Getting the Itch Again

[RalliArt882]

Ok so its getting close to that time of the year again where I will soon start taking advantage of the holiday deals to upgrade my rig. Last year I kept all of my major internals and did some pretty good upgrades to the cooling but now the inside needs some work. In my opinion, this is what I need to keep and get rid of.

Want I want to keep:

CM Stacker 830 SE
OCZ GameXtreme 700W
Core 2 Duo e6600 @ 3.6ghz
Tuniq Tower 120
Soundblaster X-Fi Xtrememusic
Sceptre 20.1" 1680x1050
Apevia 120mm fans everywhere

What I need to get rid of:

Gigabyte DS3 965p
Corsair Dominator 2x1GB DDR2 800
Sapphire x1950PRO 256mb

So in short, I need a new mobo, video card, and memory. For the motherboard, I would like a Crossfire board because I have never experimented with a multi-GPU setup and I'd like to do that one day. I was thinking one of the Asus boards like the Rampage Formula or the Maximus Formula II. What is the difference between these two?

For the GPU I was thinking a Sapphire HD4870 1GB or whatever brand is cheapest by then. I also need to upgrade to a 2x2GB memory kit because one day I will upgrade to Vista 64bit (I'm still on XP MCE 2005). Should I go for a DDR3 kit? Or are those unreliable and too expensive for what you are getting still?

And yes, I know the e6600 is getting to be old school now but if it can be 3.6Ghz stable on this cheap mobo I'm on now, I shouldn't have a problem keeping it stable on a high end Asus board. I will look into a faster clock-for-clock Core 2 when I have a new mobo, GPU, and RAM first. Thanks alot for your help and I can't wait to rip apart the rig again.

[Ethan_Kaizer]

You're getting that itch again? I thought the doctor said to use that topical cream and it'll be gone in a few days, and to wear protection next time... O Wait you're talking in metaphor.

First off, an e6600 overclocked is still a great processor, so don't sweat it. 3.6 is an awesome overclock too.

-The main difference between the Maximus II Formula and the Rampage formula is that the Maximus is a P45 board, and the Rampage is an X48 board. I'll let someone else explain which of the two is better. I do know that both boards are excellent, and both are great OC'ers.

-You might want to go with the HD 4870 512mb edition if you want to overclock it. You may encounter some oddities with the 1gb edition. Sometimes the higher memory can have less power.

-DDR3 is still not the standard, and is still overpriced. It's harder to find, and you would have to pick out a DDR3 supporting board. The Asus Maximus and Rampage Formula do not support DDR3 Ram, so you wouldn't be able to get those. You're better off with some high quality DDR2 1200 RAM in one of those motherboards, in my opinion.

[baron5]

agreed, dw about ddr3, they will only be useful for the nehalems.

yeah the e6600 should be ok for now anyway. especially at 3.6.
x48 and p45 are both new intel chipsets, the main difference being that x48 has full support for crossfire 16x while p45 can only have 8x on the second card. really, i would just get a I45 by biostar, the extra cash isnt worth it for those mobo's. they wont get you any better overclocks...

the 1gb verison would be good for higher res's. but your monitor will be fine with a 512mb verison anyway.

[RalliArt882]

Alright that's cool because I am finding fast DDR2 kits for really cheap on newegg too. And I won't be looking into nehalem anytime soon because I heard that will take a fortune to build one of those rigs. I also didn't know that the boards wouldn't take DDR3. That goes out the window then.

Also I may invest in a 24" 1900x1200 monitor sometime next spring. Would the 1GB 4870 be a worthy investment then?

[Stryker_77]

Hd4870 does briliantly at high resolutions. So it wil b a gud investment.

[vernong1992]

Biostar I45... HD 4870 1gb or 512mb (depending on your resolution), G-Skill 4gb DDR2 4-4-4-12 or any 4-4-4-12 cas 4 RAM

[RalliArt882]

You know how I said I was thinking about Crossfiring two HD4870s down the road? I guess we can rule that out because my PSU only has two 6-pin connectors total and I believe a single 4870 requires two.

Originally I didn't like the idea of going the 4850 route because of the single-slot cooling and the bad things I've heard about it. But I found this, the HIS HD4850 IceQ4:

Newegg.com - HIS Hightech H485QT512P Radeon HD 4850 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFire Supported IceQ4 Turbo Video Card - Desktop Graphics / Video Cards

I'm not a modder so the factory dual-slot design on a 4850 looks good to me. I have lots of room in my Stacker 830 so I'm not worried about having two dual-slot cards and my X-Fi at the same time. Also since they are pretty cheap, I pick up a second one some time next year for nothing and have a crossfire setup. Is this a good game plan?

[RalliArt882]

Originally Posted by vernong1992

Biostar I45... HD 4870 1gb or 512mb (depending on your resolution), G-Skill 4gb DDR2 4-4-4-12 or any 4-4-4-12 cas 4 RAM

All of the 4-4-4-12 2x2GB kits that I found are DDR2 800, which is the same speed of my current RAM that is nearly two years old. Would you advise cas4 DDR2 800 over something like cas5 DDR2 1066?

[[t..o..m]]

You probably won't notice much difference between the 800 vs the 1066MHz RAM. The extra 2GB you will be getting will provide more of a performance gain than the MHz will.

[NosBoost300]

ahem... nahalem will not cost a fortune to build...

lowest price nahelem will be 289 if i remember right....

and ram you'll just have to buy a 2 gig kit and a 1gb stick for triple channel ram... which even if it is ddr3 1066... will have far more bandwidth than anything that dual channel ddr2 can offer

the only big cost of it all will just be buying a mobo.. which will probably set you 200ish dollars