New PC

Hi Im going to get a friend to build a new pc for me and am unsure aout a few of the parts. Ill use it primarily for autocad and multimedia stuff and games, so it needs to run pretty well. Im looking to spend aout 1400 on parts.

So far im not sure about my processor Im pretty much leaning towards a Q6600 as far as intel goes but I dont know wether an amd would give me more for my money if i was getting amd id get AMD Athlon™ 64 6400+ or the 6000 one.
Also Im consider using 2 geforce 8800gts cards in sli because it seems to get the most bang for your buck. Or would i be better going for some kind of ati card setup. Lastly what do I have to watch for if I want to use 2 cards and overclock my cpu? Do I Just need to make sure there is sufficient cooling and power supply? and do I need ram with speed of at least 800Mhz for this kind of setup? not sure aout my motheroard there are a lot of options there and it depends on what i decide on first heh.

 

Both are good. If you want the top performance well I would suggest Q6600 though as it happens I have 2 desktops. One with Q6600 and the other with Am2 6000 and personally I cannot see the difference so it's up to you but you won't go wrong either way.

 

The 6000+ and the E6600 perform about the same, but the amd would be cheaper. If you can use the quad then go for it, but not many programs use it to its fullest right now.

I'd go for 2 of the new 8800 Gt's instead of the GTS. They are better and cheaper.

Yes, get a good PSU, probably at least 700watts for sli and at least 800mhz ram. If you want to OC, then look at aftermarket cooling, although with that setup you won't need to OC, unless you are like me and just OC certain settings to have everything running at the same speed, NOT looking at how far I can possibly OC.

 

it would be interesting to see what sli does for Acad, assuming you mean heavy duty 3D modeling

 

For SLI, you're probably better off getting two 8800GTs (as in the plural form of 8800GT. Don't get confused with the 8800GTS ). TomsHardware.com's benchmarks prove that the 8800GT is faster than the 8800GTS, and they are cheaper on NewEgg.com.

If you get the AMD Athlon 64 X2 6000+, I strongly urge you to get a separate CPU cooler. I recently built a system with this chip, and after two heatsinks that couldn't cool it enough, I finally got this cooler. It works like magic.

 

That's funny, I have this 6000 cpu with stock Amd hsf and it runs fine at 34c and the board at 33c. Bet you have a cheap motherboard?