[internisus]

I feel like kind of going back on the loose budget maximums I announced at the start of the thread. Realizing that I can put together the computer and get a good monitor for under $950 is virtually intoxicating. Really, I want to set my limit for this whole project at $1000 now, and that includes mouse and keyboard as well. I'll be able to afford some games and still have my next two months be financially secure even if I bring in nothing that whole time. Since I'm in an unstable place right now, that's important to me. Basically, either I compromise on the power and my "pro-sumer" drive or I can't do this.

I am thinking now that I should go with a monitor recommended for 1440 x 900 rather than the 1680 x 1050 SCEPTRE if only because I will get better performance at the lower resolution.

And the one thing I really would rather not compromise on is storage space. I've been frustrated by 40- and 80-gb drives for a long, long time, and it would feel just fantastic to have that 500gb. I'll be using this thing for a lot more than playing games.

Regarding the video card comparison, if this is really very noticably better than the Radeon HD 2600 I might be willing because that's only like $50-$60 more -- but only if I would be able to save elsewhere. If the 1950XT is going to require a nicer motherboard or a heatsink... The thing is, if I can get the 2600 for around $135, get a cheap micro mobo at like $60, and avoid needing a heatsink, the cost difference really adds up.

Remember, I'm thinking of this now as a pretty temporary machine. I doubt I'll go six months without swapping parts or rebuilding entirely. I've just got to have something right now, and if Bioshock is the only thing I'll really take a hit on then I'm happy to save money.

ON THE OTHER HAND, if I compromise and take a 250GB drive and substitute in the 1950XT, Panoptic's computer would probably only take me to $1100 total. I'm really torn here. I don't know what to do. I keep fluctuating back and forth between the need to budget and the thought that I can do a lot better for just a little more money.

Five minutes ago, half-way through writing this post, I was in Felix's camp, but now I'm thinking of building the Panoptic machine. It's a matter of willpower, I guess, but the more powerful computer with the compromise 1950XT could happen for only like $150 more total than what I was planning before. And shit, I'm sure I can sell something on ebay. Or donate sperm. And my only other planned purchase for some time is Phoenix Wright 3.

Please, tell me what I can expect from the 1950XT and the 2600 respectively at a resolution of 1440 x 900 for all three of: Episode 2, STALKER, and Bioshock. I mean, it feels like I would see top performance in the first two with either card and Bioshock would be the only noticeable difference. If you guys could break that down for me and describe the performance I can expect on those specific games, it would help me to visualize what I'd get for my money and be able to make a decision here.

I'm sorry for being such a pain and I really appreciate the efforts you're going to. Thanks a lot.




Edit: Another option is to really do a ridiculous job making this blog for work and charge like 30 hours. That would add some money to my coffer right away. I wonder if I can get away with it. What would a professional charge to put together a wordpress on a company's private domain with a customized visual theme? If 30 hours x $15 is less than that, even if the pro would only take like 20 minutes, then I wouldn't feel bad about it.

I can also go into the attic and see what I have to sell.



Edit 2: I feel like I'm dragging this out and it must be annoying. Felix, Panoptic, if you guys wouldn't mind making each of your cases one more time, I'll make a damned choice already and put together a final list, which I'll ask you to look over and make sure is sensible and compatible. Is that okay? We're almost done here, I think. Thanks again.

[Felix]

i feel like i've pretty much said my piece at this point, but based on the above post, i'd just like to clarify that the x1950 is not a directx10 card (and running it on <400w is a little worrying), whereas the hd2600 is, and frankly six months is an absurdly short amount of time to plan on waiting between upgrades. though it's been said before, source is, for the most part, extremely undemanding compared to anything else you'll be wanting to play. don't forget that.

and i guess i'll reiterate one last time based on the case panoptic linked in his last post that it stands to reason that the only cases i find to be at all sensible-looking are those which have some kind of "micro" designation. having the space for five optical drives really turns me off; to each their own.

my budgeting, assuming you take the larger hard drive along with more or less everything else i've recommended as the topic has played out, would run you about $850 with monitor in the final analysis.

also, 1440x900 is a nice choice.

i'd be happy to answer any other questions you have, at any rate.

