New Gaming Rig

Robag's picture

Hi All
seeing that LT’s mouse blog got things going
Here are the parts for my new gaming rig

Please feel free to comment

Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 CPU, 2.40 GHz, FSB 1066MHz, 2×4MB L2 Cache, Socket LGA775
Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600, 2.40 GHz Clock Speed, FSB 1066MHz, 2×4MB L2 Cache, Socket LGA775. Intel 965 or 975 motherboard chipset required

ABIT IX38 QuadGT M/board – Intel X38, 1600MHz FSB, DDR2-1066, Dual PCI-E x16, SATAII RAID, GbE LAN, USB2.0, 1394, 8-Ch Audio, ATX
ABIT IX38 QuadGT M/board – Intel X38 / ICH9R, 1600MHz FSB, DDR2-1066, Dual PCI-E x16, 1 x PCI-E x16 (x4 bandwidth), 1 x PCI-E x1, 2 x PCI, SATAII RAID, GbE LAN, USB2.0, 8-Ch Audio, ATX, 2 x eSATA, IEEE 1394, 100% Solid State Capacitors, External CCMOS button, Extendor Silent Dual Pipe Cooling, PCI-E 2.0 with CrossFire support, Onboard On/Off and Reset buttons, HDMI Ready Header (S/P DIF Header)

Corsair TWIN2X4096-6400C5 4GB (2x XMS2 2GB) PC-6400 (800MHz) DDR2 RAM, 2×240-pin DIMMs, Non ECC Unbuffered, 5-5-5-18
Corsair TWIN2X4096-6400C5 4GB (2x XMS2 2GB) Twin2X PC-6400 (800MHz) DDR2 RAM, 2×240-pin DIMMs, Non ECC, Unbuffered, 5-5-5-18, 128Mx8 DRAMs, Lifetime warranty.

I do not know what Cards to get at the mo
i will be sticking with my
Gigabyte 8600GT in SLI

Comments

build

For etqw i reckon nvidia is best. When i was running radeon card i had so much trouble getting qw to work right. My new machine is pretty much same as that cept for adata ram. and 1 8800GTS gfx card. The QUAD core CPUs rock. and ya know ya want the 3ghz quad core. Ya thought about what hdds ya will run? I like raptors.

ltmon's picture

OpenGL versus DirectX

I used to be under the impression that Nvidia had a much better implementation of the OpenGL graphics library – which for those who don’t know is a competitor to DirectX (Direct3d actually) that was developed much earlier, originally for CAD and modelling applications. Nvidia’s roots as a spin-off from Silicon Graphics International (now dead) gave them a much more mature OpenGL implementation than ATI.

Is this still the case?

ET:QW is written in OpenGL by the way. ID is one of the few remaining big name game houses that primarily use OpenGL for PC games. This is a bit weird because most developers end up porting to OpenGL for either the Mac, Linux, Playstation or Wii eventually — they should just use it from the start IMHO (as someone with no game dev experience at all ;).

Hashy's picture

Some might say that yes the

Some might say that yes the quad cores are not as supported right now as they could be, fair enough they’re still pretty new, but for when I build my new system it will be quad core minimum.. Should be satisfactory for me anyway for the next few years =p

AMD or Intel im not too fussed aslong as it works. I would preference AMD myself but I am willing to defer to other brands if they are just simply better..

Thats about all really for my system haha. I would want a nice juicy video card ofcourse, maybe two…

Aslong as the mainboard and ram are compatible and check out im cool with it =p

I would go for the 2Gb RAM sticks myself too robag . I had my eyes on the DDR3 initially, disreguarding the outrageous prices ofcourse, they too seem not to have enough of a support base at the moment.. The DDR2 is the safe bet, go with what you know works =D

You say your 8600GT is SLI? Im not the best with computers, but does that mean that you have “two” 8600GT’s running together? =\

All in all sounds good dude, pretty much the same as what I would get.

Anyone got 3 grand spare just laying around? =p

Im just happy nowadays most boards come with a decent sound card & network card (or two!) built in.. Just takes away some of that annoying extra hassle you know? Unless you like installing cards…?

amd vs intel

The AMD quads are no where near as good as the intels at this point. Its a bit dissapointing really

ltmon's picture

Respin

The AMDs Phenoms have an error in them, which had to be fixed with a bios hack, slowing them down by a number of percentage points. IANACD (I am not a chip designer) so I don’t really know how accurate this explanation is. I think the relevant google term is “translation lookaside buffer” if you want to know more.

The good news is that they did a respin of the chip (more than one) to fix this, with the latest version still to be released (B3?). There is reportably a more-than-expected gain in performance from squashing the TLB bug (heard this from major x86 server vendor product manager), bringing them on par and even mildly surpassing Intel again. The new ones are hopefully on their way within a couple of months.

The performance gain is all rumour and innuendo at the moment (only pre-release B3 version chips have been reviewed so far… apparently not the real deal I’m told), so who knows what will happen in the end. Hopefully they will be at least price/performance competitive as this will be healthier in the long run.

See here for a B3 pre-release review: http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=3260

Robag's picture

RE:Some might say that yes the

Yep 2 X 8600 GT (512) with an SLI connector.
Its like the old 3DFX Voodoo 2
63 FPS at 1280 X 1024 ETQW

Hashy's picture

Ooohh yeahh homer drool

Ooohh yeahh homer drool

63fps

Is that limited or the max the gfx cards can do?

Robag's picture

RE:63fps

Not sure, from what i can see that is the peak fps at the res i can run

Fuzz's picture

Unless you’ve changed

Unless you’ve changed anything from the default, it will be locked at 60 I think. It seems to try for 30, or 60. But you can unlock it fairly easily. Will have to look up the commands for it. Mines set to 90 which matches my refresh rate nicely.

Robag's picture

RE:Unless you’ve changed

Here it is
it is a seta command that you can apply in your myconfig.cfg

here is the ETQW thread
http://community.enemyterritory.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2042

Nice tips for best gaming rigs

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