New stuff for me?

[Stefan]

My new PC is - HERE! Ka-tching!!

Awesome. Just a thing like I am on internet after having it at home for less than 1 hour (of which some time is spent looking inside it, re-manage cable-mess, etc).

[Stefan]

My new PC is... somewhere.
Apparently I have wrongly placed the order as if I was a company, so the package has made an extra turn within Stockholm postal-services.
If all goes well, I will have it this afternoon though. 

[Stefan]

I went for the Intel-option. Now it is just to wait one week or so for the machine to arrive...   

[Stefan]

I have boiled it down to 2 options. From the same supplier, and these come assembled.
The price for each of them is roughly 1400 USD (just below the magical number 10.000 SEK). Which one would you get? Or are they so equal that it really does not matter much.
There are of course other stuff on the list, some sw and such, but I edited it out.

- In-Win Fanqua Midi Tower Svart
- Silver Power SP-SS500 500W PSU
- Lite-On DVD+RW burner IHAS124-19
- AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition
- MSI 770-C45, Socket-AM3, DDR3
- Crucial DDR3 1333MHz 4GB KIT, CL9,
- Hitachi Deskstar™ 7K1000.C 250GB
- USB2 multikortläsare 3.5" svart för
- XFX Radeon HD 5770 1GB GDDR5
- Logitech Deluxe 250 Keyboard SE
- MS COA Label Windows Home Premium 7

or

- Cooler Master CM 690 Midi Tower Svart
- Silver Power SP-SS500 500W PSU
- ASUS P7H55-M PRO, H55, Socket-1156
- Intel Core™ i5 Quad Processor i5-750
- XFX Radeon HD 5770 1GB GDDR5
- Lite-On DVD+RW burner IHAS124-19
- USB2 multikortläsare 3.5" svart för
- Crucial DDR3 1333MHz 4GB KIT, CL9,
- Hitachi Deskstar™ 7K1000.C 250GB
- Microsoft® OEM Wired Desktop 400 MP
- MS COA Label Windows Home Premium 7

[APG~FRAGMA~TSC]

I AGREE 

[Stalker]

I think 1156 is Intels mainstream product, 1366 is considered the high-performance end. If you plan on multi-gpu graphics at some point go with the 1366 since it has full set of PCIe lanes vs. the 1566 which is a little lacking in that department (unless you only ever plan on one video card). 1156 can take a i3 or i5 as well, the i5 being considered a sweet budget-gamer cpu since it overclocks well. 1366 has more memory bandwidth than the 1156 (3 DDR3 channels versus 2).

[Stefan]

Thanks for bearing with my questions. Here's the next one.

What difference does socket 1156 or 1366 do for me? You can get Intel i7 in both flavours, yes?

Also, video-cards... GTX 260? GTX 285? HD 5770? HD 5850? Other?
Again, which should today be realistacally ok for me (to last at least 2 years with good performence)?

[Stalker]

the i7 is the top of the line processor and clock-per-clock will easily beat a Core 2 even with the same amount of cores.

That said, 4 cores is better than 2 IF you have programs and apps that take advantage of it. Case in point, I had a Core 2 Duo and upgraded to a Core 2 Quad. My system is not magically 2x as fast since a vast majority of programs one use 1 or 2 cores, not fully multi-threaded. Now I do a lot of video editting and conversion and prior to my upgrade I checked the apps I use and found most them were multi-threaded and do work x1.5 to x2 as fast doing what they do.

Games are another issue...very few support more than 2 cores, so you will not see a huge difference here. I do find any more than 1 core seems to increase your OS responsiveness, especially switching between tasks, and this should even be more so with 4 cores.

So in a nutshell your comparing the middle of the line of last years tech with the top of the line of the current tech. In your specific case, I cannot think of a single case where #2 would be faster than #1 even given the higher clock of #2.

[Stefan]

OK.

1. Intel CPU Intel quad core i7 860 (2,80 ghz)
2. Intel Core2Duo E8400 Dual-Core 3,0 ghz

I understand that a quad cpu should be faster than a dual cpu. But how does that affect gaming speed? Is not the game only one program running? In which case "2" would be faster than "1"?
Or is a game really several programs running, making "1" the fastest option?

[Stalker]

I was not suggesting you go with Dell, just use it as a baseline to make sure your getting a good deal.

[Stefan]

This time I will go for a no-name (even though my XPS has served me well for +4 years).

Should I go for Intel or AMD, Nvidia or ATI. And which flavor of each? Which gives best price/performence. I want to play BBBC2 on high quality, and also do the same on Crysis 2 (when it comes). But I certainly don't feel the need to have the absolutely best, just because.

[Stalker]

I would spec that out at Dell just for comparison. Dell will usually be 15-20% higher that a no-name system, but usually carry better warranties.

[Stefan]

I am now seriously planning to get a new system. What should I look for, and what should I look for NOT to get? ie, processor- and graphics-card wise?

Have seen an offer for a machine, costing around 1200 USD, which has a GTX 260, Intel duo 2, 3 ghz, and some other stuff. Is that a "normal" price for a machine with that processor and gpu (given 4 gb of memory, harddrive etc).