I've been long out of the loop on new PC technologies.. haven't looked at much since I bought my current rig... over 4 and a half years ago. Things move fast.

Out of these options, which you do think is better? I'm so out of the loop, I can't even make sense of these anymore.

Option 1:

Quote :

INTEL PLATINUM

I 5 650 3.2 ghz 4 mb
-8 gb ddr3
-gigabyte motherboard
-1 Tb hard drive 7200 rpm
-22 x LG DVD Dual Layer Combo
-7 USB 2.0 High Speed Ports
-Nvidia 9500 Gt 1 Gb Video Card
-8 Channel High Definition Sound
-All in 1 Card Reader
-Windows 7 Home Basic
-Keyboard / Optical Mouse
Two Year Warranty - Parts And Labour
$1099.99

Option 2:

Quote :

AMD DIAMOND

- AMD QUAD PHENOM 955 3.2Ghz 3600FSB

-GIGABYTE MOTHERBOARD

-4 GB DDR2 RAM

-1TB SATA HARD DRIVE

-22X DUAL LAYER BURNER

-7 HIGH SPEED 2.0 USB PORTS

-HIGH SPEED GIGABYTE ETHERNET

-9400GT PCI-E 1GB DDR2


-ALL IN 1 CARD READER

-WINDOWS 7 HOME PREMIUM

-KEYBOARD SPEAKER MOUSE

-TWO YEAR WARRANTY PARTS AND LABOUR

$999.99

I've obviously looking to go as fast as possible. Thanks guys!

these options are just wrong...

8gb ddr3 with win7 home basic, or 4gb ddr2 with win7 home premium.

go window XP

Where in the world is this? Is that with a monitor or no? Just seems really really expensive for the parts involved as a whole package... Have you thought about putting some new parts into your existing rig rather than going with either ripoff option?

Is this for gaming by any chance? 3d rendering? Video? etc.

Reason I ask is because the video card seems a bit weak.

No idea if this place ships to Canada, but this is where I got mine years ago. Prices are reasonable.

Example below.

Quote :

Case
NZXT Phantom Full Tower Gaming Case - Black

Processor
Intel® Core™ i7 950 Processor (4x 3.06GHz/8MB L3 Cache

Processor Cooling
Liquid CPU Cooling System [SOCKET-1366] - [Free Upgrade] Standard 120mm Fan

Memory
6 GB [2 GB X3] DDR3-1600 - Corsair or Major Brand

Video Card
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 550 Ti - 1GB - Single Card

Motherboard
Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD3R w/ 4x PCI-E 2.0 x16
Motherboard USB / SATA Interface
Motherboard default USB / SATA Interface

Power Supply
600 Watt -- Standard

Primary Hard Drive
1 TB HARD DRIVE -- 32M Cache, 7200 RPM, 6.0Gb/s - Single Drive

Optical Drive
24X Dual Format/Double Layer DVD±R/±RW + CD-R/RW Drive - Black

Sound Card
3D Premium Surround Sound Onboard

Network Card
Onboard LAN Network (Gb or 10/100)

Operating System
Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium + Office Starter 2010 (Includes basic versions of Word and Excel) - 64-Bit

Warranty
Standard Warranty Service - Standard 3-Year Limited Warranty + Lifetime Technical Support

Rush Service
Rush Service Fee (not shipping fee) - No Rush Service, Estimate Ship Out in 5~10 Business Days

Subtotal: $1059

I'd go with what PMD said, If you can't, Just go option one, Because both totally suck.

No reason not to go with Sandy Bridge right now...

The rig will be for Solidworks, Photoshop and gaming, so it needs to be powerful. Any particular component recommendations? AMD or Intel? I've never had an nvidia card, so I don't know anything about their cards, either...

Thanks for the input guys.

[EDIT] I'm looking in the ~$1100 range, as fast as possible in there.Tower only; no monitors or keyboards or anything.

the processors are pretty much even, but faster memory always helps, so i'd stick with the intel build.

but i've always hated amd... so take that for what it's worth.

Quote from MAGGOT :

The rig will be for Solidworks, Photoshop and gaming, so it needs to be powerful.

Solidworks looks pretty easy to run, so anything these days for your price range will run it flawless. Photoshop takes RAM, and 6gb seems the lowest you would want to go. Gaming is video card (and processor) which both of your examples don't have too strong of. Basically those two example look like straight rip offs. I wouldn't buy those even at gunpoint. Look 2 years out-dated for that price.

Quote :

Any particular component recommendations? AMD or Intel? I've never had an nvidia card, so I don't know anything about their cards, either...

From my experience, I go with reliability as a key. Intel and Nvidia hasn't failed me yet. Nvidia is pretty simple to use/explore settings wise. No idea how ATi is as I always avoided them (cousin had them and they always seemed to be incompatible with things. No idea if still happens or not).

Quote :

[EDIT] I'm looking in the ~$1100 range, as fast as possible in there.Tower only; no monitors or keyboards or anything.

The one I mentioned is more similar to what you are looking for over the ones you posted in the OP. Faster processor, in the middle on the RAM, and much higher graphics card.