[internisus]

Thanks, Felix. And now I'm back in your camp again, just like that. Because that's a really attractive price figure. Although I feel the same way about unnecessary space in a case, since this is just going to be a temporary build that doesn't matter much to me.

ON THE OTHER HAND I could probably sell my 7 box sets of The West Wing for some extra money, and that's fine with me because it would give me an excuse to repurchase later in the form of that attractive single gift box.

So, Felix, you're saying that I can't expect too much in the way of performance with STALKER and Bioshock on a 2600, right?

[Felix]

call me biased because i'd love to see this thing in person all put together in a couple months' time.

bioshock; eh, i can't imagine you wouldn't get 40+ frames in 1440x900 with everything on the highest or second-highest setting except AA.

[internisus]

Hopefully you will, and since I'll be seeing it in person all the time I have no problem with that particular bias.

[Felix]

it's 100% post-processing (by definition) so logically, yeah, it's a pretty signifcant hit, second only to resolution.

ALSO! guardian. good news. the fact that you think of 40 frames per second as "pretty reasonable!" (for the most demanding game on the market, mind you) means you are officially in my camp. unequivocal diagnosis.

ALTHOUGH KEEP IN MIND that this just struck me: i was not taking it to heart until now how often you for some reason plan on upgrading this thing (seriously six months is crazy talk), but my case/PSU pretty much locks you into nice second-tier ati cards. the idea with these, as i said before, is that it's just silly to buy one more often than once every two/three years, but just so we're clear.

[internisus]

[Felix]

consoles games variously run at 30 (MGS3), actually, which you probably knew. and 40 looks remarkably closer to 60 than 30.

10/100mbps ethernet is what every network card on the planet is.

also - sigh - though i hate them, if you dislike the athena case so much, these are that much more expandable.

[internisus]

Ah, ok.

Yeah, I just have to keep in mind that I'm going to be impressed basically no matter what... so I should be financially sensible about this.

I don't really like the Qpack, but I suppose I've never actually seen one in use either, so it might be nicer for me than the Athenatech just for novelty. Would any of your recommendations change if I decided to go with it?

[Felix]

heh, nope. really it'd just make upgrading to the inevitable geforce 9800 a year and a half from now only cost five hundred dollars.

(please don't be stupid and do this)

(upgrade to the radeon4500 in twice as much time for two hundred bucks)

[internisus]

Ah, don't worry about that. I'm inexperienced, not insane!

[Panoptic]

[internisus]

Is there anything current for which I would ever need DX10 capability?

[Panoptic]

I don't think any games will force you to have a DX10 card to play - at least for quite a while; a lot of DX8/9 games could fall back onto older shader models.

[internisus]

If I take the X1950 over the 2600, can I still go with the whole Felix-brand budget plan? Either 350W or 500W, no additional cooling?

[Panoptic]

Anything under a stout 400W power supply would be pushing it with a video card like that, unfortunately.

[internisus]

[Panoptic]

Should be sufficient. There's two 12V rails so it'd be in one's best interest to balance them out, unless they automatically combine if you go over the load on one. The 1950 is a rather large card, but one of the reviewers there said he fit an 8800 Ultra into it, so I'm guessing it'll fit.

Here's an HL2 screen running on my 7800GTX (1920x1200, 4x MSAA, 16x anisotropic). Even when it gets busy I don't see the counter drop below 80FPS. Plus, Source seems to favor ATI cards.

By the way, if you get a motherboard with onboard video and can survive with it for a while, the 8800GTS and 2900XT (both DX10, though I think the ATI is 10.1 compliant?) might become more reasonable propositions in November when the Nvidia GF9 series drops.

[Felix]

for what it's worth, if you must i'd recommend an 8800 over an x1950.

[internisus]

But that's another $100! I mean, I might be willing to go from the 2600 to the X1950 -- I have to put together the total cost and see -- but the 8800 is too far. Why would you say that?

Someone said this on the X1950 reviews: "This card will run Bioshock and other recent games at highest settings with a nice FPS." So I'm thinking about it.

[Panoptic]

[internisus]

[Felix]

would you rather have a 2006 civic or a 2002 passat?

