Caltrops - American McGee's Honda Civic





	[quote name="Mr. Kool"][quote name="Mischief Maker"]Is Asus still the gold standard for motherboards? Are solid state hard drives worth it? What's the best non-CRT option for monitors that render motion with minimal blur? Anything else new and exciting I should be aware of? Any and all suggestions welcome.[/quote] I can't give much in the way of specifics, but here is a decent outline. Suggestions vary depending on your budget. Tower: Can't go terribly wrong with any Antec. The 300 is basic and the 900 series is huge. Power supply: Again, I like Antec. They don't fail often in my experience. I'd go for 800 watts to "future-proof" your rig. 550 will suffice for most one video card builds. Mobo: I've used Asus and XfX and had no problems, lots of bells and whistles. I never got around to fully utilizing their ability to easily overclock chips in the BIOS, so extra money not worth it. The key factor will be the chipset depending on your CPU. I got a cheapo MSI for my HTPC build, works fine. Look for the following: Chipset that supports PCI-E 3.0, USB 3.0, SATA 6 (or III). Some fancy boards blend the use of a SSD with an HDD for the marriage of speed and performance. I'd go with the MSI Z68A-GD80 with... CPU: Intel's i5-2500, $10 more gets you the K variant that overclocks. From what I've read (Tom's Hardware), your extra money is better spent on a GFX card over a pricey Core i7. SSD&HDD: Go for a SSD for your OS and basic software. Don't let Steam keep your games there, 128 GB can go fast. Slave a regular 1 or 2 TB SATA for storage and programs/games. My brother is doing this with good results. ODD: Blu-Ray readers are less than $60 and still burn/read DVDs and CDs. Worth it. RAM: Can't really go horribly wrong here. I pick Mushkin, Corsair, Crucial, etc. and then let my budget determine how much I get. 8 GB is a good for $55. GFX: ATI wins the budget battle for $/frame. Tom's Hardware pegged the 6870 and the 6950 for $170 and $240. If you can swing two GTX 460s, that would work. Monitor: Unless you're going apeshit with the Eyefinity or 3D stuff, can't help you there. The millisecond response times are very low on most monitors. I always pick Samsung, good quality and long warranty. As for new and exciting, Eyefinity and 3D is neat and kinda gimmicky. Its ability to provide great results is entirely dependent the cycle of on game developers supporting it, then ATI or nVidia supporting new drivers for the game (see: RAGE). I forsee headaches down that path. SSDs are worth it. I put one in my crappy netbook for my other job and a got a good boost in speed and a decent boost in battery life. Other things like SATA 6 and PCI-E 3.0 are just faster versions of their legacies. Mr. Kool [/quote]