
4. For graphic card, go for 9800gx2, MSI or EVGA. They are better than gtx280 in crysis. If you are going SLI, get 9800gtx. For crossfire, 4870 is best.
5. For HDD, go RAID0 with wd 750gb or if you can afford 1000GB samsung spinpoint. 16MB buffer with optimised code can beat 32MB buffer. If you have lots of money, get velociraptor RAID0 and a third HDD of your choice for dumping.
6. Not all Dell panels are glossy. I have e228wfp and its not glossy. For gaming TN matrix provides good response time. E228wfp has less than 2ms display lag. Samsung has much higher lag hitting 30ms. When you buy from LG or Samsung you are playing Russian roulette. You might get panels prepared by some other companies which are of inferior quality. LG has a model which has 0ms lag but its not available in India and involves the roulette. I recommend Dell.
7. For power supply, get corsair 620hx for single gfx or 9800gtx sli. For quad sli, get 750TX.
8. For cabinets, I would recommend, NZXT LEXA blue LED, for its light weight and quiet fans and most importantly vfm. For more cooling get NZXT Zero. Zero is ultra vfm. If you want to go expensive custom fan builds, get the cooler master cabinets.
9. For vfm gaming speakers, get T6060. If you can stretch you budget a little, get logitech g51.
10. I dont recommend cordless for gaming. Get saitek cyborg gaming keyboard. If you are right handed , razer deathadder is awesome. Incase, you want ambidextrous choose between Genius 535 navigator and Razer Diamondback 3G (non green).
11. Search for Samsung 22x. If you cannot find it get 20x. Lightscribe is totally useless in India, so rethink you requirements.

 

[spikygv]

^^ i disagree with point 6 and ur choice of g-card.( SLI )

dell e228wfp has 5ms response time and it doesnt have RTC . so its not a good monitor for gamin . e2208wfp has RTC and hence 2ms response time. . even dell monitors sometimes have response times of > 15ms ..but typically , we're supposed to get 2ms. . no samsung or LG model sports a response time of 30ms. . it may be the worst case but certainly not typical.. .i'm against LG because of large RTC errors. . samsung 2232bw i heard is 22k which is not worth its price. .so we'll be left with only dell e2208wfp ( glossy ) .

regarding g-card. .his budget is higher than most buyers. but still its not soo huge as to go for SLI gtx260 .. .i strongly recommend radeon 4870. if u've got more cash , save it and get ur next g-card sooner. . .

 

[subodhpatil]

Ok, Finally I have decided to have PC purchase on this Friday(11/07/2008).
Because I dont have PC right now, my Old is old and dead.

I wan tto go for high end but it shoudl be valu for money.

1.Processor has to be Quad core (I hpe all game will run on it, yes dual cores are better for game but working with Visual studio.net requiresquad core).

2. Mother board P5E3 Deluxe/WiFi-AP@n (check theitwares.com) OR asus striker II Formula Edition

3. Ram 4GB DDR2 800Mhz

4. Only Signle grapphics card GEForce latest chipset but chipper one

5. Hard disk 500GB 7200.11 from Segate (I dont have any idea about RAID0 please suggest how to do that)

6. Other things are going to be basics

7. Inject MFD with FAX.

Please have your views before this friday.

 

[adithyagenius]

^
Reconsider you motherboard choice. You are wasting a lot of money on something fancy. Just think of the alternatives. Get P45 motherboard because of PCI-E 2.0 16x. PCI-E 16x is a bottleneck for crysis. You can get better wifi if you get discrete card. Get 9800gx2. P45 has ICH10R southbridge which supports RAID0. Buy two identical hard disks just set it to RAID0 in BIOS. You will need an external floppy drive or you need to integrate the RAID drivers into you windows xp cd. Best of luck. Asus p45 mobos have linux onboard which allows you to boot into the integrated linux in 5 seconds. You can then browse, chat or do voip. I think the cheapest of them costs less than 7k.

