Hardware Order - Advice ASAP!

[MOUSY]

Turn's out you were right Jim; Googled a PSU calculator and it came out to recommend 838W. Guess I'll have to dish out the extra cash then...

[jimcooper1]

Turn's out you were right Jim; Googled a PSU calculator and it came out to recommend 838W. Guess I'll have to dish out the extra cash then...

Yep...I wasn't trying to spend your money unnecessarily!!

Regards

Jim

[MOUSY]

Yep...I wasn't trying to spend your money unnecessarily!!

Just saw Nick's post, even more confirmation...

If you are waiting till the end of July, wait till August and go with the Q6600 or a QX6700 and a X38 Intel chipset motherboard due out in August
Thats the best advice money can buy
You buy anything other than X38 (or P35 which is available today) and your waisting your money because you wont be able to upgrade the processor and have 100% motherboard support when they cancel and phase out ALL core2 products, including quad, by the end of the year.
Either the Asus P5k Deluxe which you can buy now or the X38 chipset motherboards when they are released in August.. one of the two
All Quads will come down in price by July 22nd. Q6600 will be about 250 and QX6700 will be 550
I would not go less than quad. FSX loves a Quad core processor
I use QX6700. QX6800 is an overpriced QX6700 that is clocked up
You need a HIGH OUTPUT PSU. 580watts is crap. 850 or better
I would at the very least look at the ATI and Nvidia budget DX10 cards. By the time you are ready to buy they will be out and priced right. To go backwards with that POS 7900 is silly. You will kick youself in the arse for buying something so old

Ok... the Q6600 looks quite tempting... especially for FSX... and approximately $250 sounds jolly darn good...

Few questions about the motherboard though...
What's the difference between the P5k and the P5k Deluxe? The specs off Newegg look the same - (apart from the extra PCI-E 1x slot on the deluxe) - the Deluxe is $75 more ($68 more if you compare the OEMs)

Time to take a look at those DX10 cards and modify my list...

[jimcooper1]

Few questions about the motherboard though...
What's the difference between the P5k and the P5k Deluxe? The specs off Newegg look the same - (apart from the extra PCI-E 1x slot on the deluxe) - the Deluxe is $75 more ($68 more if you compare the OEMs)

Time to take a look at those DX10 cards and modify my list...
[/color]

The Deluxe version of the motherboard has built-in native DDR2 1066 support and is able to overclock with an ultra high frequency to achieve DDR2 1400. AND I dont even use 1 PCIe x1 let alone 2 so the extra slot is of no importance.  Personally - I wouldn't bother with the deluxe and would use the $68 for something else.

Regards

Jim

[MOUSY]

Personally - I wouldn't bother with the deluxe and would use the $68 for something else.

Exactly what I wanted to hear...  ;D

Updated List:

Intel Q6600 Conroe - approx. $250 on July 22nd
ASUS P5K OEM - $140
nVidia 8800* - Presently $270 (undecided; in need of a budget DX10 card)
2GB OCZ Platinum edition DDR2-800 RAM - $126
320GB Western Digital SATA3 - $75
OCZ GameXStream 850W PSU - $200
ASUS 18X DVD Burner/14X DVD-RAM Write/LightScribe OEM* - $29 (Review rating a bit unsatisfactory; any better suggestions?)
COOLER MASTER Mystique/SECC ATX Mid-Tower Case - $80
TOTAL: $1,170 (-$85 Mail in rebate: $1,085)

Just a bit over budget, without a monitor, keyboard, mouse, joystick, and sound system...

[jimcooper1]

Mouse,

Before committing to that memory check its compatibility with the P5K (my shopping list was for the P5N32 MB)
http://usa.asus.com/100/download/produc ... 637_10.pdf

Probably safer to go for Corsair XMS 6400C4
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6820145034

Regards

Jim

[MOUSY]

Point taken... will go with the Corsair...
Anyone got ideas on a suitable DX10 budget card? Those 8800s are really pulling the threads in my pocket...(I wish those prices would dive on July 22nd )

[GunnerMan]

Well since you want a budget dx10 card just buy a cheap dx9card. When prices drop on the 8800s or when the 9 series appear you can have some more $ saved for one. I am waiting to buy a dx10 card untill dx10 games come out, the 8800 is a topnotch card in dx9 but how do you know how it will do in dx10, all we have are a few benchmarks and most of them come from Nvidia! Any game out now does not require an 8800 anyway, besides FSX and maybe ArmA for full sliders.

[MOUSY]

Well since you want a budget dx10 card just buy a cheap dx9card. When prices drop on the 8800s or when the 9 series appear you can have some more $ saved for one...

That's what I planned to do, but I was told it would be a very bad idea to go backwards to a DX9 card like the 7900...

Any game out now does not require an 8800 anyway, besides FSX...

Which is precisely what I will be spending my gaming time on...

[jimcooper1]

Well since you want a budget dx10 card just buy a cheap dx9card. When prices drop on the 8800s or when the 9 series appear you can have some more $ saved for one...

That's what I planned to do, but I was told it would be a very bad idea to go backwards to a DX9 card like the 7900...

Any game out now does not require an 8800 anyway, besides FSX...

Which is precisely what I will be spending my gaming time on...

The 7900 series are excellent cards and will do a good enough job with FSX providing you've got a decent MB/CPU/RAM setup. How much are you willing to spend?

Jim

[MOUSY]

Cam's basic Hardware FAQ suggests hat one starts with the 7900... Nick differs and suggests I go with a DX10...

I do want to see the benefits of DX10 for the next year to come... and upgrading from DX9 to 10 later might be a bit difficult for me...

My budget is just about $1000... I am presently $175 over budget, without any peripherals, as you saw in my last list of components...

[jimcooper1]

My budget is just about $1000... I am presently $175 over budget, without any peripherals, as you saw in my last list of components...

Unfortunately to run FSX with anything like acceptable frame rates you will have to spend at least $1000 on the base unit.  

Jim

[MOUSY]

I thought I already got there for FSX... Quad core, 2GBs DDR-800, SATA3 HD, and a suitable overclockable mobo... the only thing undecided yet is a bang-for-buck suitable vid card...

[jimcooper1]

I thought I already got there for FSX... Quad core, 2GBs DDR-800, SATA3 HD, and a suitable overclockable mobo... the only thing undecided yet is a bang-for-buck suitable vid card...

Yep..on your budget thats $200..I still say you can't beat the 7950GT

Its got a 256-bit memory interface, 550MHz core clock and 1400MHz Memory clock
That equates to 44.8 GB/sec and a fill-rate of 13.2 Billion pixels/sec

The 8600GTS is about the same price and its core clock is 675MHz and Memory clock is 1450MHz but its memory interface is only 128-bit
Its Memory Bandwidth is 32 GB/sec (25% less than that of the 7950)

To beat the 7950GT you'd have to get a 8800GTS and they start at about $275 for the 320MB version

If the 7950GT is still pushing your budget too hard
consider the 7900GS which you could get for less tha $150 and will still give you 42 GB/sec and 9 Billion pixels/sec

Regards
Jim

[MOUSY]

Decisions, decisions, decisions...