I am in the middle of having a new computer quoted. I am fortunate to be able to spec. my own system as long as I keep it within budget from my boss. I really didn't have time to go through all of the details of hardware specifications and benchmarks. So, I gave my computer builder some basic guidelines, as well as the budgeted amount, and told him to cram as much power into the box as possible.
The guidelines that I gave him were: Intel P4 processor (one or two steps back from the fastest available, for cost savings) Intel MoBo
2 Gig of good fast RAM nVidia Quadro FX 700 or betterHe came up with this: MoBo - Intel D915PCYL (915P LGA775 MAX-4GB DDR2 ATX PCIE16 2PCIE 4PCI SND SATA 800MHZ) Processor - P4 540 - LGA775 800MHZ 3.2GHZ 1MB CACHE HT SOC-T Memory - (4X) Kinsington 512MB PC266 64MX64 CL2.5 DIMM (2 Gig Total) Graphics - PNY NVIDIA QUADRO FX3400 PCIE 256MB DDR3 DUAL DVI
With all of the other misc. stuff (OS, Burner, HD, Case) this came in right at my budget limit. The graphics card is obviously a much higher-end card than I anticipated. But it should be a kick-butt card according to the specs. (and it is a PCIE card).
He also gave me an option of a "PNY NVIDIA QUADRO FX1300 PCIE 128MB DDR DUAL DVI" card (PCIE card as well). This card is about half the price of the FX3400 which would bring the total well below the budget limit.
Like I said, I haven't had time to really research the other hardware options on my own. I know that a lot of you out there are diehard AMD fans but my boss wants to stay Intel (his money). I personally thought that the memory he quoted should be at least DDR2-400 or even DDR2-533. And the processor should maybe be an Extreme Edition. Plus, the latest chipset from Intel on the MoBo is 925 instead of 915. But what do I know. If I choose the FX1300 graphics card I may be able to upgrade some of these items and still be within budget.
Here is the questions. Would you stick with the original configuration with the higher end FX3400 card? Or, would you bump it down to the FX1300 and spend the saved money on boosting the other hardware? And why?
TIA