[Shapermc]

[Panoptic]

As far as PSU's go, a powerful video card can take 150-200+ watts by itself when it's presented with a load. CPU's can take as low as 40-70 watts (low-energy desktop models), and as much as 125-200+ under load. Then factor in the fact that you have a chipset, a hard drive with at least one motor that's always on, one or two optical drives that spin up and down constantly when there's a disc inserted, various motherboard components, network adapter, sound card, etc.. So you can see how the wattage requirement in a high-end system can build up quickly. Also note that almost no power supplies on the market will generate their full-rated power all the time (check the efficiency ratings - anything over the efficiency level (watch for temperature level and how it factors in) is lost as heat). So, if driving the described system at full load with two hard drives and two optical drives, plus a few USB devices, it'd be safe to say that you'd need a reasonably efficient 600W PSU to be covered.

As far as the video card goes - the 256MB card will be about the same speed - in fact perhaps ever so slightly faster as the GPU doesn't have to address as much memory, however 256MB is going to limit the amount of texture detail the card is capable of producing and still remain running at the full speed the 512MB card would offer. I, personally, would spend the extra $50, especially considering this upcoming $250 card is beating cards that cost over $400~500 right now. As far as availablilty - the test cards are in reviewers' hands. You should actually be able to go out and buy one right now.

[Shapermc]

[Panoptic]

With a single drive of each type and no overclocking, you might get by on a GOOD 400 watt supply. Otherwise, that OCZ I linked earlier is a good unit for the price. Just note that 12V rail amperage is the important number when driving the CPU and video cards. If you find a 400~500W with a 12V rail (or combined rails) with more amperage than your average 600, it'd probably be a safe bet.

But yeah, unfortunately the card's street price is going to be a bit high right away (Newegg has a Gigabyte 512MB for $270), as they're going to be in high demand for a bit. If you shop around, you can probably find one at the $250 point.

[Shapermc]

Ok, I think I have my system built. Here’s what I got so far, and let me know if I’m missing anything (dear god I hope not because I’m over what I wanted to spend anyways):

Case: Apevia X-QPack2-BL. 99$
MoBo: (open box) ASUS Micro ATX Intel Motherboard. $35
Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo 2.2GHz. $127
Graphics Card: GIGABYTE GeForce 8800GT 512MB. $270
Memory: Transcend JETRAM 2GB (2x1GB) (PC2 6400). $50
HDD: Western Digital Caviar SE 250GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s. $65
Optical: SAMSUNG 20X DVDR Burner Black. $28

Total: $673.93
Shipping: $26.13
Final: $700.06

So, I’d like to save an extra $50~70 on the graphics card if they will really go down to $200, but that just seems like a shocking price point to me. Anyways, this is only _slightly_ higher than what I wanted to pay, and pretty awesome it would seem. Any recomendations on where I may have cut too many corners and should upgrade? I tried to balance price and quality (lowest price for acceptable quality).

Anyways, *most importantly*, like, all this shit will fit together and then be a fully working PC when I turn it on (and have the drivers and an OS and all that) right? That’s what it seems like to me, but I may have missed something.

EDIT: Oh shit! I got approved as a newegg.com preferred account and that no payments for 6 months ends TODAY. Damnit. I may have to PHONE some motherfuckers to make sure this is an OK deal.
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The bad sleep well at The Gamer's Quarter

[Panoptic]

Get a SATA DVD burner instead of a PATA. Less of a pain in the ass, and cleaner cabling. Make sure the power supply has a pair of SATA power connectors, or comes with wire adapters. The motherboard... a VIA chipset isn't going to give you the best performance. Try to shimmy a board with either an Intel or Nvidia chipset in there, if you can. Otherwise, looks good.

[Shapermc]

[Panoptic]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128058

Midrange performance at double-digit prices.

But man, that looks like the 8800 is going to be a tight fit on there. Granted, all of the Micro's look that way, really.

[dhex]

hey matt the arctic silver link i mentioned.
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[Panoptic]

Yes, get some compound. The tacky shit on the bottom of the OEM heatsinks is worthless. If you've got some laying around though, no need to buy AS5; the performance difference isn't more than 1-2C, and some of the "cheap" compounds even test better.

[Toptube]

arctic silver ceramique.

lasts a long time. AS5 will dry out in a few months, so you'll have to re-apply it more often. ceramique is designed to be semi-permanent, in other words, its good for like a year and a half.


also, the 8800GT can be found for as low as $230.

check the HOTDEALS section at www.hardforum.com. its at the bottom of the forum list. and you don't need a membership to see it.

seriously though, I expect the price premium on the GTs to roll off in about two weeks. just keep a sharp eye.

[Shapermc]

[dhex]

man shapes you got me thinking about an end of year upgrade before they phase out the socket 939 stuff altogether.
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[Toptube]

[Shapermc]

The 8800GT keeps selling out (and going up in price). I'm going to hold off until one comes in, but I check multiple times a day and even the over $300 are selling within hours. I'm starting to panic, but it helps that I can't even build this thing until the 18th anyways.

