Building a new tower.

yeah it is nice, but your gonna have to run a I7 cpu instead of the Intel CORE 2 you were looking at, =more money. You need to decide what you want it to do, and how much your willing to spend, you get that new board and cpu it will be the cats azz, but cheap memory, dirves, and vid card are gonna cripple it. General rule of thumb (does not apply if you are rich) always go for the second best, its usually the best bang for the buck. Top of the line is nice but you need all top of the line parts. 1 cheap part can cripple the potential for the whole system.
 
Yeap. I think it might be actually 3.5GB's.
32-bit OSes can address a total of 4GB of memory space. That includes the memory spaces reserved for system components--notably the video card--so you'll never see the full 4GB as available RAM in a 32-bit system.

As for using RAID 0, bear in mind that RAID 0, while very fast, is not at all fault tolerant--if you lose one disk in a RAID 0 array, you lose the whole array, so you'd better be extremely diligent in your backups.
 
General rule of thumb (does not apply if you are rich) always go for the second best, its usually the best bang for the buck.
+1 on that; there's usually a clear price break one or two steps back from the top of the line.
 
Oh and Im not rich by any means! LOL! I just have been saving for this day about 2 years now and I cannot stand my current pos tower and cannot wait to pull the trigger on something SICK!
 
I use Pricegrabber to shop for my computer hardware.

It shows the Striker II is available at Directron.com for $292.99. I'd say it would be about $305 with shipping.

Tom's CPU charts are handy for showing what a processor will do in a given situation.

This shows the speed difference for processors running 3D Studio Max 9, and the QX9770 (3.2 GHz) crushes everything here (Tom's latest CPU charts don't have tests for the i7 chips yet)...

but...

...this shows that the $286 Core 2 Duo E8600 is actually a bit faster than the QX9770 for Photoshop CS3 and nearly every other application/game they used for testing performance. That's no doubt because of the higher clock speed on the E8600 (3.33 GHz).

Four cores are cool, but they'll only be useful if the software you're using is programmed to take advantage of them.

For most games, a processor with 2 cores is going to be all you'll need for the time being. More developers will start programming their software to take advantage of quad core chips eventually, especially now that the Core i7 chips are out, but for now...

...I'd suggest saving yourself a lot of money and getting a Core 2 Duo with a high clock speed, or going all out and getting the Core i7-965 ($1029).

note: Though the i7-965 is also 3.2 GHz, the i7 processors are supposedly at least %15 faster (clock for clock) than Core 2 processors.
 
the P6T has alot more room on it, but their both gonna be fast. You never know what benifits one board will have over the other in the long run. Intel might do a flip and go a totaly different direction with a new chip. It happens all the time. So the choice will be your personal preference. They will both be a night and day difference compared to what you have.
 
I rechecked the those CPU charts just to make sure my info was accurate, and it appears that I was somewhat mistaken.

The QX9770 did better than what I thought I saw earlier in a lot of the tests, but if you look at the numbers for the tests, you'll see that the much cheaper E8600 isn't that far behind in the tests where it was the slower choice.

I don't believe Q9770 is worth the extra money unless your work requires those extra processor cores. If you need a chip with four cores, I still say the i7-965 is the better choice.
 
I would have to agree that the second-best technology is usually the best bang for your buck. That being said, go with the Core2 over the i7. You will end up spending lots more $$ on RAM, Power, cooling and more time troubleshooting if you run into any problems since there is less information available for the newer technology.

If you must have a quad, get it. Otherwise a fast C2D will suit you just fine. I had planned to go with a slower quad (Q6600) in my upcoming build but have opted for a faster dual instead (E8400). While it may only have 2 processors instead of 4 it operates faster (3.0ghz and 1333mhz vs. 2.4ghz and 1066mhz). If I had an extra $100 to spend on the build it go toward the E8600 over the E8400.
I do not believe the C2Quad to be superior to the C2Duo. After all they basically just pasted two C2D chips together and called it a Quad. The interface remains the same technology.
The i7 brings back intel's hyperthreading and controls the memory in a different manner than the C2D/Q chipset does. As typically happens, time brings better technology.
Props to JMT for his comments, I could not agree more.
 
For the deals I am getting I have to step it up to the I-7.

I am getting the Asus p6T Deluxe OC Palm Edition MB and the Intel Core i7 940 Nehalem 2.93GHz LGA 1366.

Ram I am doing 12gb of Corsair Dominator 6GB 3x 2GB DDR3 1600MHZ 12800 cranked way up! LOL!
 
Well I bought the board and the ram today so it is started officially! LOL!

The Asus P6T Oc Palm was $333.00.

Got the Dominator ram 6gb for $265.00.

Next is case and power supply.
 
Keep an eye on Newegg man. You can get some deals. You would have saved $16 on the ram.
The Core i7 940 you were looking at is only $570, with free shipping.

You did get a good deal on that board though. I am an ASUS fan as well.
Can't wait to see the finished product.
 
I also am only going with 6bg ram right now because everyone is telling me 6 will be lightning? Plus I can always add 6 miore later if I really do need it.
 
For the case I am thinking of going with XCLIO Windtunnel. Next is water or air cool.
 
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Nice case. Glad to see you are shopping around.

My buddy at work and I are still discussing what we want to build up after Christmas. My budget is not nearly as large as yours but know my needs are not either. I'll get a nice setup that I can expand later as needed. I already picked up a case, got the Cooler Master 690 and am very satisfied with it.
 
Nice case too & great price!!
Actually Im getting off fairly cheap for the beast it will be.
Ill have WAY less then 3k into it (I hope LOL) which was my budget.
 
I was going to go with the Blackhawk case from Xclio but the PRICE!!:eek:

Again it falls back to "Do I really need it" plus whats the real differences? I was told the one I selected will be plenty of tower?
 
Man after researching the fan controllers on the Xclio cases and some cons I am not sure. One friend swears by the Thermaltake Spedo Advance. WOW is all I can say! The engineering and materials and overall look BLOWS the Xclio to shreds. Only $100.00 more too! I LOVE this thing. Checkout the video here.
 
Well I settled on the raid 0 hard drives.
Picked up 2 of the the Western Digital VelociRaptor WD3000GLFS.
Got them for $355.00 from Ebay.

Now for the storage ?
Was thinking WD Caviar Black in 1 TB size.
There only $139.00!!
Will mixing the 10k and 7k drives have any adverse affects? I was told by a few that I will not notice a difference.

SO far:

Mother Board, Asus P6T OC Palm Deluxe = $333.00 shipped from Ebay.

Memory, Corsair Dominatior DDr3 1600 Triple channel PC12800 (6gb) = $277.00 shipped from Ebay.

Primary hard drives, Western Digital VelociRaptor WD3000GLFS for $355.00 shipped.
 
crysis and crysis warhammer FTW...I built my system jsut for that game....good move, but my PC is a beast
 
mobo:asus p5k3...only that sucks it only accepts DDR3

processor: quad core OC'ed to 3.0 air cooled with a gazillion fans

mem: 6GB of 1333MHz corsair

HDD: 1.5 terra seagate....I have a bunch of crap, movies, music, photoshop work

video: XFX GeForce 8800 GTS 320MB
 

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