[Panoptic]

[Felix]

okay, yeah, i admit that was pithy as hell, and also it kind of stands to reason that when trying to come up with the automobile equivalent of "top of the line consumer device" the best i could do was a passat.

with respect to all of the points you raised above, i'd like to clarify that my original intent in recommending the 2600 went hand-in-hand with the small case, relatively weak PSU, etc. it was always a package mentality, and if he's definitely going qpack over athenatech, then it's that much less relevant.

[internisus]

Okay so I was going to post a FINAL LIST now but I've decided that it would be massively foolish of me to blow my money even on something I desire this greatly at such a time when I don't know when I'll see more money. I mean, if I had a way to develop $500 tonight, I would buy all of this tomorrow. It's frustrating because that's all the difference I would need to be okay with it; I'm right on the border. But it would be foolish to selfishly indulge myself in disregard of my financial responsibilities two months from now.

Hopefully I won't be waiting on this too much longer and I'll make it happen soon. Depending on how things go, I may even step things up by a few hundred to get a really good machine instead of the just-for-now version. Or maybe not. We'll see.

In the meantime, I think I'm pretty much set to make my choices now -- whatever approach I decide to take -- thanks to all of this advice. There is one last thing I'd like help with: I would appreciate recommendations for a nice keyboard and mouse. I'm not going to go in for a $200 Razer right now, of course, but some enjoyable, tactile equipment would be really nice. Should be good for gaming as well as browsing the internet and typing posts like this one. I'm not even sure whether I'd prefer a quiet keyboard or one with a satisfying clickity-clack.

If you guys could just suggest something for that, I should be set to put this on hold and let you know what I'm planning to buy when that time comes. Thanks again!

[Panoptic]

Mouse (as long as you're right handed): Logitech MX518, or, if you feel like spending a bit more, the G5. Just looked, the G5 is only $5 more than the MX518. Totally worth the difference.

Keyboard... well, I've got a G15, and the LCD is neat for a little while, but beyond that it's pretty pointless. The G11 is the same keyboard only without the LCD. The key action, while not "clicky" is super clean, and most keyboards feel like mush compared to it now. Beyond that, I had a $25 Logitech Media Elite before this one and liked it, but that goes to the non-standard (though, more logical) vertical Home/End/Page Up/Down orientation. As far as soft-touch keyboards go, anything $20-30 from Microsoft, Logitech, or IBM should serve you well. If you've got a big electronics boutique near you, you might try hammering away on a Saitek Eclipse I/II or a Razer Tarantula, as well.

If you're looking for the clicky keys, the only real option that I know of right now is the Das Keyboard 2 (or something from www.pckeyboard.com), but that doesn't have any labels on the keys. I don't know of any clicky keyboards with multimedia keys, which I can't go without anymore, honestly. I've got an old Chicony keyboard that sounds like the apocalypse when you put a fast typist on it, but I can't use it because it doesn't have Windows keys. Oh, yeah, Logitech's MX5000 keyboard has slightly clicky keys on it, but it's wireless. Meh.

[Shapermc]

Ok, hey I hope no one minds or is sick of this yet, but I want to jump in. I'm bascially thinking of doing the same thing since I'm leaving my job in a week and will need a Desktop.

I haven't built a desktop since '99 so I know a lot of things have changed. Not including a monitor/keyboard/mouse I want to put together a PC for $600-700 that can run most games released through this year at very high speeds (not necessarily Maxed setting, but very high quality) at good frame rates (60fps for online, 30fps+ for single player). I also want to be able to fill at least the "minimum requirements" for most games (barring shit that comes out of left field that requires sick specs) for the next 2 years. I'm not talking future-proof, but I want to be able to dabble and stay relatively current, you know?

I don't want to mess around with overclocking because I have a bad history with it. I'm also not a memory hog for hdd, I could be very comfortable with 250gb, and honestly can't see a need for much more.

Any recomendations would be awesome, and I would really appreciat it. If you guys want I can split this off into another thread if you think it would be too confusing, but it seems like intern is done.

