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Please help me build my new computer, DC!

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superboyac:
So should I get the card above?  If I get it today, I'll save $20...no big deal.  Maybe I'll just wait and get it later, $20 ain't going to break the bank.

Cloq:
I would recommend ATI based cards. Their drivers are generally more stable and they actually tell you what they fix and if there are known issues.

My main issue with nvidia based cards is that they seem to F'up royally when it comes to 3D games or features, especially if that game or application crashes. ATI based cards/drivers seem to recover gracefully (no reboots needed). Note: Ati's lower priced/speed cards seem to have the most weird issues with drivers. Another thing to keep in mind, I think their driver software has an dynamic overclock feature, I turn that off by default. I haven't seen that option in their newer drivers so I am guessing they put that feature if you install they catalyst software.

I kicking myself atm for buying nvidia based video card (9600 gt 1gb displayport, hdmi, under $80).. especially after promising myself I would never buy their cards till they fix their driver issues/problems. I said the same thing about ATI many years ago (think *before* radeon 9500).

Post radeon 9500, their drivers have been pretty good (compared to nvidia) assuming you use their drivers and not the catalyst desktop or whatever they call it.

f0dder:
Apart from the boot-time BSODs on XP64 with newer nvidia drivers (I guess that's the price to pay for running a "niche" versions of Windows), I haven't experienced driver-related crashes for quite some years. Both of my brothers run ATI cards, and they have BSODs every now and then. *shrug*. And the LargeSystemCache=1 data-loss crash that ATI drivers had (or still has?) was nasty enough that I haven't run ATI cards for quite a while. I'm with Carol, they all make sucky drivers, in one way or the other.

The one advantage I remember ATI drivers having was that displays still had full acceleration when using screen rotation - with nvidia (at least 2 years ago, haven't used rotation for a while... back when I had a radeon 9600 and a 15" TFT that could rotate) the rotated display felt sluggish, as if acceleration had been turned off, or at least heavily degraded.

superboyac:
OK, maybe I'll hold off on this...I'll put it in the list and get it later.

Next item to choose...the CPU!  What should I get?  Based on earlier posts here, the thinking was i7 would be too expensive and not worth it, so I'm figuring some kind of Intel quad core or something (yes I want intel).  I don't know exactly what to get, so please help.  THanks.

Lashiec:
How about a Q9400? It comes with a Intel water bottle :D. The most expensive Intel Quad Core offer I would get is the Q9550, from there, price increases exponentially and the returns of the inversion are much lower. The sweet spot should be the Q9300, but for some reason, it's more expensive than the Q9400 right now, although it runs at a few less MHz.

If you prefer a Dual Core, the E8500 is nicely priced.

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