^^ i disagree with point 6 and ur choice of g-card.( SLI )

dell e228wfp has 5ms response time and it doesnt have RTC . so its not a good monitor for gamin . e2208wfp has RTC and hence 2ms response time. . even dell monitors sometimes have response times of > 15ms ..but typically , we're supposed to get 2ms. . no samsung or LG model sports a response time of 30ms. . it may be the worst case but certainly not typical.. .i'm against LG because of large RTC errors. . samsung 2232bw i heard is 22k which is not worth its price. .so we'll be left with only dell e2208wfp ( glossy ) .

regarding g-card. .his budget is higher than most buyers. but still its not soo huge as to go for SLI gtx260 .. .i strongly recommend radeon 4870. if u've got more cash , save it and get ur next g-card sooner. . .

I am not talking about response time man. I am talking of inpute lag, like the one you find in dell e2408

 

[Pathik]

The 4870x2 is coming. $500 from what the winds say.

 

[MetalheadGautham]

The 4870x2 is coming. $500 from what the winds say.

Thats an overkill. I doubt AMD would be stupid enough to price it that low during launch when it can instead raise the price and wait till nVidia brings in a competition to lower the price. This way, it can earn more well deserved profit.

 

[adithyagenius]

^
if AMD prices it higher than 550USD, nvidia becomes vfm. AMD won't do that.

 

[jasku]

Hello
I have decided to buy new PC.
My main requirements are working with Visual studio 2008, Playing games, home entertainment, working with office 2007. The high performance is must. The budget is less than 70,000. It’s ok if it goes 10-15 thousand more.
I have decided the configuration as below. Please provide your view.


1
Processor.
(Any one of the following)
Intel® Core™2 Extreme Processor QX9775
Intel® Core™2 Extreme Processor QX9770
Intel® Core™2 Extreme Processor QX9650
Intel® Core™2 Extreme Processor QX6850
Intel® Core™2 Extreme Processor QX6800
Intel® Core™2 Extreme Processor QX6700
Intel® Core™2 Quad Processor Q9550
Intel® Core™2 Quad Processor Q9450
Intel® Core™2 Quad Processor Q9300
Intel® Core™2 Quad Processor Q6700
Intel® Core™2 Quad Processor Q6600


2
Mother board
I would like to go with high end Asus mother board.
I prefer ASUS Striker Edition
But a good board in range of 15000+/- will do.

3
Even a DDR3 1333Mhz will do as it costs Rs.4000/GB.
But please suggest compatible one with my board.

4
Hard disk 500 GB Seagate

5
Graphics card:
Currently I want to by only single card with latest GEforce chipset and around 512+ MB memory.
Please suggest

6
Monitor.
22” Samsung LCD Monitor
(Don’t want to go with Dell as they have glossy panels )
Please suggest.

7
Power supply (Cooler Master or Tagan)
I think 600W or 800W is enough.
Please suggest

8
Cabinet. Don’t want to spend too much.
Still cooling is important.

9
Speakers. Required 5.1 Decent one.
Logitech is my preference. Cost should be less than Rs. 10,000/-

10
Keyboard Mouse: Any basic cordless from Logitech or Microsoft.

11
Printer/Scanner.
The printer will be used for 10-15 Continuous days. Will stay off for next 1 month.
I would prefer MFD without FAX and with less cost.

12
DVD Writer with Light Scribe


Please provide cost, brand and model name for each component.

1. Go with the Q9300 would be more than sufficient, but if u don't mind spending a bit extra then Q9450

2. Asus Striker formula is based on the Nvidia platform and is only advisable if you want to go for a dual GPU (Geforce cards) setup. Right now the ATI cards 4850 and 4870 are in, and are top performers in their segment. So if at all a dual GPU setup is required you go for the X38/x48 mobo, with which you can CrossFire (dual GPU setup of the ATI cards)

Since you like Asus the Maximus Formula would be my recommendation it costs -15k
If you dont need a dual card setup, then the P45 would be the best option as it has PCIE 2.0, the top board will cost you around 10k

3. DDR3 Ram is not worth the price atm, its better to get DDR2 (Corsair,Gskill, Patriot,OCZ) get the 1066Mhz speed, it will complement ur setup very well.

