<p>I'm interested to see if any CCers out there have powerful gaming desktops or straight up powerful workstations. List your specs and tell us if you built it yourself. I'm looking to build one myself soon.</p>
<p>Hopefully I'll have mine built within about a month and a half. Haven't decided on specifics yet, but I have a general idea at what's going in there.</p>
<p>Intel Quad Core, probably Q6600 (know somebody interning there for summer, so I'll get employee pricing)
4GB (2x2GB) DDR2 800Mhz RAM
256 MB graphics card (not sure which one, whatever best value is for ~$100)
HDTV tuner card
hard drive big enough for recording TV shows/sporting events (320-400 GB)
case/mobo/cooling, haven't really decided yet, whatever gets the job done
might get a dvd burner if it's cheap enough, otherwise probably just cd-dvd rom
already have 19" Samsung LCD multi-function monitor/tv</p>
<p>There is no point in getting a quad core processor, most PC users nowadays don't even use 2 cores... Besides when games/programs that utilize that much power come out, there'll be a new line of more powerful processors at cheap prices (Penryn). They're supposedly going to be much faster than current processors and they'll be out soon...
Just my 2 cents :)</p>
<p>Core 2 Duo E6600 Conroe
2GB (2 x 1GB) DDR2
2x EVGA GeForce 7600GT 256MB in SLI
WD Raptor (74GB)
2x 250 GB Seagate HD's in RAID
Thermaltake Tsunami case w/ APEVIA 500W power supply
19" ViewSonic LCD</p>
<p>built it myself this past summer :]</p>
<p>"There is no point in getting a quad core processor, most PC users nowadays don't even use 2 cores... Besides when games/programs that utilize that much power come out, there'll be a new line of more powerful processors at cheap prices (Penryn). They're supposedly going to be much faster than current processors and they'll be out soon..."</p>
<p>I'm also not most PC users. I run distributed computing in the background, I'll probably be using mathematica for research, recording tv shows/sporting events (maybe some in HD), probably some Halo 2, I'll be compiling for a programming class next semester, along with various other applications I have running (right now 2 instances of notepad, pidgin, texnic center, adobe acrobat reader, mathematica, ssh shell, mathematica, mcafee/zone alarm/distributed computing background). Everybody seems to look down upon Quad Core because there's not much of a performance gain when you look at performance on one program, but it's very helpful for intense multitasking. That's also why I'm going for 4GB high speed memory on 2 dimms, leaving room for another 4GB in the future (I don't think most motherboards and windows vista are equipped to handle more than 8GB of memory).</p>
<p>Penryn won't be out on the market until end of Q4 2007 or beginning of Q1 2008, and the price drops for the 65nm processors (mainly because of upcoming Penryn line) happened last Sunday, plus I only get intel employee pricings for another month. Also, I won't have time to build a computer during the school year, and would miss the entire football season and half of hockey season.</p>
<p>skp21: How's the Raptor working out? Noticed any kind of performance improvement?</p>
<p>Cool! This is what I'll be building once all the parts get here:</p>
<p>Intel Cord 2 Quad Q6600
4GB (2x2gb) DDR2 / 800 Memory
EVGA GeForce 8800GTX 768mb
150GB WD Raptor HD
500GB Seagate HD
Apevia X-Telstar Full Tower Case
Thermaltake Toughpower 750W PSU
Samsung 22" 2ms LCD
and... Vista Home Premium 64-bit</p>
<p>lol, in that case dilksy, do get the quad core processor since you'll be needing all the juice you can get...</p>
<p>Wow, you've got money to burn don't ya? The X1900GT is a good card for the price as of now, the 7600GT missed its sweet spot ~3 months ago.</p>
<p>The difference in cost between buying a computer from a place like Dell and building one yourself is fairly small for budget computers, but gets ridiculously large for the higher-end computers. The kind of thing I'm aiming to build for no more than $1500 (probably closer to $1000) would easily cost over $3000 if I got it from Dell, even with student discounts and sales. That massive difference is the only reason I'm going through with the hassle of building one as opposed to just buying one.</p>
<p>It looks like I'll probably go with the X1900GT. I don't do terribly much gaming, so I won't need anything better than that.</p>
<p>Plus, building your own computer is fun and really rewarding!</p>
<p>or it could be a complete disaster if you don't know what the heck you're doing...</p>
<p>and theres no 1-800 number to call when your computer won't boot to the bios ;)</p>