New Gaming Rig, some old, some new, some questions, THANKS!

[BrettB]

Hi,

Taking the suggestion of pickxx, Here is my idea for a new gaming system: I have a budget of $600-$700. I would like to overclock, but I won't be heartbroken if it does not work. I will re-use some items, as shown below. As a first time AMD user (well, since my short-lived K6), I have some questions, but on to the build:

Case & PWR: APEX Super Case TU150 Black Steel w/400W
CPU: AMD Athlon 64 3200+ Venice
Mobo: EPoX EP-9NPA+Ultra
HDD: 120 G 7200 Seagate SATA NCQ
VID: XFX 256MB 6600 DDR2 PCIX
CD: NEC 16X DVD+-R
Mouse: Logitech Black Optical
Key: Saitek Illuminated

$686.07, after shipping

I will re-use:

RAM: Dual Channel 2X 512MB Corsair Value Select CL2.5
HDD2: 250 G 7200 IBM IDE
Mon: 19" NEC Trinitron CRT
Snd: SB Live! PCI
Spk: Altec Black w/sub
LAN: Linksys WiFi
OS: Windows XP SP2
Floppy: NO LPT

Questions:

1. As far as the case goes, I want a black one with a lock (to keep the toddler's fingers away). This is the one I picked: http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16811154013
Are Allied power supplies any good, or should I pay for a better one?

2. On the motherboard, I want a decent overclocker with IEEE 1394, will not use SLI. On Newegg, it is very hard to find an NForce4 board with a rating over 3 stars. In fact, it is hard to find any Socket 939 boards with a rating over 3. Is that just the nature of the beast? I have been using a Gigabyte 8IG (845 chipset) for 3 years, overclocking a P4 1.6 to 2.0 without a problem. I like speed and stability. Is the Epox board for me?

3. The video card is $105 shipped from ZipZoomFly. Are they as reliable as Newegg? I think the 6600 DDR2 looks too good to pass up. I gets me into PCIX mid-range with room to grow. I of course surf the web and watch DVDs as much as I play games. Any other suggestions?

4. I do not have an optical mouse, and I game in the dark. The input devices are needed.

5. Is the Ram going to allow overclocking? Here is the link:
http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16820145440

6. Will not having a floppy hinder me as far as BIOS updates, or running RAID later? Please God tell me no.

7. On SATA hard drives, will the new interface, speed, and NCQ be noticably faster on boot times, programs loading, and game performance? Should I just stick a 60 gig IDE 7200 in there for now, and put the $100 towards video?

Thanks for reading all the way to the bottom, and thanks for any comments :!: , questions :?: , or ideas :idea: .

 

[pickxx]

The build looks good.....

1. Personally i would get another PSU....

2.That EPoX board you have listed on Newegg is 4+ stars.....so are a lot of others. You must be looking at somehig different then me.

3.Yup ZZF is a good online retailer....6600GT DDR2 is a good card. Its lowere range but its highend-low or low mid....might want to look into a 6800GS if you can swing the price the performance inscrese would be pretty good.

3. pt two....its PCIe, PCIE, PCI-E, and so on....PCIX is completely differen thing

4. i dont know what to say about this...where is the qustion or something to comment to? confused.

5. No, but you can use a ram divider and make the cpu run at a faster fsb then the ram. You are fine.

6. For RAID its better to have a floppy....but for BIOS you can burn to a disk or use a USB thumbdrive

7. honestly you probably wont notice the difference from a SATA to IDE drive if they ar both 7200rpm and such.....personally i vote get a better gpu. with that extra $100 you might be able to get to a 7800GT which would make your rig FLY in games.


btw, are you going t OC with stock cooling or go with something aftermarket?

 

[zoridon]

I agree on the 6800 gs solution, stick with the hard drive u have for now unless your filling over half of it up. Once you break the 50% barrier on space remaining on hard drive its performance goes down dramatically. Power supply is weak if you want to go sli later otherwise its passable. DFI has the infinity series of non sli boards out that can be had for as little as $85. I bought the socket 754 version with pci express and slammed a 3700 cpu in it. No problems so far. Socket 754 was $10 cheaper but limited upgrade path.

 

[BrettB]

Thanks for all the input.

1. Are people really not liking Antec PSU anymore? What's the good stuff now?

7. No SATA, better video it is.

Is having a 51% + full HDD really a performance drain? I never heard of it.

Aftermarket CPU cooler, is it needed? I have always clocked with retail, what are some ideas for AMD 64?

 

[pickxx]

I have 3 drives....one is 80% full one is 40% and one is 60%

I dont worry about it

look into the SI-120 and a good fan.

 

[zoridon]

Visit storagereview.com for articles on hard drives and comparison database on hard drives. I admit I can't pinpoint where I read the performance decrease on over 50% of hard drive being full but it is true. This performance drain is on transfer rates, load times etc.., as far as affecting fps and game performance I'm not sure. If your close now to being there go with a larger drive or you will end up replacing it as primary hard drive anyway. Again over 50 percent is only an estimate of when hard drive performance "begins" to drop off. If someone does not agree then back it up with a source I'm always open to correcting something I've come to believe for the past 6 years.

 

[pickxx]

If someone does not agree then back it up with a source I'm always open to correcting something I've come to believe for the past 6 years.

So yu can say stupid shit and then WE need sources to disagree with you? Thats funny :lol: :lol: :lol:


You just admited two important thigns, you can't remember where you hear somethign and it was more then 6yrs ago.

A lot has changed in 6yrs for HDD's....Seek times are down cache is up.....


honestly until you find something to prove a performance hit at 50%+ i am going to continue to think you are an idiot.

Should i go by 6-7yr old reviews of PSU's? DO i only really need a solid 300W one to run a top of the line rig? Should i onyl use PC133 RAM? its not 1997....lets use current reviews and also dont just say "i heard...." "I dont have facts but i think....."



oh and one more thing......HDD's DO NOTHING FOR FPS IN GAMES!!! NOTHING!

unless you have like 128MB of ram or something stupid it doesn't matter.

 

[Rugger]

Psst
FPS...not FSP

 

[pickxx]

ty

 

[BrettB]

Good help, this is what I went with:

Antec True Power II 550
Asus A8N-E nForce4 Ultra S939
AMD 64 3200+ Venice CG stepping
eVGA Geforce 7800GT 256MB VIVO
4X Corsair PC 3200 512 MB DDR dual channel
Sound Blaser Live! PCI
Maxtor 60 GB IDE 7200 System Drive
IBM 185 GB IDE 7200 Media Storage
Dell 20" Widescreen LCD 2005FPW

Plenty of speed for apps/games. I have not overclocked yet. WoW at 1680 x 1050 with ALL settings maxed and an average or 60 fps! Thanks for the advice.