Look, let's try this instead. Just tell me your budget, what you actually need the rig for, and what GPU you're rocking right now. Then I'll give you a real recommendation. 🙂
Not sure what kind of math you're doing there. Right now, Best Buy has the GTX 460 with 1GB of VRAM on sale, and honestly, even this 768MB version blows the 4870 out of the water for the same price. In this scenario, you might as well just stick with the Pro components you've got. A Corsair 520W power supply is also a solid recommendation over that other brand. If you can track down the 1GB version, check here: then swap that Intel Core i7 for an Intel Core i5 and you'll end up at the exact same total cost.
It’s a decent enough deal if you’re pairing it with a GTS 250 and sticking to a smaller monitor or lower resolution... but if you’ve upgraded to a 22" screen or anything larger, you might be better off looking at the 5770 or 4870 instead.
HIPRO components were actually used in serious IBM workstations and small-scale servers back in the day. It’s not some cheap junk you can just toss out.
The GeForce GTX 460 is already looking like a pretty solid contender here. You're getting performance on par with the 5830, but it seems to have much better overclocking headroom.
I don't see the point of this whole debate. Who actually cares about the budget for $267? Whether Fermi is any good or not is irrelevant... you've got the 4850 and the 250 GTS right here, which are basically neck and neck anyway. That's the bottom line.
Yeah, the processor is really the crux of the matter. If you actually want to squeeze any decent performance out of this setup, you should probably be looking at an upgrade soon—maybe even just grabbing a used Core 2 Duo clocked above 3GHz or jumping straight to a Quad core.
I ran tests using all the basics—one drive, DVD, RAM, plus I had to plug in a keyboard and mouse just to get into the benchmarks. This was all tested straight from a wall outlet. These power supplies hit about 85% efficiency, which means that 410W max draw from the wall is actually only about 350W for the components themselves. But let’s be realistic: you’re looking at a 65W CPU versus this Intel Core i7 125W, and there's no way this build is running on 4GB when it definitely has 6GB of RAM. Also, the Cooler Master model pulls less juice than the standard version because it's more efficient. There should still be enough headroom for some decent overclocking; I'm not talking anything insane, but you could probably push it up to 3GHz.