Ultimate gaming pc.

[The Pastor]

Im in the market for a new pc.

Im wanting a mint gaming rig.

My budget is going to be around $3000 (without monitor etc)

I am wanting a rig simerlar to what this guy has

http://service.futuremark.com/compare?3dm06=2101614 <-- too tricky to paste on to kb.

are there any improvements you guys could spot(cpu / vid card)? I'd put an extra 2gb of ram on etc.

Should I buy it in stages or wait till i have the coin?

Should I get it before or after my next bike hehe

Would it be wise to use 2nd hand parts if they are available (thinking cpu and vid card as they cost quite a bit)

[kro]

You can build a sweet gaming rig for well under that including a good LCD monitor.
When I get home, I could post up what I would put together. I don't know that you need to go Quad, that's a bit excessive for a gaming rig imo.

[WRT]

Being a poor uni student and what to go on the ride tomorrow.

I have no money so anyone want to chip in and donate a little,


I only need $50 bucks for gas so if a few people chip in $2 it would help heaps.


Thanks


Rm

And yet you have $3,000 to spend on gaming?

[The Pastor]

And yet you have $3,000 to spend on gaming?

IVE GOT A JOB NOW, EVEN PAYS ME TOGO UNI. UNI SUX!

[Albino]

Have a poke at www.playtech.co.nz i've heard some good reviews on them from some geeks at work.

Buying the ultimate in anything usually means paying a lot more coin....

Another site of interest www.kiwisaver.govt.nz

[Sanx]

Most games aren't sufficiently optimised to be multithreaded so for many games, a fast single core or hyperthreaded CPU is better than a slightly slower multi-core CPU. Don't bother with absolute top-notch graphics cards; it usually takes a few months before games come out that can even take advantage of the extra capabilities of the cards, and quite frankly, the returns offered by the absolute best are becoming increasingly small.

You can never have too much RAM. You should also make sure your motherboard's making the best use of your RAM possible. If you've bought a dual-channel m/board, use both channels. Ensure your motherboard's correctly identifying the speed of the memory and manually adjust the settings if needed.

Get two high-speed hard drives and a motherboard that supports RAID natively. Then run the drives as RAID 0 (Striped) and install the OS and any games on it. Then buy two more drives, run them as RAID 1 (Mirrored) and use it to store the data you regard as valuable, and use it for the page file as well. Alternatively, keep backups of the important stuff on a USB hard drive.

Assuming you're gona be running Windows, there's a lot you can do to tune the OS to your particular requirements. Turn off unused or unwanted systems and services. Cut down on the shit you have installed in your system tray. Don't run Norton anti-virus. Make sure your pagefile is a fixed size and suitable for the amount of RAM you have installed. If you want to get more complicated, you can start playing with the registry to further optimise things; keep the kernel memory resident for a better UI response but higher memory usage, tune the network settings to match the packet sizes that your internet connection uses, turn off date-last-modified file stamping and 8.3 filename creation to give your file system a bit of a boost, boost the amount of cpu time the OS allocates to foreground processes, increase the file system cache (if you have lots of RAM).

Lastly, but possibly most importantly, ensure that you load the latest manufacturer-supported drivers for whatever hardware devices you have. For NVidia graphics cards, ignore the manufacturer but go straight to NVidia. make sure your machine is regularly patched; OS patches aren't just there to address some security hole, they often improve performance (by eliminating performance-sapping bugs).

[jrandom]

Im wanting a mint gaming rig...

Seriously, man, why don't you stick with a $500 appliance-level PC and just buy a whole lot of good books?

You'll still have most of them on the shelf in thirty years time, and forcing yourself away from an LCD/CRT and onto the couch with a coffee or some booze and just reading for a few hours might turn you into the kind of person you should be, rather than the sad abortion you seem to be striving to become.

[BuFfY]

Hun, have a talk to cam, I would try to help but I would just suggest getting a pretty one haha, but cam does it a bit, knows a lot about it etc.
Good luck!

[Gremlin]

Most games aren't sufficiently optimised to be multithreaded so for many games, a fast single core or hyperthreaded CPU is better than a slightly slower multi-core CPU.

