Originally posted by simonwest80

Originally posted by simonwest80

Yeh a 660 is looking good mate - as good as a 7870 and able to eat most games for breakfast

Except that it isn't.  A Radeon HD 7870 is a little better than a GeForce GTX 660, but also tends to be a little more expensive.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Well different game bench marks i have seen have seen for both these cards have them level pegging depending on the game.  Sometimes the 660 wins sometimes the 7870.  Now in all cases they are using single HD monitors so maybe a case of multiple monitors etc may see a difference.  Also price wise in the UK both cards are more or less the same price again depending on brand etc.

I've noticed this trend as well. Sene numerous benchmark test comparing the Geforce GTX 660 to the Radeon HD 7870 and they really are just trading places between the different benchmarks tests. So I say they are pretty much equal in their gaming performance, with minor differences depending on the: game, card manufacturer and system.

My personal reason for going for the GTX 660 is not only because it offers good temps & performance for the price, but because I feel like getting an Nvidia card this time. Just seems like there's a trend of games launching with more optimization issues with ATI cards (Rage being the worst offender). Just recently a guildmate upgraded his PC with a Radeon HD 7000 series card and was getting worse performance than my crappy mATX PC with its Radeon HD 5570. So after 3 Radeon cards, I'll try Nvidia this time.

Originally posted by benit59

As an IT professional and someone that built high-end consumer PC's for the past 5 years, I will give you the following advice:

 

You made the right decision in terms of Intel chipset, but I would look at alternative manufacturers. Asus in recent years had been a poor value. They make very good high-end electronics, but their product offerings in low to mid range components offer little over other manufacturers for a higher price. Look into manufacturers like ASRock or Biostar. You can often get a product that is just as good for a considerably lower price.

 

The cost of getting a DDR3 8 Gig kit that runs at 2133 (CAS 11), isnt that much more than the other kits you have your eye on. It's worth it. ( I recommend the Patriot Viper series.)

 

And most importantly -- spend the money you saved on getting a reliable WD Black HDD, reload the OS on it, and stick the old drive in the new system as a backup/data dump. Please don't put anything other than Windows 7 on it either. Also...avoid onboard RAID controllers. For most users its not worth the heartache.

 

Edit: Forgot to mention --- if you want to save even more money...look at the new Core i3 3220. $129.00. 29 Watt TDP when using discreet graphics. Pretty damn decent gaming performance.

Useful information. But Asus is consider good compare to dell.