Motherboard ASUS P5K-V (G33) $142.00
http://www.asus.com/products.aspx?l1=3&l2=11&l3=542&l4=0&model=1652&modelmenu=1

CPU Core2Duo E8200 2.66 6M/1333 ($190) $190.00
http://processorfinder.intel.com/details.aspx?sSpec=SLAPP

Video Card ASUS HD 3870 (209) $209.00
http://www.asus.com/products.aspx?modelmenu=2&model=1967&l1=2&l2=8&l3=603&l4=0

Sound Card Integrated

RAM Crucial 2x1gig @ 800 $59

Hard Disk 1 SG 250 SATA 7200 16mb (HD-ST3250620A) $83.00
http://www.seagate.com/ww/v/index.jsp?lo...D&reqPage=Model

DVD Burner Pioneer 212D Black (SATA) $39.00
http://www.pioneerelectronics.com/PUSA/P...riters/DVR-212D

Case Antec Sonatta III w/ PSU $120.00

PSU Antec Earthwatts 500 w/case
Case Fan $20.00

Bluetooth Mouse/keyboard $106.99

Monitor LG 19 wide (L196WTY-BF) $187.00

Total with Tax $1,429.43

Budget:
~$1400 Canadian (taxes in) (2 CAN$ to a Pound, thus ~ 700 pounds).
This computer store serves as a good basis for pricing here: http://pccyber.com/).

Demanding tasks:
High-Quality video conferencing, Blu-Ray playback (down the line), music server, and some gaming – however, I don’t expect to have the best gaming rig around on this budget. If I can get around 30-40 FPS at Medium settings in Crysis I would be happy.

Thoughts:
- I do not plan to overclock, or at least not aggressively.

- I am open to the odd upgrade over time but not too frequently. I may upgrade to a Quad CPU in 12-18 months when they come down in price and maybe a new video card. RAM and a sound card are possibilities in the future as well.

- Motherboard: I don’t want to have to upgrade this component as it would require a new OS purchase and would like to stick with Intel or Asus as I want stability and as few headaches as possible.

Questions:
- How important is the new PCIe standard for me?
- Guess I should go with 800 ram since it’s not that much extra?

I really appreciate your feedback.

Jordan

Looks like a pretty nice system.

The boards 775 socket will handle going quad core down the road. Although for the uses you describe, you may not have to. The core 2 Duo's are no slouches and only some specific apps and games benefit from going quad enough to make it worthwhile. New apps come out all the time though so it's nice to have the option.

Regarding "the new PCIe standard", if you are referring to PCI-Express 3.0, then I wouldn't worry about it at all yet. I don't believe they are actually manufacturing anything that uses it yet.

Buy the fastest RAM you can afford. It's the least known, important factor, that most people don't even think about.

Nice case. Should keep things cool until you get the upgraditis and play with overclocking. Unless you are in a really dusty environment, I'd probably trash the 'washable air filter'. If you are like me and likely to forget to ever check on it, they seem to grime up faster than the inside ever gets dusty. Logic = that only a tiny fraction of dust that blows into your dust actually stays there, the rest blows back out again. However a filter traps 95plus percent of it so buildup is way faster.

My neighbor (same on who got his paypal acount stolen because he won't put in a firewall & antivirus) recently cooked a 5 month old motherboard by ignoring his filter.

Actually, I like my washable filter. When I upgraded my case to one that has it I noticed a marked decrease in internal dust. Mind you, I'm rather conscientious about computer maintenance.

Thanks for the feedback guys. Funny how these system builds can get away from you. A few bucks here, a few there, but I figure that I"m not on the bleeding edge on anything and hope that this system will hold me over for a good few years. If I'm lucky, prices will come down a touch before I pull the trigger.

Hadn't thought about the dust filter clogging up like that. I'm pretty good about maintenance so I'm not too worried there but good to know about this nonetheless. I have a long-hair cat - really long hair - who I am in constant battle with in trying to keep things tidy.

Appreciate the feedback guys.


