Specifying a Winner

[Boot]

New build time. I think I have it locked down on:

Asus P5N-E SLI
Intel Conroe E6600 2.4 GHz
2 x Nvidia GeForce 7900GS in SLI
Corsair XMS 2 x 1 GB
A couple Seagate drives, 80 GB and 160 GB
Creative X-FI XtremeGamer

It's lame to list the case so consider that I will put this into something slightly nicer than a cardboard box. I may OC someday when the games start to get choppy, but that should be a long time from now so I'll be on stock cooling. Cost of the build will be about $1400, but I've been collecting some of the components over the last few months so my year end out of pocket will be something under that.

The things I'm not sure about:

1. The X-FI card. I very quickly bought an Audigy 2 card for my current rig not long ago and didn't spend enough time reading up on it. Turns out it works fine, but didn't give me all the fancy HW accelleration in BF2 that I expected. That, and I lamely bought the "Gamer" edition and turns out I payed extra for a dozen games that I either already had or will never play. Why should I buy another sound card then? I can prolly run my 5.1 system off the onboard. Someone convince me?
2. The Seagate drives. I want to demote my current rig to the kids and hammer their machine into a Home Theater PC, so suddenly I need to drop a hundred bucks on drives. I haven't bought Seagate in a long time, so if anyone has reason I should look elsewhere please let me know.

Thoughts or comments?

[WhiskeySix]

on board sound? *shudder* I won't touch that ever again. If you're hooking up any loudspeakers or eargoggles worth their weight, you'll very likely get audible noise each time a USB transfer (mouse movement, etc) takes place.... Stick w/ the Audigy 2!

[sordavie]

I have two 320GB Seagate drives. They are $95 each at Newegg. Why not just one of these instead of two smaller ones, which will cost you more (240GB vs 320GB).

[Drizzid]

My only suggestion would be to go to 2gigs of ram instead of one

[asch]

Originally Posted by Boot

The X-FI card. I very quickly bought an Audigy 2 card for my current rig not long ago and didn't spend enough time reading up on it. Turns out it works fine, but didn't give me all the fancy HW acceleration in BF2 that I expected. That, and I lamely bought the "Gamer" edition and turns out I payed extra for a dozen games that I either already had or will never play. Why should I buy another sound card then? I can prolly run my 5.1 system off the onboard. Someone convince me?

I have a very similar setup to what you're building. I went with the x-fi xtrememusic and have not had a single issue with it. It handles all of the hardware acceleration and EAX settings that I can throw at it.

In BF2 you can crank all of the video and audio settings to the max with that rig.

You definitely don't want to run of onboard sound. When you do that, your computer uses CPU cycles to process sound and that can kill your performance.

[Boot]

Originally Posted by sordavie

I have two 320GB Seagate drives. They are $95 each at Newegg. Why not just one of these instead of two smaller ones, which will cost you more (240GB vs 320GB).

That's similar to my current setup: one 160 GB drive partitioned into two 80 GB. It's been sufficient for me, but I get the occassional twinge about failure taking all my data. So the first idea is to allow my system drive to be fully backed up on a separate drive. I tend to install and de-install software a lot and sometimes need to revert to a fresh image. This setup will allow me to save a clean install, plus a loaded install, plus whatever else I need for scratch.

The other thing I want to do is keep the page file on a separate disk from the system & program files. I've heard this can speed up game performance, since the constant page file chewing interferes with the next map load.

Originally Posted by Drizzid

My only suggestion would be to go to 2gigs of ram instead of one

That's actually 2 x 1 Gig sticks = 2 Gigs. Is that enough? I have 4 Gig now, and don't know if it all gets used.

Originally Posted by asch

I have a I went with the x-fi xtrememusic and have not had a single issue with it.

Hmm... I'm going to look closer at this, or stick with the Audigy I have as Whiskey recommends. Thanks for the feedback.

Now all I have to do is knock over that armored car and I'm in business!

[jmaker]

Here's a hard drive for you. (copied from slickdeals)

Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 ST3400620AS 400GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA
$119.99 - $20 code FREDSBARCUDA1211 = $99.99

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822148138

[BiBi]

I'd strongly suggest getting one higher-end video card, rather than 2 lower-end cards in SLI. It's more effective and easier to upgrade in the future.

The new Nvidia 8800 series cards are DX10 compatible, one 8800 card will definitely beat the performance of two 7900 cards.

Otherwise the build looks great especially with the Conroe, have fun

[Boot]

Pulled the trigger last night, and now I'm just waiting for 1) my wife to notice the credit card bill (she checks online like 8x a week); and 2) my parts to arrive. If I'm lucky I'll be building this weekend.

ASUS P5N-E SLI Motherboard
Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 Conroe 2.4GHz
CORSAIR XMS2 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800
Seagate Barracuda 7200.9 ST380811AS 80GB
Seagate Barracuda 7200.9 ST3160811AS 160GB
ARCTIC COOLING AF8025 80mm Case Fan (I ordered 6 -- what a steal at $2.30 ea!)
ENERMAX Liberty ELT620AWT ATX12V 620W Power Supply
ZALMAN CNPS9500 LED 92mm 2 Ball Cooling Fan with Heatsink
CODEGEN 4U-500-CA Black Aluminum/Steel 4U Rackmount Case

Merry Christmas everyone!