Well, my HTPC's acting all flaky again, and it's apparently not a RAM issue like before. (One of the sticks that was in there crapped out.) It's also stuck with a 3.2 ghz Celeron D, because the motherboard doesn't support anything newer than the first generation Core 2 processors. It's been giving me memory errors, rebooting when I tell it to shut down, and it never cuts power to the PS2 ports. There's nothing visually wrong with the motherboard (that is, no blown caps or burn marks). But I can't really complain, it was dirt cheap when it was new and still works.)
Current prospective setup:
It sucks when the minimum system requirements on game boxes in the store make you go ":(" instead of ":lol:".OCZ SLI-Ready Dual Channel 4096MB PC6400 DDR2 800MHz Memory (2x2048MB)
Intel DG35EC Motherboard CPU Bundle - Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 Processor 3.0GHz Retail[/url]
EVGA GeForce 8800 GT Video Card - Dual Slot Edition, 1GB GDDR3, PCI Express 2.0, SLI Ready, (Dual Link) Dual DVI, HDTV
Western Digital Caviar SE16 500GB Hard Drive - 7200, 16MB, SATA-300, OEM
This machine will mostly be used for games and multimedia. I plan on re-using the hard drives, disc drive, power supply, and case from the existing setup, if at all possible.
This will get built up after I (hopefully) get a job, so you can be somewhat liberal with the budget. (But don't get too expensive, $600 tops.)
I'm asking because you guys should be more in the know about performance hardware than I do.
Need:
- - MicroATX form factor*
- 2+ GB of RAM (DDR2 800?)
- CPU cooler no more than 3" or so tall.* (There's a structural part of the case in the way.)
- SATA and IDE
- S-Video Out on the graphics card
- - Wolfdale C2D (Apparently they run cooler. Cooler CPU = no jet engine fans whirring away during the movie.)
- At least somewhat future-proof
- Quiet CPU cooler
- PCI Express (it's basically taken over anyway)
- DX10 capable card (In case I ever decide to downgrade to Vista)
- To eventually connect it to an HDTV through a DVI->HDMI cable
- - Video card vendor
- SLI, Crossfire, etc.
- - AMD processors
- PC Chips or ECS motherboards (they're garbage)
- Random vendor websites like freshofftheboatdealz4u.co.fu. Let's stick with Tiger Direct and Newegg.
- Freakin' expensive cases
- Water cooling. (Don't feel like dealing with it.)
Questions:
Is the performance difference between the E7000 series and E8000 series worth it? What about quad processors?
Radeon HD 3000-something or nVidia 8800 whatever?
Should I just forget about it and get DDR2 RAM and a Conroe for my existing flaky setup? (Though I don't want to waste more money on that motherboard.)
PCIe 2.0 is backwards-compatible with 1.0, right? If the motherboard only supports 1.0, is it worth getting a 2.0 graphics card?
Is it worth the effort to find a Micro-ATX motherboard to fit the square case? (They seem to lag behind a little in amenities.)
Is this a decent start?
Any and all advice is greatly appreciated.
Thanks!
EDIT: Adding a "Current Working Set" quote box to simplify things.
EDIT: Changed to 2 gig RAM sticks, though I'm not sure if the added cost is worth it, given it's going to be running a 32-bit OS for the foreseeable future.
Of course it's impossible, I meant "something that will still hold its own in 5 years". None of this "It's only been a year since I built it and it doesn't meet minimum requirements for any new titles besides Diner Dash" BS anymore.
