Anyone know anything about building gaming computers???

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I don't know if I'd recommend an intel processor. AMD ones tend to be cheaper, and more effective. But then, I also haven't been following Hardware recently.

The most important thing is a good video card. You'll probably want a good motherboard too for issues relating to how much data can be zipping around at any time. Fast RAM is also probably something to consider.

A fast Hard drive may be in order too, rather than one with a lot of space. I don't have much trouble with space, and I only have a 40 gig hard drive (serial ATA).


It's a few years old, but the machine I have is still pretty good for games. (Mostly, because it has such a great video card)

You are correct. I should not have said that RAID 5 is a backup. It is not a backup. However, it does protect your data in the event of hard drive failure.

You don't think that that's a common reason that people lose data? I've had two of my hard drives fail, and I lost a lot of data. RAID 5 would have prevented me from losing anything, without having to give up half of my total storage to backup.

I really don't have any problem with deleting files that I need. I'm very careful about what I delete, and if I ever did delete something really important(hasn't happened in a very, very long time), I could run an undelete program, and have a good chance of getting the file back. It's hard drive failure that I'm worried about.



Storing data online is expensive, especially if you're trying to backup all of your data(just try to find a reasonable price on a terabyte of online storage). I'm cheap, so I try to find the cheapest solutions to problems.


what do you mean? You backup your hard drives onto a huge pile of DVD's and then send them off to a bunch of people? That's expensive, and the backup data would be outdated very quickly.


The reason why I promote RAID 5, is because it will protect you from hard drive failures(without taking up half your total storage for a full backup), and it does increase your read/write performance. If you're worried about your house burning down or you think you may accidentally delete a file, Carbonite is another option. It won't speed up your performance, and may even slow it down, but it is encrypted online storage, with "unlimited" online backup(there's kind of a soft limit at 100gb, where they slow your uploading rate down), and they keep deleted files for a while, so if you decide you didn't want to delete them, you can restore them easily.



well, Intel's Core2Duo's are pretty good CPU's. They are still using the obsolete FSB, but they are faster than AMD in a majority of benchmarks(not all, but most of them). AMD does still offer the better value in low to mid range CPU's, and a same-socket upgrade path to true quad core(when it comes out), but Intel has better performance for the price at the high end, and if you're willing to overclock, their lower end CPU's have a good chance of being able to overclock to very high speeds. I'm not going to buy a new CPU until AMD's new line of CPU's come out. Native quad core, and considerably faster than Intel's current CPU's. My AMD 64 X2 4400+ is still working just fine.



yeah, when getting an Intel CPU, you do need to pick out a good motherboard, with a good chipset. Also, Intel cpu's perform better with high mhz ram, latency doesn't matter as much(because the FSB creates a ton of latency, a little more or less from the RAM won't make much difference. Unlike AMD's much faster HyperTransport). Also, If you're planning to get Vista, don't skimp on the amount of RAM. get a minimum of 2GB for a Vista gaming computer.



well actually, hard drives don't transfer all that fast. they can't even take advantage of anything more than an old PATA interface, in most cases. However, SATA hard drives do tend to be slightly faster. But there really is no difference in performance between the SATA150 and SATA300 drives, so don't pay more for a SATA300. If you really want speed, get a Raptor. 10,000RPM makes it the fastest SATA hard drive you can get. It'll cost a lot though(around $170), and it only holds 150GB. All the rest of the latest-generation hard drives perform around the same speed though, whether it holds 250GB or 750GB doesn't make all that much difference in speed. Just watch for a good deal(less than $.25/gig), and jump on it. Also, look for drives that feature perpendicular recording(Seagate 7200.10 drives, among others). They tend to have better performance, and are less likely to suffer from data corruption due to heat. As for the onboard cache, don't worry about it so much. Some benchmarks I looked at recently showed that there is really no performance benefits from 16mb as compared to 8mb cache. Don't pay more for it.

Hi CompWiz17,
My comments about backup were made in the context of the thread.
I cannot see that the builder of a gaming computer would have any use for commercial level bulk backup.
I would expect virtually all of the data on their drives to be already on CD/DVD, as that was where it had come from. Should a drive fail, they just reinstall.

I can give you one instance where I have backed up data that I would rather not lose. It is the results of a two month (continuous) run of a program that generated the last term in this flups sequence. The program and results are here in this machine, on CD on the other side of the room, on my website and in Canada.