Anyways, why does Newegg keep droping everything out of my basket?
_________________


The bad sleep well at The Gamer's Quarter

[Panoptic]

I think they dump inactive shopping carts after 48 hours.

[Shapermc]

[Panoptic]

Yeah, pretty much every manufacturer just uses the reference card, maybe with a different colored PCB and a different label on the heatsink/fan cover.

[dhex]

according to this thread:

the card is nine inches long and 4.736 inches wide. no idea how thick, but it looks rather slim.

bonus pics of crazy aftermarket heatsinks too.
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[Toptube]

[Shapermc]

[Panoptic]

Small Form Factor.

[km]

A 600W PSU? That is mad overkill. A solid 450W would handle that with ease.

Oh, and if you have stuff you want to keep but might wait on for more than 48 hours, add it to a wish list. When the time comes it's one button click to add everything to your cart.
_________________

vi) RPGs (Role-Playing Games)
For adolescents; half-formed personalities roaming (in packs) in search of identity.

[Shapermc]

Ok, might as well update the thread with my final, final list sans videocard (because they don't exist and sell out w/in 5 min of me getting notified they're in stock):

Case: X-Qpack2-BL
MoBo: GIGABYTE GA-945GCMX-S2 LGA 775 Intel 945GC Micro ATX Intel Motherboard
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E4500 Allendale 2.2GHz
Memory: Transcend JETRAM 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400)
HDD:
Western Digital Caviar SE 500GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM
Optical: LG Electronics Black LG Super Multi 18x SATA DVD Burner
Compound: Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound - OEM

I bumped up a few things because I figure it's better to do once what I have a decent probability of doing in the future. It totals out to $461.93 and when I add in the GFX card it's probably going to end up at about $750. It's a bit more than I wanted to spend initially, but at least I know i'm in for quality items that will all fit. I'm pretty happy with the package, now if I could just get the damn videocard.
_________________


The bad sleep well at The Gamer's Quarter

[Toptube]

get arctic silver ceramique.

[Shapermc]

[Panoptic]

It's not as messy (it's sticky though) and it lasts longer. Not to mention there's no real performance difference between it and standard AS5.

[Toptube]

[Toptube]

the stickyness should not ever be a problem because you should never have to actually touch the paste.

put about 2/3 to 3/4 a grain of rice sized dollop onto the middle of the processor.

install heatsink.

slightly twist heatsink a couple degrees each direction as if you were opening and closing a lid on a pepsi bottle.

done.

and the stickyness actually helps you cuz it sticks to the processor better when you are squeezing it out, so you don't really have to do any crazy body english to get it out the way you want.

and yeah, ceramique is a semi-permanent solution. whereas AS5 dries up sometime after 6 months.

if you changed out ceramique every 1.5 years, you'd be doing real fine.

go ahead and get AS5, its fine stuff, it might net you an extra degree off your temp, but ideally you'd need to be changing it every six months.

[Shapermc]

I... uh, didn't know I'd need to "change" this stuff. I figured it was a one application and you're done thing.

Also, anyone care to speculate on when the 8800GT will be in stock at newegg again? EVGA seems to be "back ordered" and... everyone else is pretty much trying to rob you (and they can't even keep their stock). If this were consoles I'd say it will take a month, but I don't know shit about PC parts and their average demand.
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The bad sleep well at The Gamer's Quarter

[Panoptic]

The 8800GT is in higher-than-normal demand because it's simply the best value in video cards since the GeForce 4 Ti4200. Not only are the guys who are looking for high power to price ratios scooping them up, but the overclocking enthusiasts are grabbing them as well. I could see it lasting through the holiday season unless they really start cranking them out, or ATI pulls off something big with the 2950 HD3870.

[Toptube]

you could try walking into a bestbuy and seeing if they still have some in stock. they were carrying the BFG brand one for a pretty fare price.

for some reason I feel like you'd have a better chance than finding one online.

[Shapermc]

Again, the reason I was waiting online was because of the credit line I opened at NewEgg. I put most of the 8800GT cards on my autonotify and just *happen* to look at my email right as the one I just bought came available! I got the PNY GeForce 8800GT 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0. I'm happy overall and glad it's finally done and that it's all on the same line of credit. I don't have anything to pay until like June, and I'll have all the cash I need by January anyways.

So, next comes a monitor. I have something to hold me over until December or so, but after that I'll need something. I'm looking for something kind of large if I can, but I don't want to pay more than $250 (including shipping). I'm also very sensitive to color and contrast and refresh, and all that shit. I notice video quality problems that other people mostly overlook/ignore/don't notice. Any recommendations?

