Looking to Build a Desktop

[Changeling]

I think the best thing to do is either wait for the cheaper mid-range Keplers to come out or go cheaper with the 500 series. No one knows when the 650 or 660 keplers are comin out so if the need is immediate, go for a 560 ti. You can get one for 200 bucks and it'll eat up anything on the market now.

[Changeling]

Also Stormy, you definitely need a 600 watt power supply now.

[stormy]

Ok, bought Corsair HX650, which means no build until it comes . Curse you Amazon FSSS!

I've seen some mentions of people using an SSD as cache for a standard HD. Is this worth it or am i better off running windows from my SSD (120GB) and installing most programs to a secondary drive?

[Yoshi]

Are these expensive video cards even necessary anymore? All the games are coded to 2005 hardware.

I agree, which is why I still have my 460GTX. I'll upgrade next year when the new consoles come out, because that will trigger a huge leap for PC games as well.

[stormy]

Ok, bought Corsair HX650, which means no build until it comes . Curse you Amazon FSSS!

I have everything in the case just waiting for my power supply to show up. It's torture! My new LGA 1155 motherboard had extra mounting points for an LGA 775 chipset cooler, my old AM3 cooler came with mounting brackets for LGA 775! Match made in heaven!

[gamevet]

It's also $500. Should be interesting to see what the lower-end cards are with that tech.

Are these expensive video cards even necessary anymore? All the games are coded to 2005 hardware.

Yeah, most games will run fine, but a game like Metro 2033 is a bit much for a single GTX 460. I was getting around 25 fps, with dips down to @18 using a single card. I added a second GTX 460 and saw a significant increase in performance. Still, even with a Q9650 @ 3.3 Ghz, I was seeing a CPU bottleneck using the game's benchmark tool. I wasn't getting the bottleneck at 3.6 Ghz.

[stormy]

SSDs are the shit. I hit 550 MB/s read speed in the benchmark. Windows boots in some ridiculous amount of time. I will get very used to this.

[TobalRox]

SSDs are the shit. I hit 550 MB/s read speed in the benchmark. Windows boots in some ridiculous amount of time. I will get very used to this.

It's a shame they are so expensive right now... I've heard of people putting them in their PS3s as well.

[stormy]

Who knows shit about overclocking these 2500ks? Seems silly to leave it at 3.3GHz when everyone else seems to be overclocking to 4.5. If someone could point me to the best guide to use I'd appreciate it.

[Yoshi]

SSDs are the shit. I hit 550 MB/s read speed in the benchmark. Windows boots in some ridiculous amount of time. I will get very used to this.

Seconded. I'm never going back.