I've just recently spent 3 months working in a personal computer repair shop. Only in one instance was there a genuine drive failure, and I caught that just in time. I managed to back up the whole drive while the fault was still in an "intermittent" state. Out of the 10Gb of data I copied, the user was only really interested in a few megabytes of pictures, which they'd not burned to CD.

I certainly agree with your other comments on hard drive speeds. Again, for a gaming computer, there is absolutely no point in large/fast drives. Go for masses of fast RAM.

as for what I'd back up, while I do use my computer for gaming, I use it for many other tasks as well. (that's why I didn't just buy a console). For example, I do a fair amount of video editing, which takes up a lot of space, and I wouldn't want to lose it to a hard drive failure. Sure, it's not protected if my house burns down, and theoretically, I could delete it(I'm careful though, and I really haven't had any problems with that), but the odds of my hard drive failing are far, far higher than the odds of my house burning down.

Times have changed in that regard, my wife gets FPS rates under Linux which are slightly worse than she did under XP (or equal with less-than-maxxed video settings), but much better than the same games currently get under Vista. Ventrilo and the other things that MMORPG-players use to communicate also run well. And when the game locks up, as they sometimes do, she just kills it and restarts it, instead of having to hit the reset button like under XP. Many of Vista's problems with drivers and DirectX 10 support will get resolved, but others, such as checking your game 30 times a second to make sure it's not pirated, will not. Some gaming sites (see http://mmreviews.com/index.php?/archive ... umors.html for example) have gone as far as to recommend that users migrate from XP to Linux or OS/X instead of Vista.

I'm not saying that there's any compelling argument for gamers to change operating systems -- on the contrary, those who are happy using XP would probably be best just sticking with it. But there is at least one viable alternative for those who would like one.

I'd choose Intel over AMD, if you are going Conroe. Otherwise you might want to check out low-end AM2 or Opteron.

But there is no reason not to get a E6300. Some people are OCing to 3ghz and above with them. Destroys AMD in this regard.

I'd go for mid-end DDR2 667 (800mhz) RAM. RAM does not make a huge difference, but with 800mhz you will be able to run 1:1 without a divider.

Make sure you don't skimp on the mobo, you need one that can give you a high FSB.

E6300 is a wuss OCer compared the the E4300 and i'm thinking about getting a Abit AB9 Pro,its a decent OCer i heard and i want to get 800MHz RAM.

Sounds good. I got my E6600 before Intel's latest refresh. I run at ~3.4ghz 24/7 on water. I haven't tried finding it's max yet, mainly b/c I need this to last me till summer at least.

Looking at the pricing and overclockability of the E4300, I'd choose that over the 6000-series too.

Have you decided on a gfx card yet? I hear April is the ATI r600 launch, but it's going to only be a paper launch. Still I'd wait for it, at least it'll probably drive down the prices.

yeah, with the new line coming out from AMD and the new mid and low-end cards coming out from Nvidia, it's a good idea to wait a bit before getting a graphics card. Even if the AMD "launch" doesn't drive down prices, NVidia's new cards will. They're set to be launched at very good prices.

I want to get a 8800GTS 320MB and OC it.

And i ain't gonna get R600,because i doubt there will be a R600 card that will own the 320MB 8800GTS while not being much more expensive.

if i was you i would not OC anything because you barely know how to build a PC no matter know enough to overclock it sensiblely it is not as easy as it seems actually overclocking anything too much would cause there to be lags in the transmission times and therefore makes it SLOWER
it also lessens the life of the processor and obviously needs more cooling (hot processors are SLOW NOT FAST).

I plan on OCing the card and CPU but i'm not gonna push the card to the point where it'll become toastand i'll get some good CPU cooing before i push it to its limits,and the parts will be replaced long before they die on me anyway.

Ok but that isn't the end of the story, you can have software problems when you OC
also OCing your processor will void your warranty so make sure it works before even think about it.
You will need a decent motherboard if you are wanting to OC because for one thing not all BIOSs i have seen even have that option.

before you do such a thing:
read this
and this

OMFG why are you trying to keep me from OCing? I know there ARE RISK with OCing,but there are also BENEFITS (better performance in games & apps)

I plan on getting a ABIT AB9 Pro,and i heard its good for OCing.

No i am just making sure you are not like every other 15 year old who thinks hes cleaver and good with computers because he knows all the buzz words.
People who OC their PC should know nearly everything on those websites because microprocessors are complicated devices.
about 60% of people who have OCed their PC have broken it because they did not know what they were getting into and about 80% of them are 15 year olds.

Alright then.