Building a new system $2800 budget

[probationer]

I'm definitely sold on the X48 and the price diff between the Q9450 and Q9550 does not make any real impact.

At the current rate of the Aussie dollar diving my budget is actually increasing (less money I have to send home more to spend on pc).

I may be able to stretch this to the GTX 280 -
EVGA GeForce GTX SC 280 (621MHz Core) 1GB GDDR3 (2268MHz) - $418.85 + tax = $469.11

[rjbarker]

And to Rjbarker, SLi on a crossfire board ? Dont think so. And with a 24inc LCD he does not need SLI.

Good point, sorry about that. Thats why when I built my Rig and knew I was going with an Nvidia GPU, I didn't crew around and went straight for the nForce Chipset (780i ).
As for not requiring GTX 260 in SLI for a 1920 x 1200 Res, really, thats your opinion, my opinion differsd through experience running both a single GTX 260 and a single GTX 280 @ that Res. Personally, I disagree, for great (smooth) gameplay @ that Res, with some Eye Candy, 2 x GT 260 SLI is superior and worth it, even kicks the butt out of the single GTX 280 solution.
This of course being the case with newer generation games.

[probationer]

Quietly i'm hoping that this new driver nvidia will give intel in conjunction with its new chipsets to enable SLI will be modified to work with at the very least the X48.

I previously had a dell 24"" 2407 run by an Asus 8800GTX which ran absolutely fine for the majority of the games at native res but with the new stuff coming out i'm thinking even with the 260 SC i'll have to drop res or quality to get the frames i'm happy with.

[rjbarker]

Quietly i'm hoping that this new driver nvidia will give intel in conjunction with its new chipsets to enable SLI will be modified to work with at the very least the X48.

You never know...may work, I didn't realize that Intel Boards were only Cross Fire compliant..?? Are their not Intel Chipsets that are SLI Certified?

I previously had a dell 24"" 2407 run by an Asus 8800GTX which ran absolutely fine for the majority of the games at native res but with the new stuff coming out i'm thinking even with the 260 SC i'll have to drop res or quality to get the frames i'm happy with.

I found my 8800 GTX ran Crysis / Bioshock not too bad with high settings on my old 22", the 260 was really good on native Res 22", however, settings had to be "tweaked" somewhat when I went 6to the 24", hence I went with the 280.

[probationer]

Just wanted to say thanks to everyone's input in this thread.

Got my system done on Friday ended up with

Q9550
Xigmatek HDT-RS1283
Gskill F2-8500CL5D-4GBPK (5-5-5-15)
DFI LP Dk X48-T2RSB+
Samsung Spinpoint F1 1TB SATA
Samsung SH-S223Q DVD

Cosmos S case
Corsair HX620 PSU

EVGA 280 GTX Super Clocked
Samsung T260 25.5" LCD

G15 2nd Rev Keyboard

Whole lot came to $2670 After tax, thanks to NCIX price matching :D

[chouchou]

congrats
you're gonna have one hell of a rig
lets see some benchies! (vantage, framerates on the games you play??)

[probationer]

Yup just getting into it now :D was loving Far Cry 2 and Fallout 3 last night.

[chouchou]

SOB :P
where you get the money for the rig.. mustve been one hell of a savings!
but im glad you love it =] did youy run into any porblems putting the rig toegether?

[miggs78]

Originally Posted by probationer

Yup just getting into it now :D was loving Far Cry 2 and Fallout 3 last night.

I wish you got a Gigabyte X48 board instead, lots of people having trouble overclocking the DFI's for some reason..

But nonetheless, you make me jealous

[rjbarker]

Yep nice Rig.....!! Enjoy, I now I have been enjoying FC2 and Fallout3 on my System!!