Alrighty, so i'm in the middle of school exams, one reason why my account was deactivated. Other reason is because i was never available to play at consistent times so raiding was out of the question for me and PUG icc (at the time) mostly consisted of rep farms that didn't net me required x/x boss kill lists. (Plus I played sloppy so my dps kinda sucked)
Anyway, to make me feel better, i'm think of getting a new computer!
Computer i currently have is a rig i built about 5 years ago.
Athlon 64 3000+ cpu (my system bottleneck for some time... but not reasonably upgradeable) Asus A8N-sli deluxe socket 939 motherboard (Got screwed with the s939 =/ ) 3gigs dual channel pc-3200 DRR ram EVGA Geforce 8600 GT graphics card (original card died (hehe good times in WSG though)) 19 inch BenQ FP783 LCD (1280x1024) 320gig Maxtor Sata 7200rpm (16meg cache) hardrive (latest and greatest at the time) Antec Earthwatts 650 power supply (New PSU) Logitech Dinovo Edge Keyboard (sexy) Logitech Mx518 mouse. Windows XP pro.
Alright, so after all the bells and whistles were added, the above rig cost me nearly 2 and a half grand (Canadian) 5 years ago. I'm not looking to spend that much again.
Currently i'm debating the usual AMD vs Intel. I cant afford i7 cpus and motherboards, so if i go intel id go with the i5 comptable chipset that wont probably be continued past the current generation since sexa-cores wont run on them. Amd howewere seems to be sticking to am3 processors, that although the best processor runs on par with the i5 750, might give me some more upgrade options down the road. Maybe.
As for GPU - Nvidia just rolled out their pimping new "fermi" cards with are wreaking payback in terms of performance on ATI. However that point is moot, since i'm not spending that kind of cash, so i'm really looking at the HD 5770 for future proofing and bang for the buck.
Now then, here's what i'm looking at so far, if you have any comments/suggestions, post away!
Project "Red Dwarf"
Case: Either of Azza Helios 910R Azza Solano 1000R
OS: Windows 7 Pro (got it free and actually legit)
Going AM3: Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-890XA-UD3 CPU: AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition RAM: 2x G.Skill F3-12800CL9D-4GBNQ
Going Intel: Motherboard: LGA1366 (no i5)? Rather LGA1156 CPU: i5 750? RAM:?
Video Card: Radeon HD 5770 Audio: on-board Tv Tuner: (plug in pci-express card) Wireless Adapter: (plug-in pci-express card)
Monitor: something led-backlit and sexy resolution
Hard Drive: Sata2, probably WD Caviar Black edition Optical Drive: Maybe a blu-ray reader in the future, but definitely a DVD burner. (About 30$)
PSU: enough to run my systems plus maybe crossfire in the future as card prices dip.
I'm currently running an i5 and four cores are plenty (most things barely use 2). You should look into an SSD drive. The 80GB Intel is reasonably priced and will make a huge difference in speed.
Let me know if you find anything decent in the monitor department. I need a new one but haven't seen anything special (outside of the Mac one). Stop exploding, you cowards!
I was looking at reviews of SC2 and it is optimized for dual. You do get some extra bump for running more though, and honestly MOAR is always better, especially in the long run when you have 50 things to do and you just need a quick gaming fix :P
As for monitors, the BenQ i have is a 19inch 1280x1024, 5ms , so anything very wide screen would make the difference. I'm of the opinion that the more pixels you can cram into the smaller the monitor package the better, so quick searching on the us newegg website (the have the best search engine) netted me two 1900x1200 contenders (i dont want a 16x9 tv aspect ratio monitor unless its really good and on riculously priced special)
Auria EQ2668 (tigerdirect.ca) (newegg.COM) Asus VW266H (newegg.ca) (tigerdirect.ca)
Asus might be a bit better for gaming due to the 2ms pixel response (auria has 5, but might be a lot nicer image). They aren't exactly top of the line monitors either, not that those would be app appropriate roriate for game either. I'm just wondering if they'd fit on my desk in between my speakers or not :P
ps the ssd might be a wee bit out of my budget at the moment, though i'm guessing windows 7 would make the use of a smaller "operating" drive simpler.
But if i did get an ssd - it would go straight to the laptop first (assuming i get one).
I'm considering the Alienware m11x (very portable, backlit keyboard, hopefully the upadted version will stamp out a few production qualms when its finally released)
Another one that was brought to my attention is the MSI GX640.
Just a little heads up: I'm broke so i never really got a new rig, but i did update it alittle bit:
Processor is now a socket 939 Athlon 64 X2 4800+m which is a nice boost and dual core, but nowhere near the power of current processors. It is however end of the line in terms of what is still avaible for s939.
I moved up the video card to a 9800gt (much better) and still have the old 8600gt providing PhysX and serving my secondary 17inch BenQ monitor.
My new main monitor is a Samsung T240 (24inch 1920X1200) which i was considering buying new... till i lucked out and found someone on kijiji selling a year old one for dirt cheap and in my area. SCORE! =D
Apart from that, my router died so i hardwired my pc to my cable modem again and marvelled at how much fricken faster that is (for a long time my pc was on the 3rd floor and my router served up the internets from the basmenet). If i need a router service in the future, ill just use my PC and the built in windows 7 tools to do it as needed.
Nothing major, but now i can focus on saving money to get me a new laptop =)
(PS i resintalled wow very late last night, might log back in to say hi and play a bit over the summer)
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