4.Hdd get the WD640AKS - 4.2k, its really fast, the best out there, look no further trust me.

5.Currently it has to be the 4850-12k, if you want superior power 4870 - 20k. Best would be the 4850x2 (24k) crossfire setup, will beat the GTX280(arnd 37k) in all.
games.

6.You can get the US version, only the 2208 is a glossy panel, not theE228WFP.

7. PSU for single GPU setup Corsair HX620, dual GPU Corsair TX750 / Tagan BZ800. Dont compromise on this component, its the heart of ur system.

8. Cooler Master CM690-4k excellent value for money and a cool cabinet too.

Rest whatever your budget permits.

PS- for speakers if u go for the z-5500, they are for arnd 15k, you wont be disappointed!

 

[spikygv]

^
Reconsider you motherboard choice. You are wasting a lot of money on something fancy. Just think of the alternatives. Get P45 motherboard because of PCI-E 2.0 16x. PCI-E 16x is a bottleneck for crysis. You can get better wifi if you get discrete card. Get 9800gx2. P45 has ICH10R southbridge which supports RAID0. Buy two identical hard disks just set it to RAID0 in BIOS. You will need an external floppy drive or you need to integrate the RAID drivers into you windows xp cd. Best of luck. Asus p45 mobos have linux onboard which allows you to boot into the integrated linux in 5 seconds. You can then browse, chat or do voip. I think the cheapest of them costs less than 7k.



I am not talking about response time man. I am talking of inpute lag, like the one you find in dell e2408

oh ok . any dell / samsung 22' monitors with 2ms response time and matte ( non glossy ) finish ?

 

[subodhpatil]

High Jasku and Adithya

I like your views.
I have high budget but I dont want to spend too much.
If with Laser MFD (cost < 10K) I can get it for 70K its very good.



I want my system upgradable.
In future I would like to go with Dual GPU Card solution.

Monitor e228wfp is really availble at lamington Road?

I think processor should be anyting above Q9300 or atleast Q9300.
Please suggest Motherboard (Asus if you can)-Single Graphics Card and DDR2 RAM 1066Mhz.


Considering future upgrades Tagan BZ800 is nice choice for Power supply. I would have buy 1000W UPS for It.


Please suggest the best system .

Hi All

Please have your comment on this

Processor
Intel Q9450 (2.66 Ghz 12MB Cache 1333Mhz.) (or latest available)
Motherboard + Graphics card
1. Asus Striker Edition (NVIDIA nForce 780i SLI Chip) + GEforce9600 (or 8800) OR
2. Asus Maximus Formulla II (Intel P45) + ATI Radeon™ HD 4850
RAM
DDR II : 2GB (800Mhz) [or 2GB (1066Mhz) if not too costly]
SMPS :
Tagaz BZ 700. (Or cooler master)
Cabinet
CoolerMaster CM690
Harddisk :
1.Westarn Digital / Segate 500GB (32MB buffer) OR
2.Westarn Digital / Segate Two 350 GB in RAID 0
DVD Writer
Samsung 22x/20x SATA
Monitor
1. Dell e228wfp
2. Samsung 22 '' 2243NWX
3. Samsung LTM220M1
KeyBoard Mouse
1. Logitech Cordless Keyboard + Mouse Set Ex90

Speaker
Logitech G51
Printer
MFD (Laser) from Samsung
MFD (Inject) from HP

 

[adithyagenius]

^
Depends on when you want to upgrade. If you are adding the second graphics card within few months like 3 months or so it is reasonable. But if you are upgrading after 15 months, you would rather throw away your old graphics card and buy a faster one which will be faster than two of the previous ones. Also, nehalem processors aren't going to run on current mobos which may also be the part you want to upgrade. This may result in upgrading your RAM to DDR3. So its better to buy a decent psu , cabinet, monitor and speaker system with MTBF and upgrade headroom for 10 years atleast. Even if PCI-E power connectors changem you can request corsair to provide new ones like it offered PCIe 6+2pin cablef or ownder of old 620hx when it became a standard. DVD writer and hard disk will also continue to work. You will have to replace procy+mobo+gfx+RAM when upgrading after 2 years. So do not spend money on false hopes of upgradability. Try to allocate money to satisfy your needs till next upgrade. Its a waste to buy dual GPU mobo if you are buying only single gpu now.

