I've been running on my old DELL Dimension 2400 PC for the past 3 years and i think its time to get another one.

Basically i'm looking for a PC that will allow me to play games well, but not be too expensive. I'm not much of a file hoarder so i won't need too much Hard Drive Space.

So i have been looking around and this is what i found so far as the current best option so far

Intel Core 2 Duo 1.86 GHzIntel Original 946 Mobo
Nvidia Gefore 7300 LE
2 GB DDR2 RAM
CREATIVE SOUNDBLASTER CARD
1 GB Network Card
160 GB SATA HDD + 80GB From Old PC
16x DVD Burner
ATX Case
Mouse Pad
Logitech Webcam

BD 250 - R4,800

Any suggestions, imrprovements that i can make on this. My max price is around BD 320 (R6000)

So Conroe will always beat P4 right

EDIT: WRONG CPU INITIALLY POSTED - IT WAS THE 1.86 GHZ CONROE

Good choice there for your CPU. The E6400 is a very decent overclocker.

Your motherboard choice should come with onboard GB LAN so no need for a network card.

What motherboard model are you currently looking at? I ask because Intel's HD Audio is pretty good (while not as good as a creative) you could save the cash and maybe get a better GFX card or a bigger HDD.

The mobo should suffice if you don't plan on overclocking.

Scrap the video card and the SoundBlaster though: you'll need something beefier in the video department for current games, and the current quality of onboard audio is about the same as the SoundBlaster anyway.

The E6400 is going to be out of his price range atm... how about getting a E6420 it's also got tons of potential to overclock...

as everyone else says drop the 7300 gpu for something better maybe a nvidia 8600 card... btw if I was you I would wait till after this month to consider cos the 8600 card will be released and Intel is dropping their pricing of the CPU too!

I think the huge Intel price drop is coming soon, as Fish says, so try hold off until then.

I assume there's no overclocking planned?

The 8600 is only arriving in Bahrain in 6 months time and i really can't wait. My PC is falling apart

So can anyone give me some specifications and if possible a link for parts that will mallow me to get the most out of it without going over the BD 320 price limit

May I recommend the 7600GT. Its not the latest card, nor is the most expensive and it will handle just about any game with ease and with fairly decent resolutions to boot.

Check this page out for some pricing. It's in RANDS but I'm sure if you do the conversions you can get a rough idea of what it will cost in Bahrain:

http://www.pc123.co.za/catalog/index.php/c...6aea6bf046d18b5

The Palit Nvidia GeForce 7600GT 256MB 128bit PCI-E Graphics Card is on special for: R 1299

I would get a 965 chipset motherboard. And of course that 7300 will just not do.

If you can make do with 80Gb for now, you can postpone the HD buy for a couple of months.
Drop the soundcard. Onboard should suffice, and if you want better, rather go for something really good like an audigy and a X-fi... but thats for later when you have money again.
Drop the lan card, your motherboard should have one. 100mbit will also suffice.

That CPU will run circles around any P4, as well as be faster than any AMD CPU that you can get for under R4000.

I dont know how the secondhand market looks over there, but over here you can usually get a 7900GT for R1600 or lower, which is what I would do.
E6400 / E6300 + 2gb RAM + 7900GT = monster machine in my book. And you will still spend less than R6k

Wait to get a DX10 card. Trust me.

Thanks for all of the help guys

Hmm however i'm getting slightly puzzled about which one out of all of the suggestions will fit me best'

How about if i ask you to give me the ideal specs for under R6K. E.g. basically give me the parts that you would reccomend for a complete pc for under 6K

Under 6K in rands? man, I doubt a good pc is in that price range if you are buying all new parts.

2nd hand is okay for me. providing it works. I just did a currency conversion - i don't kow what the prices are in SA compared to Bahrain.

Prices are pretty low in Bahrain if you look in the right places

When will they be coming out?

dx10 card = Nvidia: 8800gts 320, 8800gts 640, 8800gtx 756, 8600 (on it's way)
ATI = R600

Current DX10 cards are R3k at least. It will be hard to fit that into your budget.
I would get a secondhand 7900GT now, and buy DX10 when I get vista and have money. That is what I did actually.
Other than that, your CPU and Ram is pretty good.

