document updated 17 years ago, on Sep 3, 2006
Aug 18, 2006
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http://techreport.com/reviews/2006q3/core2/index.x?pg=18
http://www.anandtech.com/guides/
http://arstechnica.com/guides/buyer/system-guide-200608.ars
http://pricewatch.com/
http://labs.anandtech.com/cats.php
Case $100-$150
CPU+MB $300-$400 ~core 2
RAM $150-$300 2x1GB DDR2-533 (or 4GB?)
HDD $150-$300 1.5Gbps SATA
GPU (later, once DX10 is out, but maybe... ~$50 now, ~$250-350 later)
CPU
Intel Core2 Duo E6400 or E6600 or E6700
==> 1066 FSB
==> Socket T
==> PC2-8500 DDR2-1066 RAM
E6400 vs E6600....
(E6400 ftw) http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.cfm?catid=28&threadid=1917594
(E6400 ftw) http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1085381
Motherboard
Crap.... none support AGP, PCI-E only? So, either I have to upgrade my graphics card now (and miss out on DX10, and possibly on later HDCP cards), or go for a really cheap GPU and maybe not play games for now?
The one suggested by Ars is (Asus P5B Deluxe WiFi-AP) out of stock for a few days... here are some potentially similar ones (IF having two PCIE x16's is desirable... otherwise I could go for a cheaper MB)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.asp?Submit=ENE&N=2010200280+1073607588+1072507541+1074007596+1070509908+1074907612&Subcategory=280&description=&srchInDesc=&minPrice=&maxPrice=
Case
Possibly a REALLY BIG power supply? heh. http://www.tomshardware.com/2006/07/21/the_graphics_state_of_the_union/page2.html
HTPC cases that look nice...
SILVERSTONE LASCALA SST-LC14, black
LIAN LI PC-V880B
$89 noPSU http://www.pcalchemy.com/product_info.php/pName/ahanix-d5-htpc-case-no-vfd-no-psu-black/cName/htpc-cases
$89 noPSU http://www.pcalchemy.com/product_info.php/pName/silverstone-lascala-sstlc10-htpc-case-black/cName/htpc-cases
RAM
2x1GB, DDR-533
http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=2813&p=7
http://www.madshrimps.be/?action=getarticle&number=4&artpage=1965&articID=472
HDD...
Go with whatever is cheapest the day I buy... http://labs.anandtech.com/big.php?cfilter=21
RAID? Or just use one very large drive, and use my existing smaller drive to do an incremental
backup of specific bits of data?
http://www.anandtech.com/guides/showdoc.aspx?i=2796&p=3
http://labs.anandtech.com/search.php?q=sata%201.5gbps&pricepgb=yes
Video (high end)
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2812&p=2
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2798&p=3
Video (low end)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.asp?Submit=ENE&N=2010380048+1069609641&Subcategory=48&description=&srchInDesc=&minPrice=35&maxPrice=120
Not terribly great, but maybe actually on par with my current setup? (though my video card is pretty limited)
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/powercolor-x300se_15.html
Video (built-in??)
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/powercolor-x300se_2.html
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/chipsets/display/i915g.html
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813128016
high points:
- DX9
- it actually does HDTV okay?? http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/chipsets/display/i915g_11.html
low points: the xbitlabs link absolutely disses it, saying that very cheap ATI/nVidia cards are better
Question: When will DirectX 10 be coming?
When Vista ships. Which is currently aimed for Jan 2007 :(