Sanx said a lot of handy info, but this is a very good point, and often overlooked. Multi-core CPU's are for multi-tasking (like 20+ apps ).

You also won't notice much of a difference between 2 and 4gb of ram, especially if you run standard configs of hard drives... your pc will only be as fast as the slowest point. Windows is also limited to assigning 2gb of ram to any application.

That pc is out of date too. If you want to throw money around, you probably want to look at the E6750 CPU, or something like that. The Exx50 is the latest, speed has been given a boost, much lower price point. Also needs latest mobo, 1333 FSB. Thats if you want to do a C2D machine... I like my AMD... Ram will need to be 800 at the least (not sure want current top of the line is) - may even be useful to wait for DDR3. Number of graphics cards... it depends what screen you will have. SLI is only useful when you get into high res's, beyond the capability of say, a normal 17 inch LCD.

Then comes the over-clocking question... will you? Sometimes, you want to get different CPU's, etc, as they actually overclock beyond the o/c of better CPUs. Re second hand parts... depends what you buy, do you get a warranty etc, you don't know how it has been treated. Buying latest gfx cards will also cost you a shitload.

btw... be prepared to cry, or enter a never-ending race. Quad core is on the way (8 and 16 are rumoured to be reasonably close behind), quad sli, ddr3 ram, be careful not to get sucked into that trap, because it never ends. This is particularly relevant to gaming, as coding is lagging behind, and as Sanx said, most current games don't make the best use of multiple cores (Believe me, while not a qualified coder, fuck programming in multiple threads, let alone cores, the co-ordination required etc).

[SARGE]

Seriously, man, why don't you stick with a $500 appliance-level PC and just buy a whole lot of good books?

You'll still have most of them on the shelf in thirty years time, and forcing yourself away from an LCD/CRT and onto the couch with a coffee or some booze and just reading for a few hours might turn you into the kind of person you should be, rather than the sad abortion you seem to be striving to become.

a bullet only costs .99.. im pretty sure i can get the loan of a pistol if i explain what its for

think of all the air we'd save ..

[Sniper]

Seriously, man, why don't you stick with a $500 appliance-level PC and just buy a whole lot of good books?

You'll still have most of them on the shelf in thirty years time, and forcing yourself away from an LCD/CRT and onto the couch with a coffee or some booze and just reading for a few hours might turn you into the kind of person you should be, rather than the sad abortion you seem to be striving to become.

First wise words I have heard in a while. Well said Mr jrandom.

RM, do you even know about Riki Tiki Tavi, Dirk Pitt, How the elephant got his trunk and how to cook roadkill ect. No one ever gained skills from sitting behind a gaming screen.

My 2c

[Monorail]

First wise words I have heard in a while. Well said Mr jrandom.

RM, do you even know about Riki Tiki Tavi, Dirk Pitt, How the elephant got his trunk and how to cook roadkill ect. No one ever gained skills from sitting behind a gaming screen.

My 2c

I know dirk pitt and I didn't even have to google it. And I knew about him before the movie came out. Pretty good for a 16 year old huh.

[Sniper]

I know dirk pitt and I didn't even have to google it. And I knew about him before the movie came out. Pretty good for a 16 year old huh.

Clive Cussler should be standard reading for anyone from the age of 5

[RantyDave]

m wanting a mint gaming rig.

My budget is going to be around $3000 (without monitor etc)

I know this is going to fall on deaf ears, but I'll give it a go anyway. It's 2007, things have changed.

* A gaming PC is called an XBox360
* A futureproof gaming PC is called a Playstation 3. Yes it is, stop moaning.
* A computer, that you use for other things, is called a MacBook.
* A PC is a thing you are chained to at work.

Save yourself a couple of grand. Buy some tyres with it.

Dave

[The Pastor]

yeah, ive been talking to a few geeks and i'll wait untill i have all the money in one go, as if i buy in stages i might not be taking advantage of the latest tecs etc.


but to re ask the question, whats top shit atm? maybe post up your dream builds?