Tenative Specs for new PC

[jthm]

There is no set price so please feel free to suggest what you think is best for my needs as a gamer and university student. Preferably I would like to be able to purchase these parts within Canada because a lot of the good stores like newegg won't ship here.

Case: Enermax Medium Tower Black
Processor: AMD 64 3200+ 1mb cache
RAM: 512mb x2 low latency Corsair, Kingston
Motherboard: ASUS K8N
HD: Western Digital, Samsung, or Segate 7200rpm 8mb cache hard drive(s)
Video Card: ATI or Sapphire 9800 Pro 128mb 256bit
Drive: NEC CD-RW/DVD-ROM or DVD-RW
Keyboard: Logitech Black
Mouse: Logitech Black
Floppy: Sony Black
Speakers: Test in store

 

[suurna1]

hey those specs are very similar to the computer i am trying to put together.

as of now i have decided on :

Case: Raidmax mid tower with 420W power suplly $43
Processor: Athlon 62 3200+ (2.2ghz, 512 cache) $282
Ram : Mushkin or Corsair XMS low latency 2x 512MB $250
Motherboard: EPoX "EP-8KDA3J" NForce3-250 $100
HD: Western Digital speacial edition 80GB $65
Video Card: High Tech Radeon 9800Pro 128mb 256bit "excalibur ICEQ" $240
CD/DVD: Rosewill 52x32x52x16 cdrw dvd combo $40

I live in canada as well but i live on a boarder town so i can have it shiped just over the boarder and pick it up myself.

good luck with your computer

 

[jthm]

Lucky bastage! I'm not even that far off I'm just outside of Toronto 🙁. I'll figure it out. Those were american prices right?

 

[endyen]

I dont think Asus is shipping the nforce3 250 board yet. It doesn't even show up on pricewatch. I've been watching for over a month.

 

[Spitfire_x86]

I recommend few changes.......

CPU: A64 3200+ "Newcastle" (2.2 GHz, 512k L2 cache)
Mobo: MSI K8N Neo Platinum
HDD: Maxtor Diamond Max 9 (7200 rpm, 8 MB buffer)
DVD burner: LiteOn SOHW-812S


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[jthm]

Spitfire I am not familiar with this Newcastle you speak of. Could you explain it please. I have been told ASUS K8N is the best for an amd64 but I've also heard talk of the MSI, what are the key diffrences? The DVD Burner is pretty irrelevant I find as it will only ever be used for playing DVDs. I would be getting a 7200rpm 8mb buffer HDD regardless, aren't Diamond Max's simply more expensive?

 

[Spitfire_x86]

Newcastle is the code name of newer A64s. They have higher clock speed than Clawhammer (older A64s) and less cache.

For example:-

3200+ (Clawhammer) = 2.0 GHz, 1 MB L2 cache
3200+ (Newcastle) = 2.2 GHz, 512k L2 cahce
3400+ (Clawhammer) = 2.2 GHz, 1 MB L2 cache
3400+ (Newcastle) = 2.4 GHz, 512k L2 cache

Athlon64 doesn't need much L2 cache to perform well, and their performance scale very well with clockspeed. When the L2 cache is cut to 512k from 1 MB, then only 0%-3% performance loss occurs. But extra 10% clockspeed usually results in 7% to 9% extra performance. So we can expect A64 3200+ (Newcastle) to perform better than A64 3200+ (Clawhammer).

MSI K8N was released earlier and many people already bought it (of course satisfied after purchsase). ASUS is relatively newer and less proven. This is why I recommended MSI. But ASUS is a good manufacturer, and there's no reason to think that K8N may be inferior product. If you like to give it a chance, then go ahead.

If you don't need DVD burning capability, then you may buy LiteOn DVD-ROM/CD-RW combo drive. Since the price difference isn't big, then you should think again about the DVD burner.

Personally I found Maxtor very good performer, quiet and reliable. This is why I recommended Maxtor. And Maxtor Diamond Max 9 is quite affordable.

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<A HREF="http://geocities.com/spitfire_x86/myrig.html" target="_new">My Rig</A> & <A HREF="http://geocities.com/spitfire_x86/benchmark.html" target="_new">3DMark score</A>

 

[Cybercraig]

The NEC 2500A's are pretty good.
The Samsung drives with the 8mb cache are pretty good too!
The Sapphire 9600XT runs very fast with an A64 if you need to watch pennies.
Watch the 12v rail on your power supply. With multiple drives you will want 17 or 18a.
Other than that, you're "ready to rumble"!

"I am become death, the destroyer of worlds. Now, let's eat!

 

[Canadian_Bacon]

get the asus k8n deluxe. Its always better to go a bit higher end on the motherboard.

If you live in the toronto area, look at these places.
www.canadacomputers.com
www.tigerdirect.ca (should be able to get free shipping)
www.etccomputers.ca
www.pcvillagecanada.com (my favourite, buying a computer there tommorow with similar specs)

As for your case, does it come with a Power Supply. I suggest either Enermax or Antec

 

[jthm]

Hmm those sites were rather confusing and didn't really allow me to shop much. So far www.ncix.com has provided the most variety but I think I'll go to a pc village store and check it out.

The enermax case comes with 350w enermax power supply I believe.

I think the main components I'm going to want are:

Mobo: ASUS K8N Deluxe
RAM: _________ PC3200 DDR400 512mb x2
Video Card: ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 256mb 256bit
Processor: AMD Athlon 64 3200+ 2.2ghz Newcastle
Drive: DVD-R or DVD-ROM/CD-RW
HDD: _________ 7200rpm 8mb cache SATA

 

[gobeavers]

I didn't see the newcastle 3200 on newegg, how much is it?

"This means that you can play over a network, just not with each other."-PC GAMER review

 

[Spitfire_x86]

Newcastle and Clawhammer prices are nearly equal

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<A HREF="http://geocities.com/spitfire_x86" target="_new">My Website</A>

<A HREF="http://geocities.com/spitfire_x86/myrig.html" target="_new">My Rig</A> & <A HREF="http://geocities.com/spitfire_x86/benchmark.html" target="_new">3DMark score</A>