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Hardware Recommendations for August 2007

08.05.07 - 04:12pm

Time to jump back onto the animal that is by blog and whip it back into shape. To kick things off let’s go with the monthly hardware recommendation. As of late nothing major has launched however there have been some major cuts in prices. The price drops have been so severe I’m surprised the police haven’t been called, these chips are screaming bloody murder. AMD doesn’t have a “flagship” AM2 chip with the most expensive X2 weighing in at $170 and Intel has dropped the price on their Q6600 to a crisp $270, if you are planning a build then there is no excuse to have anything less than a dual-core processor. This time around I’m actually going to piece together 4 separate systems, a budget office system, a budget gaming/entertainment center, a overclockers platform, and a high-end splurgefest system. Let me know if you like this format better than the previous setup.

Budget Office Build

This build is your very basic build, great for surfing the web, working with productivity programs, moderate coding, and moderate encoding. This would be perfect for the individual that needs a minimalistic system or perhaps a base for a file-server. Do not expect to run any 3D applications with this build or for that matter any CPU intensive applications. I suggested the Antec earthwatts powersupply line as it has a rather phenomenal efficiency which can help cut down on the powerbills and cooling bills as it wastes less power and operates cooler than most other powersupplies.

Budget Gaming Build

By increasing the budget a bit(ok, by nearly 75%) you end up with a pretty decent rig to play your latest DX10 titles and for the most part run any application needed. Vista Home Premium is the OS of choice for this segment as it includes all the useful features in Vista that general users need. Currently Vista isn’t what I’d consider a high performance operating system as it is a bit buggy and sluggish but that cannot be fixed by the user.

Overclocker Build

This build is something that I could see myself using if I was in need of a complete rebuild. In fact for the most part my current desktop is a mirror image of this build and this should satisfy most gamers and overclockers by having plenty of headroom for overclocking and enough grunt to grind through the latest DX10 titles with more screens than a slideshow. The Q6600 could be substituted for an E6850 if you needed the slightly higher multiplier for LN2/cascade benching but generally I’d suggest a Q6600 to satisfy all your needs. The twin Seagates could also be run in Raid 0 for high-performance or Raid 1 for stability. Once again Vista Home Premium makes the cut, I cannot warrant purchasing a fresh copy of XP Professional even though it is the leading performance OS right now.

Splurgefest

Just inherit $4000? Need to be the envy of all your gaming friends? Just like to have the best of the best? Well this build is for you. I didn’t go overboard per se but this build is pretty much the pinnacle of computer hardware. I went with a QX6700 rather than the new QX6800 to save $400 and I went with 8800GTX SLI rather than 8800 Ultra SLI to safe another $200. Mount the Raptors in Raid 0 and the Barracudas in Raid 1 and you are set. The powersupply to run this rig is the hefty PCP&C 750w Quad, once again I couldn’t warrant upgrading to the 1000w PCP&C but don’t worry, you won’t run out of juice anytime soon. I’d really have to suggest that if you were to go with a build such as this to throw it into a Lian Li V2000B and hire me to build you a nice single-stage.

Conclusion

That just about sums it up, those four builds do a good job spanning just about all aspects of the computer scene unless you are looking for a dual-socket system. Feel free to mix things up how you wish and ask questions, I’m always available if you want to field some hardware questions.

Category: Articles, Hardware