 

[moshel]

9. For vfm gaming speakers, get T6060. If you can stretch you budget a little, get logitech g51.
10. I dont recommend cordless for gaming. Get saitek cyborg gaming keyboard. If you are right handed , razer deathadder is awesome. Incase, you want ambidextrous choose between Genius 535 navigator and Razer Diamondback 3G (non green).

On topic:
the G51 suits ur needs pretty well.

as for the mouse, i say it depends on ur grip. if u use ur mouse with just ur fingers then go for one of the Razer mouses'. if u have a palm grip, i.e. u rest ur whole palm on the mouse then go for Logitech MX518 which is a optical based mose or the more expensive laser G9. also why not invest in a good mouse pad when ur spending so much money. u can get pretty good mousepads ranging from Rs. 600 (steel series) to Rs. 2000 (Razer ExactMat)

off topic:
Saitek Cyborg Gaming Keyboard is available in india????? I wanna put my hands on that baby. i saw the website of the saitek dealer of india and they dont have this keyboard listed. although they do have the eclipse which i would have bought if it was available earlier. but after seeing the cyborg. man do hell with the eclipse, razer lycosa, razer tarantula and Logitech G15.

cyborg beats all of them!

 

[adithyagenius]

^
dude you have to persevere to get gr8 stuff in india. Me and my friend got Sennheisser HD280 Pro and Asus Xonar DX for less than 11k. I got 320GB WD Passport for 7k. Try to find xonar and you will not find it anywhere even now I think. You just have to persuade shop owners to import them.

 

[jasku]

hi Subodh, here are my suggestions:

Processor
Intel Q9450 (2.66 Ghz 12MB Cache 1333Mhz.) (or latest available)- This chip is great and more than enough to keep you going for a couple years.
Motherboard + Graphics card
1. Asus Striker Edition (NVIDIA nForce 780i SLI Chip) + GEforce9600 (or 8800) OR - this is not the best VFM option rite now!!
2. Asus Maximus Formulla II (Intel P45) + ATI Radeon™ HD 4850 - If u want dual GPU setup then you must go for x38/x48 based boards (suggest the Maximus formula by Asus-15k or the Gigabyte X38 DS4 for about 11.2k are excellent boards) and not the P45, the x38/48 have 2 PCIE 2.0 slots which work 16x as compared to the P45 in which also has 2 PCIE 2.0 slots, but when the second card is added works at 8x, which a bottleneck for the CF setup. I got a 4850 couple days, and I can tell it is fantastic, great VFM. 2 of em in Corssfire is simply stunning performance at 22k!
RAM
DDR II : 2GB (800Mhz) [or 2GB (1066Mhz) if not too costly] - I suggest 2GB 1066MHz would be around 4-5k get any of the top brands Corsair/OCZ/ Patriot, my personal fav is Corsair with 10yr warranty.
SMPS :
Tagaz BZ 700. (Or cooler master)- No doubt here,,it has to be Tagan, spend close to 1k more are get the Bz-800
Cabinet
CoolerMaster CM690 - Good choice
Harddisk :
1.Westarn Digital / Segate 500GB (32MB buffer) OR- For HDD, you would be crazy to go for anthing other than the WD640AKS - its a 640GB WD HDD, which has speeds equivalent to the Raptor! Pls dont think of anything else, u can 2 of em in Raid, you will have a screaming setup!
2.Westarn Digital / Segate Two 350 GB in RAID 0
DVD Writer
Samsung 22x/20x SATA
Monitor
1. Dell e228wfp - I would go for the Dell
2. Samsung 22 '' 2243NWX
3. Samsung LTM220M1
KeyBoard Mouse
1. Logitech Cordless Keyboard + Mouse Set Ex90