OH! One other thing: I want to be able to run everything released up through 2003 at like a million frames per second (i.e. rock fucking solid) at Max resolution (especailly shit from the HL1 engine and Quake 1-3 and shit). I know that's probably a given, but perhaps theirs certain graphics cards that don't do so well with older games. Also, I like ATI better since being burned a few times with Nvidia upgrading and ditching my card for the dust too quickly in the 90's.
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The bad sleep well at The Gamer's Quarter

[Felix]

shaper, go ahead and read through this topic; given the few requirements you've set, i'd say my advice is more than generalizable to your needs, and this topic is actually pretty readable overall given the subject matter.

[Broco]

Building your own computer has always been rather simple -- buy components, slot them into each other in the only way that fits -- but I find it tiresome how all the details need to be relearned every 6 months.

[dhex]

that's true but i must say i really like sata. the difference is appreciable and unless you have a jackass of a motherboard installing the drivers isn't much sweat.

shaper: i would say go for a dx10 card and a vista/xp dual boot. on the other hand, i would say relax and just go with the flow, yo. (if anything older games might run too fast - hl2 with everything maxed to fuck and back on my 7800gt is almost too floaty at times.)
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[Shapermc]

[Panoptic]

Well, it seems like there's an 8800GT on the horizon now in the $200-250 range that outperforms the 8800GTS. Apparently there will be an 8900GTS and 8900GTX, and the 8800GT is a scaled down 8900. Supposedly, ATI's 2950 is a monster, so Nvidia decided to put out a revision of the GF8 series. *shrug*

[shnozlak]

[Monochrome]

Is it naive to think that a 300W power supply could be adequate for some mid-range upgrades I'm considering? What are the consequences of not having enough wattage?

By "mid-range" I mean "I'm cutting corners like a sonovabitch to keep costs down". For example, I'm currently favoring a GeForce 8500 instead of an 8800.

[Panoptic]

[Judge Ito]

I've been reading this thread the last couple days, and I'm thankful for everyone's input so far. I've narrowed down the upgrades I'm looking at, but I'd like to clear up a few things, first.

- I'm looking at a 1950 card right now, since I'd rather have a full-on DX9 card than the go-between, all-bases-covered deal with the 2600. What's the difference between the GT, XT, and PRO classifications?

- Considering that last point, is there any reason why I'd rather have a 256MB GT or XT card versus a 512MB PRO card? (I'm limited to an AGP slot, here, and those are my only options at Newegg)

- It looks like no matter what video card I decide on, I'll need a new power supply. Is there anything special I need to know about buying a replacement other than (obviously) finding one with higher wattage? I'm talking about replacing the vanilla 250w power supply in a Dell Dimension system, and I'd rather not buy anything that will make my computer, y'know, explode.

[internisus]

Been watching videos of Crysis lately and not sure anymore if I'll have the willpower to build a machine that costs less than $2000.

[Panoptic]

PC Power & Cooling has Dell direct replacement PSU's, so you may want to check them out. Also, the 8800GT 256MB and 512MB come out in about a week, for $200 and $250 respectively, and they haul some ass. At stock clocks they're about halfway between an 8800GTS and 8800GTX, and I bet they'd pass the GTX if you were willing to overclock.

XT/XTX is usually the top of the range for ATI, and the Pro being a lower range. For Nvidia, GT is a bit quicker than a standard card, and they seem to be using GTX/GTS for the top, and 2nd to top of the range, respectively. Then there's the GS, which is basically the bottom-end solution in the given series (excluding the LE, which only pops up on the lowest-end, barely-better-than-onboard-video solutions). The main thing to worry about is to look for the number of shader units; sometimes the lower-end Pro/GT cards have some of them disabled, so they're not as good as just lower-clocked versions of the higher end cards.

Low-end cards often have tons of memory installed to make them look better to folks just deciding on basic numbers. The GT/XT would generally outperform these in just about every way, but 256MB is pushing the limits for a lot of upcoming games.

Also: Everyone at Futuremark seems to be getting about 30fps in Crysis running Core 2's and 8800's. I've heard that during an interview, someone at Crytek said a Quad-core CPU should be first on your list of upgrades to play the game maxed out. *shrug*

[dhex]

crysis is stupid intensive.

very pretty even on low though! but i too am eyeing the 8800gt and thinking perhaps yes perhaps i would like to shoot some koreans on medium settings.
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[Judge Ito]