[DesertEagle]

Gurus, if you were building a new gaming computer, would you go p4 or athlon?

Specifically, we're looking at this sorta competition:

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1730143&CatId=1947
on
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1645240&CatId=0

vs

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1645063
on
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1740406&CatId=0

In general, to build the best gaming system, with reasonable heat levels (with corresponding reasonable fans/airflow), reliable, etc, would you go Athlon or Intel?

Also what about OCZ brand Ram? Is it good stuff, or should I stick with someone like corsair?

Basically I know just enough to think I know what I'm doing.

D.E.

 

[HAVOC]

For Gaming?

Athlon 64.
Period. Not even vaguely close.

Now....

If you want to talk about waiting for Intel's Core Duo 2 desktops (Conroe), then we have a competition. But they are gonna be fairly expensive right off, not to mention a couple months away. If you gotta have it now, just forget Intel. Hot and slow (relatively speaking).

OCZ used to suck on several of levels, now it's pretty good stuff. I'd have no trouble using their RAM.

Oh, and the thing about knowing just enough to be dangerous... you kinda gave that away with the Tiger Direct links... Geeks don't let friends buy from Tiger...

http://newegg.com/
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/
http://www.allstarshop.com/
http://directron.com/

 

[pyblood]

I would go with the Athlon FX hand down. Back in the day, I would say go with Intel, but AMD is kick kicking their butts now.

As far as RAM goes, I like Corsair, OCZ, Kingston, etc. When searching for RAM, I look at the latencies. The lower the better.

Make sure to get a good power supply for the new Rig. No need in spending hundreds on parts and have a $30 PS mess up everything.

Out of curiosity, has anyone played with the new AM2 processors and motherboards?

 

[DesertEagle]

Originally posted by HAVOC
Oh, and the thing about knowing just enough to be dangerous... you kinda gave that away with the Tiger Direct links... Geeks don't let friends buy from Tiger...

Yeah, THAT much I did know. Although I have a few friends who swear by them. I know they're total jackholes on the whole rebate stuff. BBB complaints and lawsuit threats, and the whole shebang.

I've also heard they have gotten a bad rep for higher than avg "dead part" shipments and censoring the customer comments.

D.E.

 

[DesertEagle]

Originally posted by pyblood
Out of curiosity, has anyone played with the new AM2 processors and motherboards?

Since you replied and asked

What I'm looking at is this:

Case
Mobo
CPU
Power
HS/Fan
RAM
Graphics
HDD (x3)
Monitor

Optical drives and sound card from my current pc.Plus my 120 IDE drive most likely, just as sorta a backup/storage. Might save a ghost of my main hdd with os/essential proggys there or something.

Going to run Media Center for now to interface with the X360.

D.E.

 

[pyblood]

Looks good. You are going to have to upload some pics when this system is up and running.
You can image the IDE HD over to the SATA drive, but you may have to do a repair install and install the SATA drivers. I like Acronis True Image for imaging drives. I haven’t used Ghost in a long time, but I know that Acronis will get the job done even if the HDs are SATA.

Why not go with one of those new Western Digital 150GB raptors as your primary HD? According to all the reviews that I have read about them, they are fast as all outdoors!
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=101257

 

[Altaris]

Originally posted by pyblood
Why not go with one of those new Western Digital 150GB raptors as your primary HD? According to all the reviews that I have read about them, they are fast as all outdoors!
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=101257

I have a Western Digital raptor HD for my primary, and two 250gb western digital ones as storage drives and couldn't be happier. Maybe I am just lucky, but in all of my computers I have never had a Western Digital HD fail on me.

 

[IndyGunFreak]

I often read complaints, etc, about TigerDirect, and I just don't get it. In roughly 5-6yrs of ordering with them, and at least 200 orders, I have had one minor issue with an order, which they promptly fixed. Being in Indiana, if I order early in the morning, I usually have whatever I've ordered 2 days later(sometimes the next day). Never a dead part, never a missing item, and only 1x, the wrong item was shipped.

Now granted, I've never been stuck in rebate hell with them(which I understand is exactly that, if you're trying to cash one in) so maybe that is where most of the complaints come from. They seem to be making a sincere effort to fix this though.

I recommend TigerDirect to anyone, and will continue to do so.

IGF

 

[DesertEagle]

Originally posted by pyblood
Why not go with one of those new Western Digital 150GB raptors as your primary HD? According to all the reviews that I have read about them, they are fast as all outdoors!
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=101257

No dinero I'm spending more than I should getting the new computer as is.

D.E.