The killer NIC is essentially a waste of money.
Honestly.
As a a hardware fiend of slightly less than Great Old One standing, yeah, it's an interesting add-on that'd be Nice To Play With.
But from a gaming standpoint, the bang for the buck is on par with spending a similar amount for a single snap-cap.
Start with Father XMas $1350 rig. (Actually like $1280 now.)
Strip out the case and DVD burner
Add your case, the InfiniTV card (which is also available from Newegg) and a Blu-Ray player/DVD burner. This brings you up to about $1725 shipped.
You can buy the AuzenTech card directly from AuzenTech with the I/O drive for $315.
If you don't give a damn about the I/O drive, it'll cost you $250.
Add an SSD for $180-250 and you're done.
You're looking at about $2300 all said and done. Without the Killer NIC.
I don't recommend dropping the mechanical hard drive from the hardware list unless you have one of similar size that you're going to move over from your old system.
You still want something to store large files to. OTHER than your space-limited SSD.
Clicking on the linked image above will take you off the City of Heroes site. However, the guides will be linked back here.
Yeah, I should have mentioned that I've had an affinity for AMD processors and nVidia GPUs for like, almost ten years now! (Which became amusing once AMD gobbled up ATI.)
It might be a bit of a blind obsession.
Before that, I was loyal to 3DFX...
Before that, I was an Amiga user.
You see where this is going... 
Quote:
Oh, wow! Double-plus wow! You know how hard it was to find the InfiniTV 4 anywhere online eight months ago? This is awesome news indeed.|
Originally Posted by Hyperstrike
Add your case, the InfiniTV card (which is also available from Newegg) and a Blu-Ray player/DVD burner. This brings you up to about $1725 shipped.
You can buy the AuzenTech card directly from AuzenTech with the I/O drive for $315. If you don't give a damn about the I/O drive, it'll cost you $250. Add an SSD for $180-250 and you're done. |
I will have to look at all you have suggested and give it some serious thought. Yes, even the i7, LOL. Thank you!
The i5-2500K is probably the best bang for your buck, processor wise. It's in Father Xmas' rig that Hyperstrike recommended. The K is important, it's got an unlocked multiplier, the other Intel processors of this generation can't really be overclocked. The i7 isn't really necessary unless you want hyperthreading and many programs won't ever make use of HT. Put the 2500K on a P67 or Z68 motherboard (see Father XMas' recommendation) and push it.
Jer
Quote:
Okay, right now AMD's processors only have one thing going for them. They're cheap.|
Originally Posted by Coyote_Seven
Yeah, I should have mentioned that I've had an affinity for AMD processors and nVidia GPUs for like, almost ten years now! (Which became amusing once AMD gobbled up ATI.)
It might be a bit of a blind obsession. Before that, I was loyal to 3DFX... Before that, I was an Amiga user. You see where this is going... |
Intel's i5 and i7 series are just wiping the floor with them. And the new Bulldozer CPUs, while they're GREAT for massively multithreaded apps, those are primarily found in SERVER environments. None of the games you play are going to take advantage of it. Meaning that Bulldozer in its current incarnation is a dead end.
Stick with Intel this round.
nVidia's a slightly better bet this go-round. While many of the problems people were having with stability cleared up with the 11.9 drivers for AMD, the fact is, there are fewer problems with the nVidia drivers (but NOT "none").
Clicking on the linked image above will take you off the City of Heroes site. However, the guides will be linked back here.
Quote:
He's talking about the i7 because my initial response involved swapping up to the 2600K. However, when the final bill came back I found I'd forgotten the TV card.|
Originally Posted by SeedyXX
The i5-2500K is probably the best bang for your buck, processor wise. It's in Father Xmas' rig that Hyperstrike recommended. The K is important, it's got an unlocked multiplier, the other Intel processors of this generation can't really be overclocked. The i7 isn't really necessary unless you want hyperthreading and many programs won't ever make use of HT. Put the 2500K on a P67 or Z68 motherboard (see Father XMas' recommendation) and push it.
Jer |
BUT, if he doesn't mind bumping from $2300 to $2400, I'd say "Go For It!".
Clicking on the linked image above will take you off the City of Heroes site. However, the guides will be linked back here.
$2,000 is serious cash on a modern gaming PC, especially if you're going with a single GPU and AMD processors. The reality is that right now for a gaming PC is that Intel is vastly superior to AMD, and the i5 2500k is pretty much king of bang for your buck.
Based upon your criteria I'd look at something like this:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...-ssd,3031.html
Save $100 and move down to a i5 2500k. Save another $425 and go down to a single 580.
