Want to build dual pentium dual graphic card machine.

[cignox1]

Sorry, perhaps I missed your point or I misundertood the question but... how do you think to get a dual processor, dual graphic card for less than 1000€?
I think that if you're lucky, you can get a decent single proc, single gfx pc, as an amd athlon 64bit 3200, an ati radeon x850, an asus mb, a couple of Gb of ram and a 150 Gb hard disk.
If you need the system you described, I fear that you'll need at least 2000€ (possibly without considering the monitor).

[rewsty]

I suppose in an ideal world I wanted to spend 1000euro, but as you pointed out and what other people have been telling me today, thats not going to happen, which is fair enough, 2000 euro is a figure closer to the mark alright.


I see that you recommend the athelon and ATI radeon any reason you choose these rather than the Pentium and Nvidia?


I allready have a monitor so thats not a factor..



-------------------------------------------------

I got this spec sent to me earlier £1,175.00 = 2000euro give or take

what do you think?


AMD Athlon 64 4000 San Diego (Socket 939) Dual DDR400 CPU
- AMD Approved Cooler
- Asus A8N-SLi Premium nForce4 SLi Dual Channel PCI-Express Motherboard
- GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) DDR PC3200 CAS2.5 Dual Channel Kit
- 250GB Western Digital Caviar SE16 16mb cache SATA-2 Hard Drive
- 2 x GeForce 7800 GT 256MB DDR3 PCI-Express Graphics Cards (SLi Configured)
- Pioneer DVR-110BK 16 x 16 DVD±RW Dual Layer ReWriter - (Black)
- Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 4.0 Sound Card
- Black floppy drive
- Silverstone Temjn TJ05 Black Case
- Tagan TG580-U15 580W ATX2.01 Easycon SLi Compliant Modular Silent PSU

[tecton3d]

unless you plan on doing a lot of gaming (and take it seriously) drop the 2nd 7800 video card and spend the saved money on another aspect of the system

~ SLI does nothing in 3d apps.

here's a system I've spec'd for a friend:

Processors: (x2) opteron 265 (1.8ghz/core)- $309ea. = 618

Motherboard: tyan K8we s2895 = 414

RAM : 2gb reg ecc corsair ram (2x 1gb) = 220

Video Card: Geforce 7800gt = 280

OS HD : 10k rpm 74 gb Western digital Raptor HD = 153

Storage HD: 250gb storage drive = 100

Processor HSF’s: (x2) Thermalright XP-120’s - 2x60 = 120

Case : silverston tj05 = 138

Power supply: OCZ PowerStream EPS12V 520W = 140

Total: 2192 usd

comes out to 1844 euro

same system with 2 - opteron 270's = 2163 euro

[digdenton]

I would say get a system similar to what tecton3d spec'ed out for you or if you want to save some money you could drop the dual opteron and get an AMD x2 3800 or 4200. You won't be able to get the second proc but you'll be able to save about $300 on the proc and close to$200 on the motherboard. If you are looking cut costs even more you could lose the boot drive and go for a single hard drive system and get cheaper unregistered ram.

Another option is to go for 2XX opteron system but only install one of the processors. You can upgrade later to two processors. You will lose some functionality of the motherboard with only one processor installed but it will still work.

In terms of your questions about nVidia vs ATI and Intel vs. AMD, a lot of this really depends on exactly what programs you are using and where you want to speed things up in that program. So if you could be a little more specific about what apps you use and what you want to get out of a new system. We might be able to help you out a little more.

[SweetDreamz]

If you feel like waiting, wait for the Conroe to come out out. It looks extremely promising.

[rewsty]

Thanks for the replys...

When is Conroe coming out?

I would be mainly using 3s studio Max, Motionbuilder, After effects, Premiere, Photoshop, for Games mainly Battlefield, thats why I'm upgrading my machine I have an old Nvidia card card thats just out of date for the game..

"~ SLI does nothing in 3d apps." that I didn't know, so I'm going to drop the need for two graphic cards, Any recommendations for the best card to do use with Max and games?

[lots]

6 months.....

[newman]

Currently, AMD processors outperform Intel's pentiums... The difference becomes more drastic with dual core CPUs, so if you're looking for a dual core system my advice is go with AMD. Check out Tom' Hardware (www.tomshardware.com), it is a great resource of hardware reviews, benchmarks, comparison charts and so forth. If I were you, I'd scrub the second graphics card in favor of a better CPU and more RAM.. You should still be able to play all new games with a fairly good resolution/graphic detail, and as for work I think most (if not all) 3d apps do not support SLI anyway... the way SLI works (either each card renders half of the screen or each card renders a different frame.. not really sure about it so if I'm mistaken someone correct me) is specifically designed for games and problematic at best when it comes to 2D/3D apps.. so most of them would just use a single graphics card.

[rewsty]

Cool, I've pretty much decided to go with AMD, Thanks, now its finding the right graphics card Nvidia or ATI I'll have a look around http://www.tomshardware.com/ and see what I can come up with.

[tecton3d]

the 7800GT looks really good and seems like the ultimate bang for the buck @ $280
the 7800GTX is a whopping 5% faster for $445 - not such a good deal

[MadMax]

Thanks for the replys...

When is Conroe coming out?


To put this into perspective, they said 6 months, that means a paper launch with real parts to follow maybe 4 months later.

Christmas at the earliest. And don't hold out too much hope on those Copnroe specs since there is no evidence that the machine they compared to was actually an FX-60, since they used an old bios unable to properly identify the CPU being used.

[Derek Floyd]

I recommend AMD CPUs. They're better for gaming and for 3D work. Go single CPU with dual cores. I'd suggest Athlon64 4400+ because of the 1MB L2 cache per core on that one. At $445 for the CPU on Pricewatch, it's a good deal. Twin 2.2GHz cores is nothing to sneeze at.

You could go Opteron and get dual cores at 2.0GHz for that price, but then you'd be able to upgrade to a second CPU. You would have to buy the special RAM, though.

[lots]

ECC Registered RAM is really not that expencive :P For now..

I'd hold out for a 7900GT and see where it lies. As Nvidia has recently announced them at Cebit. They're about the performance of a 7800GTX, but consume less power and produce less heat thanks to the 90nm process.

MadMax: Anand updated thier "black box" review today, they claim to have updated the BIOS and ran the tests again. Apparently there were no significant changes due to the BIOS switch, however they did run a benchmark incorrectly, bringing that 40% advantage down to 20%... but still. This is unreleased hardware, and I wont pass judgement until Intel (finally) releases it. If it does turn out to be a show stopper for AMD's A64, AMD better have something up its sleeve to counter it.

I'm sure by then, AMD will have been able to tweak its AM2 chips to the point where there really is not a big difference. Though, I cant wait till AMD updates its architecture. It is over 3 years old after all :P


In the end Competition is good no? :) Lower prices, faster parts.. what could be better :P

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