As you can see in another thread my PC gave up the ghost and is in limbo so I am looking at getting a PC built up for me as I can't be bothered anymore doing it myself. What do you think of this?

ANTEC 300
ATI 4890 1024Mb
Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM 1Tb
XMS3 6GB (3x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 (1600MHz) Tri-Channel
Gigabyte EX58-UD3R Intel X58 (Socket 1366) PCI-Express DDR3 Motherboard
LG GH22NS30 22x DVD±RW SATA Dual Layer ReWriter
Corsair TX 650W ATX2.2 SLI Compliant PSU
Intel Core i7 920 2.66Ghz D0 Overclocked to 3.40GHz!
Akasa AK-967 Nero Direct Contact Heatpipe CPU Cooler
7.1 High Definition OnBoard Sound Card

Oh and Windows 7 Home Edition, but 32 or 64 bit?

How good is that 3D card? Compared to my current 9800GTX+?

Get the HD 5850 IMO. A lot faster, DX 11, the replacement for the HD4*** series.

Probably in a month or so there will be a lot of sales on them.

There is a 5870 but it's £200 extra!! Out of my budget I think... Is the 4890 far better than a 9800GTX+?

Use your 9800GTX and wait till the next gen NVIDIA cards arrive. Either you will want one of those after buying the out-going 4870, or the ATI 58xx series will drop back down in price to be competitive with the new NVIDIA Fermi cards.

if you are going to get 6 gigabytes of memory you want Windows 7 64-bit.

By a long shot. I'm looking at the same swap, but I'll likely end up waiting for the next gen like guod suggested...not that I'll buy a 5850 (unless it comes down a *lot*), just hoping the 48xx series will get really cheap.

Ok, going on what's been said about DX11 cards should I downscale on other parts and get a DX11 card:

- Intel Core 2 Quad Q8400 LGA775 'Yorkfield' 2.66GHz Overclocked to 3.20GHz!
- Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3LR Intel P45 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard
- ATI Radeon HD 5870 1024Mb
- Corsair XMS2 4GB (2x2GB) DDR2 PC2-8500C5 TwinX Dual Channel
- LG GH22NS30 22x DVD±RW SATA Dual Layer ReWriter (Black)
- Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM
- Akasa AK-967 Nero Direct Contact Heatpipe CPU Cooler
- OCZ ModXStream Pro 700w Silent SLI Ready ATX2 Modular Power Supply
- Windows 7 Home Premium 32bit

Will that setup still give me a significant performance over my Intel C2D 6400, 2Gb RAM, GeForce 9800GTX+, Windows XP? Silly question?

So which setup, the first or this one?

Do you currently have a 9800GTX+?

If so, you can try the following:

1) Use your 9800GTX+ until you get more money. Yes, the 4890 is noticeably faster, but not very much. Probably around 15-20% faster. Which is not a whole lot, considering how much money you will spend on a new card. You may want to check out benchmarks to see how big the difference really is.

2) Sell your 9800GTX+ and use the extra cash to get a HD 5850. They were going for $270 or so a few weeks ago on newegg.com.

3) You can give AMD Phenom 2s a try.

Benchmark between Intel 920 and Phenom 2 965.


The AMD Phenom 2 965 is a little slower than the Intel Core I7 920, but costs around $100 less at newegg.com. Look at the performance, is is not much slower.

So if you save $90-100, you can put that towards the 5850. That would make a faster overall PC for games.

Costs about $30 more than the Q8400, but as you can see, the Phenom 2 965 is faster than the Q9550. Which means it will most likely be considerably faster than the Q8400.

I think with the AMD CPU, you will have enough cash for a HD 5850 and get an overall more powerful PC.

Seems to be the better price/performance deal out of your Intel options. Plus, LGS 775 is dead. AMD3 socket is newer and will be around longer. They might eve release new CPUs in AMD, meaning you would be able to upgrade again. Can't do that with Intel.

I am happy with my AMD Phenom 1 9950 quad core, and this quite a bit faster.



Also, why are you going with a 32bit OS? You're just limiting yourself. You can't even use 4GB of RAM, and more programs in the future will use it.

I have been running Vista 64bit for around a year with almost zero issues.

Mace, check prices on an Asus P6T mobo and the Intel i920. The Intel 8200-8600 are great processors, but not for a new build if you can possibly go with an i7. I just got an i920 retail processor for under $200 USD. It's running solid as could be at 3.6 GHz.

Pray tell where from, because I'm going to start shopping where you do