I like nvidia drivers, just got a gts250 w/1 gb and it is pretty nice. AMD has the best dollar for power ratio but the I7 is much faster. I would just balance your power vs dollar ratio. Ohh and get a BFG video card. Their tech support is second to none and the cards are very solid.
' Wrote:I like nvidia drivers, just got a gts250 w/1 gb and it is pretty nice. AMD has the best dollar for power ratio but the I7 is much faster. I would just balance your power vs dollar ratio. Ohh and get a BFG video card. Their tech support is second to none and the cards are very solid.
AMD is like what everyone is saying your best bang for your buck.
If you have more funds though Intel is the way to go. E8500 especially, that what the server runs on I believe.
Nividia is also great, some manufacturers give free games with purchase. 8800GT is great for its price by looking at its benchmarks in PC Gamer.
BFG Cards support is awesome. Lifetime Warranty plus 24/7 Tech Support by Phone:yahoo:.
I got one of their older model (7600GS) for fairly cheap and I'm happy I chose it.
Anyone who's thinking about upgrading their vid card should read carefully that article.
It's faster than Nividia's 9800GT or 250. Currently Nvidia has nothing even to come close to what it's offering for the same money. And it has DX 10.1 support that 8800/9800 series lack. Both nvidia 9800 GT and ATI 4770 cost around $100. 250 GTS is more expensive at around $120-130. So make a wise choice and take the 4770.
And to top it off it has a new cooler design that 48xx lacked badly.
Don't forget that you most probably need a new power supply unit as well no matter what vid card you'll choose if your old one does not have those extra 6-pin 12V wires.
Not just forget i7 but any other expensive CPU/Mobo...
Also, maybe it's $100 in US, but back in UK it is always more expensive. A basic 4770 is around 80GBP, that's a third of her budget:)
I've come up with some specs for you - prices from the ebuyer.co.uk which I've used before. They would be a bit more expensive but I've used them and trust their service.
Intel Core 2 Duo E4600 ?95.33
Gigabyte GA-EP43-S3L ?64.99
Kingston 4GB (2x2GB) DDR2 800MHz/PC2-6400 ?40.99
Gigabyte HD 4770 512MB ?89.30
Coolermaster 460W eXtreme Power Plus PSU ?36.99
Total including VAT - ?327.60
The reason why I chose E4600 & the EP43 board is that it can be overclocked. So when you feel the need for speed - Buy a good reasonably priced cooler - Such as the ZalmanCNPS9700 and you can easily push this from 2.4Ghz to 3Ghz.
Anything lower than this, you'd have to go for an AMD combination - I'm afraid I'm not much into AMD currently.
Most builds I've done are around Intel.
Edit: Not sure why the Pound sign changed to Question marks... Maybe the forum doesn't support it...
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A graphics card is going to be almost a third of the budget in any build I've ever seen. That's just the way it goes. The more expensive the other parts too the more expensive graphics card planned for the rig.
You can get cheaper cards, but not really much. Even the totally obsolete cards cost around 50.
One reason I would not go AMD is that it can not be up-graded that easily in the CPU department (almost as a rule nowadays for AMD new CPU-> new motherboard) , whereas by buying a good Core2Duo motherboard you'll have a lot of options to up-grade it later.
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