Jordan

I would say you are at the top end of most consumer products, The only things higher are true quad core and they have just made it mainstream last year. You should be good for a very long time.

I hope so because I just built a system with the Intel E6750 in a microATX/HTPC case and I don't have room for much more. I went with the Antec Phantom 500 P/S, the only time the fan comes on is when the sensor reaches one of 3 preset temps you get to choose from. I have mine at the low noise(highest temp) setting and the fan has yet to come on. If the CPU( Zalman CNPS 8700 NT ) and case fans were just a touch quieter I wouldn't know the computer was on.

Talk about system builds getting away from you, I originally went AMD 6400+ on a GigaByte board but changed my mind and decided I wanted to go Intel this time. I went with a Corsair HX520 Power supply in this build. The case was a cheapie So I now have 2 pretty good systems. Both systems have 2 gig of Corsair 6400c4 ram and I am still deciding on the video cards to get.

Man, you guys are on a different level. My 5 year old emachines computer just blew the pwr supply and motherboard, so I'm just thinking of hitting the Dell site for an Inspiron 531 with the Athlon x64 dual core processor.

As much as the 19" LCD monitor looks nice, I think I might save the $200 and reuse my 5 yr old monitor. That way I can still justify buying a pair of M3's this month.

would you guys get the MS office installed from Dell, or just buy it retail? I'm not sure if they preload it and dont give you any literature or discs with it?

I'm agonizing over the GPU decision now. Been reading on the 8800gt. It seems to outperform the 3870 by a fair margin so I'm seriously considering it. However, I'm slightly concerned by the heat from the 8800GT being vented into the case whereas the 3870 vents outside. The power consumption is lower on the 3870 as well.

Any thoughts fellas?

I was going to run Open Office for the time being and see if I can live with that. Otherwise, I guess its OEM for me.

AL, I prefer buying retail/oem software rather than preloaded, that way I can load it up onto my next bigger hardrive nice and fresh.

I wouldn't give Dell the $200 and get a 21" for $259 at Future Shop right now. Bigger is better. You can wait another month for the M3's.

The price goes up next week on the M3's and I want the HGC finish though.

Better yet, I can either stick with my old monitor or get a 19" HP Pavillion or a 19" LG monitor with airmiles, save the two-hund and still get my M3's.

Most of the reviews I have seen have the stock 8800GT slightly better than the 3870 but the OC versions of the 8800GT are the best as far as gaming goes. I think most cases these days extract the heat quite well.

If you are just looking at the stock 8800Gt I think I might go with the 3870, it's cheaper to replace down the road if you start gaming more or you could crossfire it as I think it is Crossfire capable now. Is that board crossfire capable?

The 8800GT (not sure if oc) in this article is compellingly better at gaming:
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3151&p=6

The Asus P5K-V board that I am considering is a full ATX board that is crossfire compatible but the second board is only running at 4X. However, I'm not sure that the PSU could handle a second GPU (Antec earthwatts 500) so it's likely that I will stick with one card and upgrade possible a couple years down the line.

The 8800GT (not sure if oc) in this article is compellingly better at gaming:
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3151&p=6

The Asus P5K-V board that I am considering is a full ATX board that is crossfire compatible but the second board is only running at 4X. However, I'm not sure that the PSU could handle a second GPU (Antec earthwatts 500) so it's likely that I will stick with one card and upgrade possible a couple years down the line.

I always have found crossfire (and nvidia's SLI for that matter) to be a big gimmick. Not all games support it and I don't find the boost in perfomance to be worth the price of 2 cards. And by the time you wait long enough for the cards to be cheaper to get a second one there's usually a newer model that'll be cheaper and faster than the 2 old ones... Not even talking about power consumption, noise and heat!

A stock 8800GT is better than a stock 3870 for gaming, hands down. And I also wouldn't consider SLI or Crossfire, after specifically buying a board for Crossfire then discovering that (as above) by the time I could afford a second card, the performance/price ratio had moved far beyond that.