What I've seen so far is pretty much:

Acer AL2223Wd Black-Silver 22" 5ms DVI Widescreen LCD Monitor 300 cd/m2 800:1
It has the lowest contrast ratio and delay time I'm willing to go with, it's large and it offers a pretty high customer satisfaction rating.

SAMSUNG 906BW Black 19" 2 ms (GTG) DVI Widescreen LCD Monitor 300 cd/m2 2000:1
This one is a bit smaller, and I'm pretty sure that 2000:1 is a dynamic contrast ratio, but it has an excellent response time and I've had lots of excellent customer support and quality products from Samsung. I'd like a bigger monitor, but it doesn't look like a possibility without shelling out quite a bit more.

BenQ FP94VW Silver-Black 19" 2ms (GTG) DVI Widescreen HDMI LCD Monitor 300 cd/m2 800:1
This one is also a bit smaller, with an excellent response time, and I'm pretty sure a better contrast ratio. I've heard decent things about BenQ too.

Anyways, am I missing stuff, should I just make a small price bump and go with the larger monitor? Also is the screen resolution going to make that big a difference for this graphics card (outside of shit like Crysis)?
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The bad sleep well at The Gamer's Quarter

[Broco]

[Shapermc]

Can you give me more information on the "washed out" colors? I only ask because I have a 27" Westinghouse HDTV that I bought for my bedroom that I thought would be decent, but the colors being washed out are so bad that I kind of hate watching anything seriously on it. That could ruin the sale for me.

EDIT: The more I read about that Acer, the more I think I would fall into the catagory of the 3 egg and below users. That kind of stuff really irks me as I'm a mild videophile (not quite the level of thatbox, but probably more than many other people here).
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The bad sleep well at The Gamer's Quarter

[Toptube]

this is considered the best 22. that's a pretty great price too. no 22 is going to absolutely blow you away because they don't use a great panels. but, some of them are better than others, like this samsung actually produces colors quite well and overall has a pretty damn good image quality. the two major downsides to tn panels are that they have the worst black levels and vertical viewing angles are really bad. though this samsung gets all of the attention, I have and like the gateway 22 the best. its image quality is just as good, and it includes component, svideo, and composite hookups making it very versatile. it also has a faroudja video processor in it. but...its probably the most expensive 22.

if you want image quality, for $250, you are going to have to get a 20 inch.

**actually, it seems that you can't get a better panel than a tn---at all, unless you are willing to spend like $350 or more.

[km]

I just bought a 24" for about $390 shipped. It was a refurb though.

DVI, HDMI, VGA, Component, Composite, S-Video!

Can you tell I'm excited guys?!


It doesn't ship for 5-7 business days though... which works because I'm going home for thanksgiving so hopefully it won't show up until the monday after next.
_________________

vi) RPGs (Role-Playing Games)
For adolescents; half-formed personalities roaming (in packs) in search of identity.

[Panoptic]

Use Cleartype Tuner when you get it. Just turning on Cleartype by itself sucks.

[km]

I hate cleartype. It has looked horrible on every monitor I have ever seen it on. Even when it's tuned.
_________________

vi) RPGs (Role-Playing Games)
For adolescents; half-formed personalities roaming (in packs) in search of identity.

[Shapermc]

[Toptube]

in my oppinion, 1680 x 1050 is perfect on a 22, but is too high of a resolution for a 20 inch. it would annoy me. I would get an 19 inch over a 20.

now, regarding TN panels (which is all you can get for $250) the vertical viewing angles are most likely not going to bother you at that size, because you'll be sitting pretty close. but...it might.

now about colors. since you say you are sort of a video-phile, you might never be happy with a TN. they have the worst color reproduction and the worst black levels. though, some modern TN panels have pretty decent color reproduction, but it takes a bit longer to coax it out of them. I spent a long time with the color settings on mine before I was happy with it, but i'm actually quite happy with its color reproduction. the biggest problem with TN and color is they tend to have either a pinky red or an orangy red. making human skin look either really pink or like tan in a can. it took me a long time to figure out how to tune this out, but I did and now I'm very happy.

black levels are never great on a TN. some are better than others, but even the best suck. its just something you have to live with, or spend more on a better panel. its only a major issue when running stuff that isn't native resolution. like dvds. Blu-rays though, look great and i've so far haven't had a problem with black levels in Blu-ray movies. gaming it can be a problem in really dark games. especially at non-native resolutions.

the advantage of TN are they have gread response times.

and about running games at non-native res, at 1680 x 1050 or lower, a resolution of atleast 720p looks just fine as far as image sharpness and resulting aliasing. so as long as you can run games at a 720p resolution (1280x7something or 1280x800) then you will be good.

any samsung model ending in *BW is gonna be one of the better TN that you can get, so i'd go for one of those. like this one

i'd go to best buy or something if you can, and try to compare a 1680x1050 20 inch to a 19inch 1440 x 900 to see which you will prefer.