Spend $50 and upgrade to a Bluray Optical Drive. Then put in your add-in cards, you'll be well under $2,000 and still have a beast of a machine.
AMD's Bulldozer is "disappointing" I would suggest going intel...I could say other things about Bulldozer but I won't. Getting a BD chip at this time would be a bad move.
Surya's advice is good for CoH...2500K and a single 580 is more than plenty. With those two items you would be way ahead of the curve. (Considering some of the PCs I see people playing on CoH 
) By the time your falling down to the upper 20% Ivy Bridge would be out and maybe AMD will have gotten all of the "issues" with Bulldozer sorted out with the Piledriver chip.
Otherwise, go with what Hyper and Xmas suggest. 
H: Blaster 50, Defender 50, Tank 50, Scrapper 50, Controller 50, PB 50, WS 50
V: Brute 50, Corruptor 50, MM 50, Dominator 50, Stalker 50, AW 50, AS 50
Top 4: Controller, Brute, Scrapper, Corruptor
Bottom 4: (Peacebringer) way below everything else, Mastermind, Dominator, Blaster
CoH in WQHD
With that budget I wouldn't hesitate getting a 60-64GB SSD to use as a hard drive cache with Intel's Smart Response Technology on a Z68 motherboard.
Unless you have money to burn, I can't see going past a GTX 570. The GTX 580 is only 15-20% faster than a GTX 570 but for 40-50% more money. Doesn't seem like a good deal to me.
Father Xmas - Level 50 Ice/Ice Tanker - Victory
$725 and $1350 parts lists --- My guide to computer components
Tempus unum hominem manet
Quote:
Seeing how he was intending on building $2,000 AMD box, we can probably assume there is money to burn here. |
Originally Posted by Father Xmas
Unless you have money to burn, I can't see going past a GTX 570. The GTX 580 is only 15-20% faster than a GTX 570 but for 40-50% more money. Doesn't seem like a good deal to me.
|
However in the sense of a 570 vs 580 it really comes down to what resolution and games you're intending to play. The 1.5GB 580, is going to be much more future proof than the 1.2GB 570, this is especially true if a person intends to play at 1920x1200 resolution or higher. We're already seeing games that are having issues with 1GB or less of memory (CoX is one of them) at high resolutions. That 15-20% boost is often the difference between play ability and frame stutter.
Quote:
He's already looking to get an SSD for the system anyhow. So there's no point. Just get a 120GB drive for the system disk and call it done.|
Originally Posted by Father Xmas
With that budget I wouldn't hesitate getting a 60-64GB SSD to use as a hard drive cache with Intel's Smart Response Technology on a Z68 motherboard.
|
Quote:
| Unless you have money to burn, I can't see going past a GTX 570. The GTX 580 is only 15-20% faster than a GTX 570 but for 40-50% more money. Doesn't seem like a good deal to me. |
Clicking on the linked image above will take you off the City of Heroes site. However, the guides will be linked back here.
Thanks again to everyone who has replied to me so far!
I've already started some preliminary comparisons based on your advice here and the advice of some people I know elsewhere. You're all saying that AMD isn't so hot now, so I figure maybe I should heed that warning.
As far as a processor goes, right now I'm looking at the Intel Core i7-2600K.
Now, I've heard reports of the Z68 not playing nice with the InfiniTV 4, but I haven't tried to dig any deeper into that yet.
That's about as far as I've gotten. 
Before you get your heart set on the i7, I'm going to risk repeating myself and ask if you expect anything for the $100 premium that you're gifting to Intel.
Google it, it's been asked before: i5-2500k vs i7-2600k, there's no reason for the vast majority of users to pay the extra money. The performance boost was negligible even on games that do support hyperthreading, which is not many. (GTA4 framerate went from 58 fps to 61 fps with HT turned on, for example)
If you're going to do video editing or rendering, then yes, you may get value for that $100. I think putting an extra $100 towards video card and/or motherboard would bring more joy.
I'll leave it at that. Have fun with whatever you go with.
Jer
If you are going to be compressing a lot of video or you render a lot of ray traced 3D, then the 2600K may be worth it to you. In games, not so much.
AnandTech Bench
Father Xmas - Level 50 Ice/Ice Tanker - Victory
$725 and $1350 parts lists --- My guide to computer components
Tempus unum hominem manet
20 years ago, I would use my Amiga for a lot of animating, ray tracing and music composition. (Needless to say, ray tracing always took a long time, haha).
I was kinda hoping to do that kinda stuff again, with a modern system. Strictly for myself, like before. But I might share what I make.
