Building a new gaming rig... turned into anguish...

[Kherr]

I'm building a new gaming rig. Here it is!

Win 7 Ultimate 64-Bit
1 TB 7200 RPM sATA HDD
4 GB DDR2-800 SDRAM
Pentium D 930 Dual-Core Processor @ 3.0 GHz
Linkworld Electronics LC323 ATX Mid Tower Case
Gigabyte GA-G41M-ES2L LGA 775 G41 mATX Motherboard
Kingwin 750 Watt ATX Power Supply

AND (also given to me for free)

A Nvidia Ge-Force 9600 GT (96w)! (I got a special limited edition card too, it was made by XFX on a Nvidia board... odd enough...)

All this for $352 USD!

God I'm so happy! *wipes tears from his eyes*

What do you all think about this build?

[Hot Trout]

That is a good little spec for the money. The Gigabyte board will allow you to OC that rig a little. The display card is good for free but a little underpowered for recent titles. That said, stick a bigger card in later and it would make a serious gaming rig.

Nice one

[Kherr]

The Gigabyte board will allow you to OC that rig a little.

Why would I want to OC a 3 GHz dual core? I don't need to, it's just not needed. It's not like I'm going to be playing Crysis at all, let alone at max settings... :3 This rig is going for things like Skulltag and Minecraft, Bioshock, Mass Effect, and UT3. ;3 I think it will do superbly... even though it will run Crysis very well, just not at max settings (not that I can afford to buy crysis either... :3)

Also, I wouldn't mind

[Hot Trout]

Its a nice card but ATI are performing better with less heat these days.

[Kherr]

Its a nice card but ATI are performing better with less heat these days.

And this is where I have to disagree HT. ATI are shit these days. Nvidia may run a little on the warm side, but proper ventilation and 2 fans (which I'll have) take care of their cards nicely. ;3

[Hot Trout]

Just about everything you read will place ATI cards ahead of NVIDIA at present. In terms of sheer power, SLI ability, heat (or lack of it), OC'ability as well as better driver support for Win7 and 64bit.

Over the years I have moved from NVIDIA to ATI as required. The last card I bought was a Saphire 5770 1GB DDR5 Vapor-X. I OC'ed it easily to about 25% more. It is quiet and cool when compared to my office PC which is using a 460 GTS NVIDIA. Before that card I used a 8800 GTS which I loved. Times change and ATI just seem to be ahead of the game for about a year now.

It is personal taste at the end of the day and the rig you are building is good by any standards.

[Kherr]

Just about everything you read will place ATI cards ahead of NVIDIA at present. In terms of sheer power, SLI ability, heat (or lack of it), OC'ability as well as better driver support for Win7 and 64bit.

Nothing I've read has put ATI over Nvidia in terms of reliability and performance.

Believe it or not, you're the very first person I've ever heard say that an ATI graphics card is better than a Nvidia.

On this list you'll notice that the GTX460's (SLI) beat the HD6870's (CFX). The GTX460 isn't even the best card Nvidia has to offer, the GTX580 is (which beat any ATI card by itself). ;3

[Hot Trout]

It is down to costs etc. Bottom line is that if you have the cash then Dual SLI ATI 5970 cards are the fastest thing on the planet. Check out the number of processing cores alone.

The fastest graphics card on the planet, the ATI Radeon HD 5970 delivers an unrivaled HD gaming experience so you can play the latest, most demanding HD titles like never before. Engineered for speed, this next-generation powerhouse delivers unprecedented performance straight out of the box. Unlocked, this graphics card has massive headroom so you can take control and push your hardware to its full potential! Expand your visual real estate across up to three displays and get lost in the action with ATI Eyefinity Technology. Using ATI Stream technology, accelerate even the most demanding applications and do more than ever with your PC. Among the first to deliver full support for Microsoft DirectX 11, these GPUs enable rich, realistic visuals with explosive performance so you can dominate your gaming competition.

Now bundled with an XFX exclusive OverVolt Tool. Take charge of the GPU and memory voltages with an exclusive performance enhancing tool only available for use with the XFX HD 5970 Black Edition. With this tool, you can push the GPU up to 1.0GHz and 6.0GHz for memory.* Product registration required to access this tool and the power to fine tune the voltage settings and unleash the performance limits.

- Core Clock: 725MHz (Up to 1.0GHz with OverVolt Tool)
- Memory: 2048MB GDDR5
- Memory Clock: 4000MHz (Effective) (Up to 6.0GHz with OverVolt Tool)
- Memory Bandwidth: 256GB/s
- Processing Cores: 3200
- Bus Type: PCI-Express 2.1
- Display Connectors: 2 Dual-Link DVI-I & 1 Mini DisplayPort
- HDCP Capable
- DirectX 11 Support
- OpenGL 3.2 Support
- ATI CrossFireX Ready
- ATI Eyefinity Technology
- ATI Avivo HD
- ATI Stream Technology

[Kherr]

Well, as nice as this thought was, and how amazing it was beginning to feel... my dreams have yet again been crushed by the forces that be. I had to spend over 3/4 of the money I had for building this gaming rig on the cable/internet/phone bill today (and it was a surprise bill on my end). I no longer will be building this rig, and I probably won't be building a rig anytime soon either. I've been promising myself for around 5 years now that when I had the extra cash I would build a decent gaming rig. This is the closest I've ever been. Having the money and only being 2 days away from buying the hardware at the store. And in the blink of an eye it was gone. Just like that.



I've waited 5 years, what's another year or two?

[Hot Trout]

I am very sorry to hear that, I was getting excited for you. Why not look at a Phenom rig instead.

What if we asked everyone to donate to your cause Maybe we could raise some cash for you to get a rig built. At the end of the day we all need you around this place.

What do you say gang, I will pledge $30 to get us started as long as everyone else pledges some more. Keep Kherr alive campaign