Also, I wouldn't touch an Athlon 64 x2 in a new computer right now. Sure, if you're going cheap, go with a really low end Athlon. But the Core2Duos are much faster.

Skyhawk669 and kcarlile,

You summed up my exact thoughts regarding AMD and Crossfire/SLI. I'm already spending more than I had intended and can't see myself spending $500+ on GPUs alone.

I hope AMD gets their act together. I recall reading that they bled out 1.7 billion in the final 1/4 of last year. Ouch. Phenom doesn't seem to be the answer either.

Can anyone commend on the difference between the P35 and G33 chipsets? (Asus P5K and P5K-V respectively). People keep saying to go with the P35 over the G33 but cannot seem to explain why the P35 is better. I realize that the G33's integrated graphics won't be used due to my GPU but I figure that since the two boards are the same price, why not opt for the G33? Thoughts?

Jordan

Here is a pretty good article on them.

Last question - Vista Premium 64 bit or 32 bit?

Read this excellent article on the subject:

http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/winvista_ff_x64.asp

It comes down to compatibility. Unless you're going to be doing some serious computation with huge data sets, and have already checked to make sure all your components have 64-bit drivers available, stay with 32-bit for your own sanity.

The advantages of the 64-bit version are pretty much moot for a home computer.

My neices husband went 64bit and he regretted it after a week. So he went dual Vista's. He says he only uses the 64bit for the few games that will support it. Otherwise it is 32bit for everything else. I haven't noticed any games that support 64 bit but then again I haven't been looking at the specs for them either.

I am hoping the 64 bit will catch on in the next few years. I have seen the power and really liked how fast every worked.

64-bit will pretty much be a universal standard, likely before 2010 (just my guess).

Tangent:
One of the nice things about the latest Mac OS (Leopard) is that you don't have to choose a special version. There is exactly one version (not counting Server), and it is BOTH 32 and 64-bit.

Agreed. I currently only have Macs around here and prefer the OS by a wide margin. But, I wanted to learn a bit more about computers and thought that building my own would be a good way to do that. The other thing is that Macs are nearly impossible up upgrade over time and cannot game in any serious manner. So, I'll try a winbox for the first time in a long time.

It's because of this that I'm thinking that I will be ok with the 64 bit version - don't have any software to move over and I'm buying every component new. Also, I figure that there will be a slow gravitation towards the 64 and really don't want to be stuck with the 32 bit if that is the case.

Speaking of driver problems, I might try a dual boot with linux onboard. We'll see.

I'm thinking the Asus 8800GT is what I will end up going with.

Thanks guys.

And my guess is that this standard will not be Vista 64 but something else; well at least I hope so...

My guess is it will still be Microsoft with the 64bit standard but not Vista, it will take a completely new O/S and the public will have to be told upfront that anything not bought within the last 2 years of its existence will never work with it. Wait that is Vista.

Huh? ever since the Mac Pro has come out, it has been able to be updated to the latest processor simply by swapping them out as the intels have had the same pin configuration. You could upgrade from a dual core chip to the latest quad core by simply swapping out the processor.

the Macbook Pro, on the other hand, has it's processor soldered to the motherboard.

yup, and the latest Mac Pros come with bootcamp drivers for 64 bit MS OSes

OS X 10.5.2 is shaping up to be a nice little update:

http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/08/..._5_2_build.html


also, Nvidia working on GPGPU for the Mac:

http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/08/01/24/nvidia_working_on_first_gpgpus_for_apple_macs.html

Yes, I'm well aware that the MacPro can be upgraded but I suppose my unspoken caveat was that I was referring to systems that the average go an afford. Given that the MacPro starts at just under $3000 without monitor I'm thinking that it is disqualified. Besides, if I dropped ~$3000 I would hope that I wouldn't have to upgrade for some time.

But yes, you are technically correct.

The base config is actually $2299 now, but you have to give up one of the quad-core processors to get that price.

I wasn't suggesting you look at a Mac Pro, I was just pointing out that they can be upgraded by the user. The Mac Pro is well out of your budget