Any PC Gaming Enthusiasts Out There?

I'm scouring for a little advice. I'll be home from Iraq and back in school in less than two months (WOOOOO!) I love my Mac and use it for everything that I do... except for gaming, that is. For years I have built my own systems to power my one fault, extensive time spent playing games on the computer. Actually, it's beneficial in that it allows me to interact with friends across the country in a better way than simply chatting on the internet or phone.

Back to the topic at hand though...

Since I'm getting back soon, I have begun researching a year's worth of technology that I've missed since I will be building a new system. I've followed pretty well as far as new chipset/motherboard technology goes, but I'm really kind of confused about the current state of video cards.

I am an nVidia guy by default, and immediately went "oooh, 9800 gx2, sounds like a winner to me!" But then I saw that nVidia released a brand new card based on the 8xxx series. Sounded exciting to me. Then I read a comparison of that new card (the GeForce GTX 280) vs it's senior, the GeForce 9800 GX2 and it showed many real life situation tests in which the 9800 GX2 mopped the floor with it's newer rival. What's the deal? At the time that the article was written, the card was new and was being used with beta drivers, but still.

Has anyone had any experience with these two cards? What is your opinion? The newer GTX 280 seems to have more raw power, but it doesn't perform. Also, it doesn't support DX 10.1. Strange...

For everyone who doesn't care about PCs or gaming, I'm sorry if you made it all of the way to this sentence

walmartconnect,

Suggest you check into http://forums.anandtech.com/ or computerpoweruser.com and ask the folks there - lots of smart PC techies there to discuss that question.

I personally went with the EVGA 9800GT because of the performance for the lower price. The cards you're asking about range from $500 - $800, I believe

Sorry I can't help you a little more, but I'm sure by the time you get back, there'll be a lot more data on these and the ATI cards.

Congrats on the return back home soon, and thanks for your service for all of us.

Noel

If your really interested in gaming and PC's, stay with XP. Vista is know for not being game friendly.

Man, I know exactly how you feel about being out of the technology loop. It is intimidating looking at parts on newegg and realizing that you have no idea what any of the stuff is.

Good luck!

Hey WMC,
Glad to hear you'll be back home soon. I just got out of the Mississippi National Guard (Army) myself after 6 years. Out of that 6 years 5 years 4 months of it were on active duty for deployment. Luckily 3 of those years were deployment here in Mississippi. Anyway back on topic, I don't know where you read about the GTX 280 getting beat by the 9800 GX2 but in Maximum PC they reviewed the card and one GTX 280 beat 2 9800 GTX's in SLI by about 25 percent in both XP and Vista. That was with early beta drivers now that the card is shipping and better drivers have been released the margin may be even higher. If you are building a gaming rig you want to last for the next several years this is what I would recommend. nVidia 790i motherboard, Core 2 quad 45nm processor, 2 GTX 280's in SLI, 4GB DDR3 RAM, MASSIVE power supply, 2 500GB 7,200 RPM HDD's in raid 0, and Vista Home Premium. I know, you get 5 - 10 percent fewer FPS with Vista but if want DirectX 10 then it is the only way to go. I am running Vista Ultimate on my current home made Gaming PC and have had 0 problems out of it. If you run this set up then you will have a killer PC that will shred any game for at least the next 3 -5 years. If, on the other hand, you build a new gaming system every year like me then a lesser set up would do just fine also. Good luck with your buying decisions and come home safe.

Couldn't agree more with barbarnette. As for the review that the GTX280 performing lower than the 9800 GX2, did they give you all of the tech specs of the computers? Cause the graphics card can only take you so far without a decent proc, mem, mobo, and power supply to prevent from bottle necking.

Leecho,
As far as fair testing is concerned, yes, the benchmarks that I have seen have been with identical systems, minus the video card itself.

barbarnette,
Chances are simply that no matter what I read, I will probably end up opting for the GTX 280 (only one though, I don't see a significant need for SLI yet in my situation. Plus, that's like $1000 just for video components, not to mention replacing the stock fans with cooling blocks to hook into the liquid cooling system).

I'm not entirely sold on the nVidia 790i chipset yet... they still seem to have bottlenecks in some areas that Intel simply does a better job with. Especially considering my lack of interest in SLI, I'll probably save some money going with them.

The 780i had the problems with bottle necks, those have been fixed with the new 790i chipset. Plus since you are going with the GTX 280 if you decide you want to run SLI later you will need the nVidia chipset. Have a look at the July 2008 issue of Maximum PC if you are lucky enough to get to an AFFES that has a copy over there. They compare the new 790i to the Intel X48 chipset and the 790i pretty much blows the X48 out of the water. Also you can get some nVidia cards with water blocks pre-installed instead of a heatsink and fan combo. That will save you some trouble and is better if you need to have the card repaired/replaced under warranty. Off Topic: Are you in the green zone yet or are you still out at a FOB running missions? I could send you some of the stuff that I have been reading if you think it will get to you before you leave theater. Stay safe.

No, I'm still FOBing around here and there for another month.

Several builds that I've done on Newegg all return with embarrassingly high price tags :-[ They often include similar components:

-Some kind of 790i board (usually ASUS).
-Some kind of quadcore processor (Intel)
-4GB of DDR3 1600 (2x 2GB)
-I am pretty settled on the GXT 280, right now I'm stuck between an EVGA or a BFG (the BFG is attractive as it comes with a liquid cooling block whereas I would have to remove the EVGA's fan and heatsink and buy a separate block)
-I like the WD VelociRaptor for its 10000RPMs.

If I keep my old flat screen that's still around somewhere back in America, I'm still beyond $2k easily, but at least it's more close to 2 than 3. I'm a little hopeful that ATI's HD4870x2 will be coming out and will bump the price of the GTX 280 down a bit. Competition in the market is always a good thing.

I know you have limited time on the net over there, if you like I could do a little research for you. If you give me a rough budget I could post links for the best parts and prices. Water cooling is nice but may be unnecessary. Are dead set on using it? ASUS boards are really nice and come with a really nice price tag. Evga mobo's are just as good and much less expensive. Anyway just let me know.

Like Barb has said, water cooling isn't really that necessary these days given that Intel now has 45nm chips for sale at reasonable prices. Unless you're planning to overclock the rig like a mad scientist, a good after market fan/heatsink combo with some arctic silver should be more than enough to do the job.

*Forgot to ask, what kinds of games are you planning to play? From the looks of it, it seems you're trying to build a rig that could play Crysis at max settings smooth as butter. Which reminds me of a funny April fools article in Game Informer where NASA, with all of their super computers, were almost successful at playing Crysis at max settings.

leecho7 said:

[...] Unless you're planning to overclock the rig like a mad scientist [...]

Click to expand...

Ah, you caught me

I prefer to create systems for longevity and enjoy water cooling. Just another addition to the hobby. Don't worry, I doubt that any system I might build would run Crysis from what I hear

I was just looking into building a very nice gaming rig. I tell you what. With every component these days changing just about weekly its tough to keep up with it all. Not only is the hardware changing but now we have games like Crysis that can just make a machine want to turn itself off due to the pain it goes through just to run the freakin' intro.

If I had the money i would invest in a machine that I could use for a while. Something that could be overclocked if I wanted to later down the road, that may not play the newest game around but still come close and be possible if i upgraded minor components (Video & Memory), then run Windows Professional XP because its hella faster than Vista.

That's just me though.

I'd have to give ya a pat on the back though for even purchasing all of these fun tech toys.