So yeah, it might be worth it to me.
C7, I have an AMD Phenom II 1100T Six Core and I can't see how much better an i7 could be. With that plus a Radeon HD 5750, I'm playing CoH at close to max (ok, maybe not turned to 11, but pretty close), but I'm not getting any graphical lag on Rikti Mothership raids.
There's about a $130 price difference between the two processors and I'm not sure I could justify that, if it was me building it. Granted, at $2000, $130 is a bit piddly.
Now, before you all beat me up, I have to admit that I'm still swayed a bit by appearances. That is, the actual look of the object means something to me. I also tend to have a bit of brand loyalty, and likewise there are certain other brands that I tend to avoid.
With that in mind, this is a bit of a quick and dirty comparison:
Motherboard: GIGABYTE GA-Z68XP-UD3P LGA 1155 Intel Z68 $179.99
CPU: Intel Core i7-2600K Sandy Bridge 3.4GHz (Quad Core) $314.99
RAM:Corsair Dominator 16 GB DDR3 1333 $159.99
---
Total: $654.97
---vs.---
Motherboard: GIGABYTE GA-990FXA-UD3 AM3+ AMD 990FX $149.99
CPU: AMD FX-8150 Zambezi 3.6GHz (8 Core) $279.99
RAM:Corsair Dominator 16 GB DDR3 1333 $159.99
---
Total: $589.97
Obviously, I'm kind of in love with Gigabyte and Corsair, lol.
That's a difference of $65 up there. You can imagine that everything else about the system might be virtually the same. Considering that my target budget for this project looks to be wanting to go to $2,500 if I want to get everything, that difference might be nothing at all. I suppose the big question is whether (or how much) four Intel cores will outshine eight AMD cores.
They're about the same in performance for 99.99% of all tasks you might do on your computer. In fact, I suspect the i-7 is going to be a touch faster and more heat-tolerant.
Where the AMD chip shines is when you have multiple virtual machines running, or when you have an application that can use more than two cores.
Hint: the vast majority of programs currently on the market for the forseeable future don't use more than two cores.
Quad-core processors are already more than most people need; the ability to offload different programs to different cores helps, somewhat, but one or two cores are most likely going to be unused or dedicated to background Windows tasks.
An Octo-core processor... it's just overkill unless you're doing scientific work with multi-threaded custom applications, or running a private server with virtual machine hosts.
Ah, so it's not really how many cores you have, it's how powerful those cores are.
Intel it is, then. I just had to make absolutely sure.
I think I've kind of had it with my computer woes of late, dealing with flaky hardware, and the frustration of aborted attempts at building an awesome system.
So I'm taking some advice I got both from here and some of my friends. Starting with my next paycheck, I'll be moving extra money into my savings account for the express purpose of building a new machine. I'll combine that money with whatever tax returns I get next year. As the title suggests, my target budget for this project is $2,000.
I'll be using my aborted plans from this year as a starting point. I still intend to build a machine that's decent for playing games and also good for watching movies and video. Parts from my old plan that I still wish to include are a Ceton InfiniTV 4 and a HAF-X case to put it in. I'd still like an Auzentech X-Fi HomeTheater HD sound card, if those are even still being made, for the express purpose of never having to deal with DRM while playing Blu-Ray movies ever again! I'll still want an SSD for the boot drive, and I'm still keen on using Windows 7 Ultimate for the OS.
A Killer Xeno Pro might also be fun to have, if I can squeeze it in, LOL.
At the moment, I'm looking at the AMD 990FX chipset, a single (and powerful) video card, and an 8-core processor. In my original plans, I was going to go for a GTX 470 (specifically the EVGA model, which is likely no longer being made), and I was planning on having the CPU and GPU both be watercooled. I'd still like for that to be so; I don't mind fan noise really, but I've heard just how loud the fans on modern high end GPUs can get, and even I have my limits! A HAF-X case ought to have plenty of room for... let's say, two radiators (one large and one small) in a single loop.
This is the machine on which I wish to play CoH with all of its settings turned to 11, watch the Star Wars trilogy on Blu-Ray, watch every episode of Star Trek DS9 through Netflix, and watch reruns of Bewitched on TVLand via FiOS. All in 7.1 surround with minimum DRM hassle (OK, yes I know... Bewitched in 7.1 surround? LOL!). I'd love to hear any and all suggestions from each and every one of you about this!
I'm setting the target for March or April of 2012. Instead of buying everything a piece at a time, I will take all of my ~$2,000 saved up and buy everything at once (well, probably over the course of that entire month, as I likely will be buying from different places!).