/bed

Not sure what are you options for getting a fully custom machine, but you can get something like this for your money

I realize I'm slightly over the budget, but you can easily squeeze under 1000 USD if you ditch the BD drive and replace the GTX 570 with GTX 560 Ti. All prices are from newegg.com, so checking out other shops too might be worth few extra bucks...

OT: how come the newer intel processors went back to using dual-channel memory, instead of the tri-channel memory that the i7 920 uses?

Quote from PMD9409 :

Solidworks looks pretty easy to run, so anything these days for your price range will run it flawless. Photoshop takes RAM, and 6gb seems the lowest you would want to go. Gaming is video card (and processor) which both of your examples don't have too strong of.

Solidworks, in my experience, is much heavier than Photoshop when you really get into it. It's load is highly dependant on the model you're working on, and then rendering can be a lot on top of that (especially with huge presentation renders). PS is intensive, too, though, all the same.

Quote :

From my experience, I go with reliability as a key. Intel and Nvidia hasn't failed me yet. Nvidia is pretty simple to use/explore settings wise. No idea how ATi is as I always avoided them (cousin had them and they always seemed to be incompatible with things. No idea if still happens or not).

I've had ATi cards for years now, and they've been really good for me, but I'm open to all options. Nvidia seem to be more popular though?

Quote from MadCatX :

Not sure what are you options for getting a fully custom machine, but you can get something like this for your money


CPU: Intel Core i7 2600 300 USD
MB: GIGABYTE GA-Z68X-UD3H-B3 170 USD
RAM: Corsair Vengeance 2x4 GB kit 105 USD
VGA: GIGABYTE GV-N570CC-13I (nV 570) 345 USD
HDD: HITACHI Deskstar 7K3000 1.5TB 70 USD
PSU: Antec EA-650 65 USD
BD: LG WH12LS30 85 USD
Case: Random crappy case 25 USD

TOTAL: 1165 USD


I realize I'm slightly over the budget, but you can easily squeeze under 1000 USD if you ditch the BD drive and replace the GTX 570 with GTX 560 Ti. All prices are from newegg.com, so checking out other shops too might be worth few extra bucks...

Perfectly within the budget, I'm flexible

Thanks guys!

The core I5 2500k is plenty powerful and you will save a bit more money.

Quote from bunder9999 :

OT: how come the newer intel processors went back to using dual-channel memory, instead of the tri-channel memory that the i7 920 uses?

Current Sandy Bridge CPUs are um.. "mainstream" range, not "enthusiast / high performance". Those will come out in Q4 2011, with LGA 2011 socket, and Intel X79 chipset. Featuring... quad-channel memory.

Quote from bunder9999 :

OT: how come the newer intel processors went back to using dual-channel memory, instead of the tri-channel memory that the i7 920 uses?

Just the associated extra cost of buying an extra memory stick, really. Not so much of an issue now the price of DDR3 has come right down.

Does anyone know about FirePro cards? They're specific to CAD/3DSMAX type applications, but how do they perform for gaming? Should I stick with a gaming card despite my high Solidworks/Photoworks/Shot/Photoshop/Illustrator use?

FirePro or Quadro are useful is you do a lot of computationally heavy CADing. They use the same chips as their common user sisters so there is no difference if gaming performance.

Quote from MAGGOT :

Does anyone know about FirePro cards? They're specific to CAD/3DSMAX type applications, but how do they perform for gaming? Should I stick with a gaming card despite my high Solidworks/Photoworks/Shot/Photoshop/Illustrator use?

Well apparently you can get 5k fps in LFS with one . Seen a picture on here awhile ago of it.

Quote from MadCatX :

They use the same chips as their common user sisters so there is no difference if gaming performance.

Wrong. Quadro cards never skip rendering of 'slow' shaders while GeForce cards do sometimes, which makes GeForce's better for gaming.

Quote from MAGGOT :

Does anyone know about FirePro cards? They're specific to CAD/3DSMAX type applications, but how do they perform for gaming? Should I stick with a gaming card despite my high Solidworks/Photoworks/Shot/Photoshop/Illustrator use?

some years ago one cold flash a normal card to upgrade it to these special CAD cards (NVidia Quattro cards come to my mind, but thats ~'00 )

Quote from ACCAkut :

(NVidia Quattro cards come to my mind, but thats ~'00 )

Um. Quadro 6000, with it's 6GB of VRAM and 448 CUDA cores, is in no way '00 card.

I once had a Geforce 4 Ti 4400, that I flashed to be a Quadro (for no real reason)
64MB DDR1 RAM, fück yeah

Yeah, the cards are very similar - if not exactly same. The performance difference that can sometimes be measured is all down to drivers...

two tips from personal experience:

1.) GTX 560Ti is a great value, the card has a good speed and is relatively cheap, made only good experience with it

2.) i5 2500K, runs at 3,3ghz stock, equipped it with a Scythe Nasya (40$) and running it at 4,3 ghz atm, capable of more easily, 4,5 ghz still runs stables. So you can get about 1ghz for free