A few things

What makes "THE HD4870 1GB MAKES THE GTX260 C216 LOOK LIKE A LITTLE GIRL". And what difference does the 256-bit vs 448-bit make?

He chose that PSU because it combos with his case and because it leaves room for expansion.

I also notice a difference between the RAM speeds, namely: "DDR2 1066 (PC2 8500)" vs "DDR3 2000 (PC3 16000)".

Your article on the futility of i5/i7 doesn't sport a whole ton of sources or examples, making it hardly credible. What really is your gripe about it? He chose it because it can 'overclock comfortably to 4 ghz'. There is also a combo deal between his MOBO/RAM/CPU, but that is merely a $40 discount.

I'm not trying to attack your opinions, just trying to get some reasoning behind your choices. Also, some background behind his objectives; he is very interested in audio, animation / video editing.

First off I'd like to say this:
Its the same as when people go against me in the melee mapping section, I went to Broodwarmaps.net, I put in my time, I studied and learned from experts we don't have here at SEN.

I went to Anandtech and did the same, it's how I know what I know and why when people make a build thread they message or mention me.

What makes "THE HD4870 1GB MAKES THE GTX260 C216 LOOK LIKE A LITTLE GIRL". And what difference does the 256-bit vs 448-bit make?
Check any review using any drivers released in the past 3 months. The 4870 1GB trounces the GTX260 C216.
256bit DDR5 > 448bit DDR3. Nvidia chose larger, more powerful, hotter chips, ATI chose smaller, less powerful, cooler chips with better RAM. They won. HD4000 vs GTX200 was a slaughter. The question is if HD5000 vs GTX300 will be the same.

He chose that PSU because it combos with his case and because it leaves room for expansion.
....He's still overpaying and generally being wrong. Wrong on the case too. Its shit and its overpriced. And it isn't shit because its Antec, or just because anyway, its shit because you can get much better cases COUGH COUGH LIAN LI COUGH for much cheaper. There. Is. No. Better. Case. Maker. Than. Lian. Li. Go to any tech site and ask around about the best of the best in cases, and they'll tell you the same.

I also notice a difference between the RAM speeds, namely: "DDR2 1066 (PC2 8500)" vs "DDR3 2000 (PC3 16000)".
.....Because I changed it to a DDR2 platform....?

Your article on the futility of i5/i7 doesn't sport a whole ton of sources or examples, making it hardly credible. What really is your gripe about it? He chose it because it can 'overclock comfortably to 4 ghz'. There is also a combo deal between his MOBO/RAM/CPU, but that is merely a $40 discount.
....Getting a Core i5 to 4GHz is no picnic. They have roughly the same frequency potential as Q9550 but only if you know exactly what you're doing in the i5/i7 OC settings and I doubt he does. OCing the 9550 would be much easier. The Core i5 does slightly better in benchmarks but in real-world performance, its nearly the same. Its minimal while the cost differential is not.

The article is my personal opinion and being that for the past three years I have been on top of every tech development, have watched every trend, and have had people come to me to make purchase decisions for them based on my opinions. I say I get to say all that and have a lot of weight behind it. I say anyone buying i5/i7 right now is not getting the most for their dollar, and further, anyone who refuses to wait for Sandy Bridge is an outright fool. i5/i7 are not the performance jump we've been waiting for, it does not compare to the Netburst -> Core jump. Sandy Bridge is going to be that jump.

Also, some background behind his objectives; he is very interested in audio, animation / video editing.
....I assumed I was building a gaming rig. If he wants to do audo/animation/video his build is entirely wrong. He would want a silent build focused on theoretical/benchmark performance and stable drivers. Its two entirely different concepts when designing a build.

For curiosity's sake, is this for a hobby or does he want to make a career from audio, animation, and/or editing? I ask because if he's looking to make a career out of at least video editing, he should be using Final Cut Pro, which unfortunately requires a Mac. Animation and sound work can obviously be done with a PC more efficiently, but the industry standard for editing is either Avid or Final Cut Pro, and (simplifying things a bit) both are run on Mac.

And as a side note, Excal is usually pretty strong in his tech knowledge so I'd trust his opinion. I have a friend who invested in an i7 recently, and he swears by it, but he basically only uses it to play a few games that don't require much power so in my mind it was a huge waste. If he can't wait, get a Core2 rather than i5/i7. As with all tech things, prices will drop in the next year and better things will come out.

No, not as a career thing, but as a hobby.

And it isn't that I doubt Excalibur's tech knowledge, but rather that it won't appear credible to anyone who isn't familiar (for instance my friend) with Excalibur's background.

He's pretty dang bent on the i5.

When the fuck did people require credible source for tech advices? Last time I heard, people believed anything what their unspecified friends told them.

Then he's pretty dang bent on wasting money. I'm not going to ask you to get on his case, unlike me you don't stake your income on your reputation for this sort of thing. But when Sandy Bridge comes out you should get yourself a system based on it, and then gloat to him about how he should've listened.

If that's all, I think we're done here. Glad to be of service.

I'm resurrecting this thread because the GPU is pretty much spent and I'm in the market for a new one.

For reference this is the build:

A Radeon 7850/7870, when they come out later this month, should fit just fine and give you GTX 570/580 levels of performance for much less money. However, I am not sure if pairing that with a 3.0 GHz Core 2 Duo is a decent idea.

The chart lies a little bit (GTX 560 does well on SC2, low resolution, and no AA/AF; increase any of those and it slows way down), but it provides you with a relevant reference. If the 7850 is priced right ($220-$240) then it might be worth it, but it can't hurt to wait a little while to see if the new stock drops prices on the GTX 560 Ti or 6950.

The e8400 is outdated, but not terribly bad. It still has better single core performance than AMD. It's essentially a phenom II x2 at an incredibly poor price point. It was a good buy in 2009 when the phenom II didn't exist.

I wouldn't recommend upgrading the graphics to something over $150, but that's just me. So if you want new, the 7770 = 6850 = GTX 460 1 GB = 1.1x GTX 460 768 MB. The 7770 is rather expensive right now all things considered, but it consumes 75% of the power of a 6850 and 60% of the power of a GTX 460. This is mostly due to the improved architecture and smaller fab process.

here's some reference charts for you to look at. They're never perfect, but usually they're accurate. Remember that a 6870 is 2x as fast as a 4870.

Edit: you can ignore the attachment, whatever it is. I can't actually remove it...
[attach=7192]

Attachments:

Post has been edited 8 time(s), last time on Mar 8 2012, 6:03 am by rockz. Reason: just using this post as a sandbox

I went by this:


The 7xxx Radeons scale upwards (higher AA/resolution) with a much lesser performance penalty than last-generation cards, so that's something to keep in mind as well. I wouldn't buy the 7770; it needs to be $120.