Which ATI card is it?

But for R600 i'm sold on that

What about the 7800

GeForce 7800
Graphics Bus Technology PCI Express
Memory 512MB
Memory Interface 256-bit
Memory Bandwidth (GB/sec) 54.4
Fill Rate (Billion pixels/sec) 13.2
Vertices/Second (Millions) 1100
Pixels per clock (peak) 24
RAMDACs (MHz) 400

The price is $230 - R1,700

Any card under 2k will be fine with me

Intel Core 2 Duo 1.86 GHz
Intel Original 946 Mobo
Nvidia Gefore 7800 GTX
2 GB DDR2 RAM
160 GB SATA HDD + 80GB From Old PC
16x DVD Burner
ATX Case
Mouse Pad
FREE Logitech Webcam

What do you think about this set-up. It's tag is R5,700. Any more suggestions or improvements

EDIT: WRONG CPU INITIALLY POSTED - IT WAS THE 1.86 GHZ CONROE

hahahaha no dude

ATI - R600 is the codename for ati's new gpu about to be released onto the market...

as for your 7800GTX... rather see if you can't get a ATI x1950xtx it's more powerful than the 7900 or the 7800's

Thanks a lot Fishfly, Rusty, Carrots and Cyberstorm. I'm compiling the specs and ready to order the new PC



I'm looking around, but its likely to take about 4-5 months to get to Bahrain. I'm looking for other options

4-5 months? why? that card was released last year already... the new ATI card is apprently called the x2800xtx

Maybe post the specs before you order? We don't want to end up with a solitaire rig like last time

Definitely look around for a 7900 or an ATI equivalent as Fishy said; you can do better than a 7800.

I still reckon you hold off until you can grab a 8600, but it's up to you.

I think the rig you posted looks fine for what you require now.
The 7800GTX's performance is close to that of a 7900GT, so that seems good enough. I dont know the ATI cards that well, but look at what will give you the best price/performance ratio.

IMHO my x1900xt 512 vivo rapes the 7900gt's by far...

this is how the rankings go for those cards in your price range:

1. ATI x1950xtx 512 (still expensive)
2. Nvidia 7900gtx (still expensive)
3. ATI x1900xt 512
4. Nvidia x1900xt 256
5. Nvidia 7900gt
6. Nvidia 7800gtx
7. Nvidia 7800gt
8. ATU x1900gt or what ever

best bet is to get a x1900xt 256 or the 512's

that i will do. I'm going to take my time on this to make sure i get the best possible thing for my cash. For the 8600. I really can't wait much longer, and i can always upgrade to something better, when the need be



The first 2 im doubtful. But i think i'm gonna go for either 3,4,5

Any comments on the CPU. (Intel Core 2 Duo 2.13)

Its the best i can get for my price range. My other option is 2 P4 3.6 Ghzs

Thow the idea of a P4 anything out the window! it's old technology, it's crap hot, and it's not better than the amd 939/AM2 systems

so Stick with the Intel Core 2 Duo and nothing less! you won't regret it!

if possible try get the Intel E6600 CPU but it might still be a tad expensive so the E6450 would suffice

Done

Bleh...

Just wondering the Ghz rates on P4 seem a lot higher than on the Conroe. Doesn't that mean that they are faster than the Conroe's??

So wouldn't 2 3.6 GHz P4's be faster than one 2.13GHz CONROE

hahahah CrashandBurn you are very misinformed...

Intel P4 is 2 generation old technology... they still use the conventional value calculation of GHz... then AMD started using a PR rating naming convention with their CPU even tho the CPU GHz was lower the PR rating was higher than any Intel P4 and centrino technology... Intel was loosing the war so they adopted the PR rating with their CPU as well with the Centrino technology which will explain the dip in the GHz speed...


so here's how it works:

Intel with their GHz reached a staggaring 3.8GHz
AMD brought out their 754 chipset CPU with PR rating of 3400+ @ 1.8Ghz (I'm not 100% sure), 3600+, 3700+ @ 2.2Ghz, etc - even tho this was clocked at a lower GHz the PR rating meant that the CPU's was on par with Intels GHz and performed even better with the Memory controller built in the CPU's.

