$2500 to spend - what would you buy?

S

ShaidarHaran

hardware monkey
Veteran
I'd like to build a system in a week or two, and I have $2500 with which to do it. I need get a monitor, headphones, keyboard, mouse, UPS/AVR & OS with it too.

I want to go with Vista Home Premium 64 (Ultimate offers no features which I desire) and 4GB of decent overclockable RAM. I will buy a quad core CPU and plan to o/c the snot out of it. Also would like to go SLI/CF. Definitely getting a 24" 1920x1200 LCD, but haven't decided on which one. Don't need a ton of storage, since this will mostly be a gaming system.

I wish it were January so I could buy a Q9450 + 780i board but I can live with something somewhat less than that since I really can't keep using this POS P4 Dell + 17" LCD any longer.

I think I've already picked out the RAM, the case, and the OS, but everything else is still up in the air. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Contemplating water cooling but would swap for high-end air cooling if the gains are minimal and it affects my ability to purchase any must-have items.
 
digitalwanderer said:
In a week or two? I'd wait to decide until after Monday. ;)
Click to expand...

790FX is very tasty, but I have a horrible sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach re: Phenom. Regardless, I won't be setting my shopping list in stone until I place the order, so just about everything (other than the OS) is up for debate.

The RAM you linked is only 2x1GB.
 
If you have room, go for a pair of 24" monitors. Dual-mon is just awesome.

Personally, I prefer Business over Home Premium, but I probably dual-use my main system more than you're thinking of doing.
 
Geo said:
If you have room, go for a pair of 24" monitors. Dual-mon is just awesome.

Personally, I prefer Business over Home Premium, but I probably dual-use my main system more than you're thinking of doing.
Click to expand...

I can just squeeze two 24" LCDs on my desk, but that would make gaming a bit awkward since I'd be looking off to one side whilst doing so. I did go multi-mon last round with a 21.3" Sammy 214T & an Acer 19" (both non-widescreen) but that was easier to manage because I had the Sammy right in front of me and the Acer off to one side. Not possible in this case. Plus it would really eat into my build cost, or force me to go with cheaper LCDs like the Acer 2416. I was hoping for something like the Sammy 245T but no one seems to have it in stock yet...
 
Forget about Crossfire. It's performance is spotty. When it's not supported you get no better than the speed of a single card. Even with the new HD38xx series in crossfire (when it works) it is no faster than a Single 8800 GTX. And it's not even a GTX Ultra either.

_xxx_ said:
Oh, I thought it was EB. then it was one of the others, gonna look again.

EDIT: it was from canucks, I mean these here:

HD3870_54.jpg


HD3870_58.jpg


Only Prey though and 3DMark (where it was faster, but it's 3dMark so it tells us nothing serious anyway).

Anand has two 3850 in crossfire performing similarily to the GFX, so what's the matter here?
Click to expand...
 
BRiT said:
Forget about Crossfire. It's performance is spotty. When it's not supported you get no better than the speed of a single card. Even with the new HD38xx series in crossfire (when it works) it is no faster than a Single 8800 GTX. And it's not even a GTX Ultra either.
Click to expand...
I'm sighing so hard at this post that you'd think my name was Dave Baumann.
 
Tim Murray said:
I'm sighing so hard at this post that you'd think my name was Dave Baumann.
Click to expand...

Why, because it was spot on with reality or because the best Crossfire solution AMD/ATI has to offer today is still slower than a single one year old card?
When crossfire does not work, does the system slow down to the speed of a single card as if it didn't even have a second card installed?
Does that review show HD3870 Crossfire being slower than a single 8800GTX?

If one wants reliable performance, the only realistic solution is a single 8800 GTX or Ultra.
 
Davros said:
hookers and blow
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I don't believe hookers & drug dealers take credit cards, but I'll look into that...

BRiT said:
Forget about Crossfire. It's performance is spotty. When it's not supported you get no better than the speed of a single card. Even with the new HD38xx series in crossfire (when it works) it is no faster than a Single 8800 GTX. And it's not even a GTX Ultra either.
Click to expand...

I know all about CF. I had an X1900 XTX CF rig last year. I was on CF for about 6 months (from April-October '06) and it barely worked with any of the games I played. It wasn't until Cat 6.9 that I was even able to start effectively using CF, and even then it still didn't work with a lot of titles. Performance was rather lacking at that time too.

I'm only going multi-GPU because I want to go 1920x1200 and don't care to spend $500+ on a year-old video card (8800 GTX) to do it. Would rather go with 2x something newer and get better performance more often than not.

Edit: then again, I did just find an o/c'd GTX model from Foxconn (630/1350/2000 - dunno why they didn't o/c the SPs) for < $500 so maybe I will go GTX afterall. I need to start comparing 2x 8800 GT to 8800 GTX @ 1920x1200 + 8x AA & 16x AF in all the latest games.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
BRiT said:
Why, because it was spot on with reality or because the best Crossfire solution AMD/ATI has to offer today is still slower than a single one year old card?
Click to expand...
In Prey. Isn't Prey the most texturing-bound app in existence?
When crossfire does not work, does the system slow down to the speed of a single card as if it didn't even have a second card installed?
Click to expand...
No longer true since they turned on generic AFR in a recent driver (or at least they did for R600--I assume that means it's on for RV670 as well).
Does that review show HD3870 Crossfire being slower than a single 8800GTX?
Click to expand...
In Prey. What about in Crysis? Or ET:QW? Or Bioshock?
If one wants reliable performance, the only realistic solution is a single 8800 GTX or Ultra.
Click to expand...
The claim that one GTX or Ultra will perform more consistently than two 3870s (or two 8800 GTs or whatever) is probably true. Saying that two 3870s are simply slower is fanboy bullshit.
 
Okay. I didn't know about Prey's leaning on textures and I didn't see any other Crossfire 3870 reviews.
 
If I had $2,500 to spend, I would be buying myself an entirely new and killer system next week. PC, monitor, desk, chair; everything.

I think I could do it for that budget.
 
Actually (and please keep this quiet as i dont want to be innundated with orders) a signed Davros picture is just within your budget..
 
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