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Micro Center - Intel Boxed Core i7 Processor 920

Only $200 shipped!!

I got this magazine the other day and it is an incredible wealth of information. It called "PCGamer Shows You How to....Build the Ultimate Gaming PC"

They have these charts inside that give you an awesome lineup, in order of performance, all current/kinda current/not-so-current video cards and CPUs so you can see exactly where a certain model is on the food chain. It is the coolest chart I have ever seen. I can see exactly how CPUs stack up between Intel and AMD, which is fast, faster, and bleeding-fingers fast! Same goes with graphic cards.

My DIY gaming rig is now over 5 years old, it's hard to imagine it being that old, and yet still is a decently fast system.

Specs:

• AMD Athlon 2500+ (Oc'ed to 3200+ speeds)
• DFI LanParty NFII Ultra Rev B
• 1GB Kingston Hyper X DDR RAM 512MB x 2
• Radeon X1950 XT 256MB (6 months old, original GPU was a Radeon 9600 Pro 256MB
• Thermaltake case
• 650w PSU
• Lite-On optical and WD Caviar HDD drives
• Windows XP SP3
• Samsung Syncmaster 225BW 22" LCD 1680x1050

I see that my old 9600 Pro card I just ditched is waaaaayyyyyyy near the bottom (#76/85), and my new AGP card, the X1950 a lot better (#22/85)

My current CPU, Athlon 2500+ is not even on the list bone stock, and OC'ed to 3200+ speeds only gets it to #95/100; super sucky!

According the them, right now, the top 15 CPUs are as follows:

1. Core i7 965 Extreme Edition
2. Core i7 940
3. Core i7 920
4. Core 2 Extreme QX9770
5. Core 2 Extreme QX9650
6. Core 2 Quad Q9650
7. Core 2 Quad Q9550
8. Phenom II X4 940 Black
9. Phenom II X4 920
10. Core 2 Quad 9450
11. Core 2 Extreme QX6850
12. Core 2 Extreme QX6800
13. Core 2 Duo E6850
14. Core 2 Extreme X6800
15. Core 2 Extreme QX 6700

In fact there are only 2 AMD CPUs in the top 20, and 12 in the top 30.

As you can see, the i7 CPU in the link above is only $200 and it comes in at #3 at the fastest CPUs money can buy with now. If you were to OC it, then it would be faster then the 965 EE, which sells for a friggin' stupid $1200!!!!

Anyway what they do in the magazine is build you what would be just about the baddest, most smokin', best fraggin' gaming rig if money was only slightly a deciding factor, and few extra configs if you want to save a few bucks. I am going down the lists and getting best prices now to build a new rig.

The config they chose is the following:

• Case: Silverstone Fortress FT01
• CPU: Intel Core i7-940
• MOBO: Asus P6T Deluxe
• RAM: 6GB DDR3 Corsair Dominator
• GPU: Nvidia GTX 295
• Sound Card: Creative X-FI Titanium Fatal1ty
• Optical Drive: Samsung SH-S223
• HDD: 1.5TB Seagate 7200.11
• CPU Cooler: Zalman CNPS 9900
• PSU: Antec 850w Signature Series

Total MSRP would be about $2500 depending on deals you can get.

Obviously, you could spring for multiple GPU cards, water cooling, SSD drives, more RAM, more HDDs and such, but the above system would pretty much smoke 99.9% of what is out there for even double the money from a boutique builder such as Falcon or Voodoo.

What's everyone else running/building?

 

Micro Center FTW..... and i7 best CPU!!!

Currently I just finish building a new system using Intel i7:
Intel i7 920 OC'ed to 3.4
EVGA x58 Mobo
OCZ PC1600 DDR3 6GB
x2 EVGA GTS 250 1GB V/C running SLI
Ultra X3 1k watts P/S
Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty PS
Sony Blu-ray drive
x2 1TB Western Digital HDD
Western Digital 74GB Raptor HDD
Vista Ultimate w/ dual booth Window 7 RC version
Ultra Aluminum case
x5 120mm fans

plus I still have my old AMD
FX 64 CPU
EVGA SLI nforce 4 Mobo
4 GB PC3200 DDR from Alienware
x2 XFX 512MB Geforce 6800 XT running in SLI
200GB Seagate HDD
x3 500GB Western Digital HDD
Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 2 Platinum
Sony Blu ray drive
Ultra X3 600watts PS
Ultra Aluminum case
HDTV tuner
now only running Window 7 RC version