Intel was loosing too badly so they realised why fight AMD with the PR rating and they joined in with the rating and brought CPU's rated at 1.6GHz Centrino's and so forth. Still Intel's CPUs could not match AMD's power and even so with their Core Duo chips... until now Intel Launched their Core 2 Duo range which still utilize the PR rating and they are currently on top with their power performance over any AMD in the market.

AMD's new solution is the CPU, code name: "Barcelona" Core which has shown big promises in the fight against the Core 2 Duo.

Thanks Fishfly...

But why still have the P4's still in the market with those high Ghz numbers when they aren't really that fast. isn't the Ghz supposed to indicate speed

I'm wondering if it is worth waiting to see if any AMD chip comes out that can beat the CONROE



I was at a friends place who had a DUAL p4 and i realized how shit slow it was compared to another PC that had a 2.13 Ghz Conroe

No more P4 for me!

Ghz indicates the speed at which transistor gates are switched. 3.6 Ghz is 3,600,000,000 switches per second. But now certain instructions take 20 or more cycles (switches) to complete. The Core 2 effectively takes less transistor switches to process the same instruction compared to the P4.
There are many thing that factor in here, but that is basically what it comes down to.

I dont think its worth waiting for AMD. Preliminary benchmarks were out for Core 2 about 2 or 3 months before they were available here.
That E6600 is faster than anything AMD has to offer at the moment, and the E6400 is slower than only their top-of-the-line-R7000-for-a-CPU kind of processors.

I think most of Intels fab's are still only equiped to make P4's. Or it was about 5 months ago. They will still have some stock to get rid of as well.

Nvidia x1900xt 256 will probably be the gfx card i'll go for

I'll post the complete specs in a day or two. Thanks for all the help

to all who posted in the thread

Barcelona.

Those high GHz ratings are still used by some dodgy PC retailers to trick unsuspecting and misinformed customers into thinking that they are getting an uberpowerful system.
It's shocking, the amount of people that still think that a high GHz pentium 4 is the greatest thing since sliced bread.

The pentium 4 brand probably is the most revered brand for the masses in CPU history.

A x1900xt is a ATI card my friend... NOT NVIDIA!!

correction AMD barcelona is the Core 2 Duo killer.

you hit the nail on it's head!

Ah well. I'll have to give the Barcelona a miss

Basic estimates for the cost will throw it way out of my price limit

So thats why my 3.6 Ghz P4 is slower than my pals 1.86 Ghz CONROE

That had got me stumped for a looong time

Okay i'm more or less set to order my new rig

Intel Core 2 Duo 2.13 GHz
Intel Original 946 Mobo
Nvidia Gefore 7900 GTX
2 GB DDR2 RAM
160 GB SATA HDD + 80GB From Old PC
16x DVD Burner
ATX Case
Mouse Pad
FREE Logitech Webcam

Price BD 280 (around 5.5K Rands)

So any suggestions! I'm ordering in a week so please hurry

Why such a small HDD? They're so cheap now it's not really worth getting anything less than 250gb.

Also, have you looked at a name brand case e.g. Antec, Lian Li, Thermaltake, etc.?

ya rahter get a 250gig hdd and Hitachi or Seagate as for the GPU couldn't you get a x1900xt 512MB or 256MB?

Um, just noticed there's no PSU in your rig?

He's gonna use the standard 300w that comes with the chassis

This is what worries me

300w... that isn't enough to power a sewing machine.

Depends how much you overclock it

hahahahhaha 300W for a 7900gt and intel core 2 duo :roll_2:

Well for the HDD, i really don't need more than 240 GB for myself. and what i've got is good enough for me

The PSU in included but they diodn't tell me which one they were adding - i assume that they know what they are doing (please assist)

For the case - its not really needed - specs over looks

It's not the looks of the case, it's the space, airflow, etc. that are important.

I would ask what PSU they're adding before you go ahead and pay for it.

NEVER assume retailers know what they are doing. They usually only want to put the "Intel Pentuim 4" text next to a cheaper price than their competitors do. (hence you get 256mb RAM machines with Vista pre-installed)

You will probably get a 300 or 350W PSU. Which might be able to handle it for a while, until the capacitors start aging.