Yet another person wanting an opinion on new PC...

[dabbler]

I have looked through several pages of posts, but can't find one that is similiar enough to my needs to keep me from posting.

I currently am running a PII-450 at home. My wife has finally convinced me to upgrade. I haven't wanted to because I didn't want to spend the $$$, and I can use my 1.6 gig work laptop at home.

In the past, I have put systems together, but I don't really have the time or desire to do so now. I am looking at purchasing a custom built PC from www.cyberpowersystem.com or www.buyxg.com (I guess they are the same company).

My needs are FPS gaming - I got HL2 for Christmas and it barely plays on my laptop - general PC use, and video editing.

I have been leaning toward a 754 Athlon 64 3400+ (best bang for the buck), but I am now wondering if I should either a) go with a 939 Athlon 64 3500+ at ~$110 price increase; or b) go with a Pentium 4 3.2 or 3.4.

The rest of the important specs...

MB depends on A64 processor - either ASUS K8N nForce3 250 Chipset or ASUS A8V DELUXE VIA K8T800
1024 megs of "Value RAM"
2 250 gig Maxtor SATA configured as RAID0
GeForce FX 5700

I will probably not be upgrading the CPU anytime in the forseeable future. I have read many places that the P4 is much better at video rendering, but does it really matter? I have been using my wife's 2.6 gig Celeron to create DVDs from MPEGs, and I think either the A64 or P4 would be MUCH faster than this PC.

I also like the idea of utilizing AMD's cool & quiet features--our computer room gets pretty toasty and loud.

Also, if I am not really planning on overclocking, how important is spending the extra $$$ for higher quality memory? It can get expensive very quickly.

Thank you.

 

[tweebel]

Most people here buy throug newegg.

-Go with the A64 for gaming. Socket 754 will certainly fit your needs. Get an nForce mobo with it.
-The RAM is ok if you don't overclock, no need to spend more money on that.
-The Geforce 5700 is a really crappy card in HL2 and needs to be run in directx 8 mode to get a decent framerate. For HL2 I would recommend at least a radeon 9800pro/Geforce 6600 GT/Ati x700.
-Don't get Maxtor drives, get smaller ones from another company for the same money or spend a bit more on seagate/western digital/samsung/hitachi
-Get a good PSU with the system

Whatever you get will waste the celeron.

AMD cpu's run a lot cooler than their Intel counterparts, even without cool&quiet.

Good luck.

 

[Rugger]

YAH - what twee said! Gaming = AMD
The s754 is clocked 200Mhz faster than a comparably rated s939 (s754 3000+ is 2Ghz and a s939 3000+ is 1.8Ghz). If you have the choice on the HDDs get the ones with NCQ like the <A HREF="http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=22-148-034&depa=1" target="_new">Seagate ST3160827AS</A>.

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[Rugger]

Other good options for the s754 mobo are the <A HREF="http://www.newegg.com/app/viewProductDesc.asp?description=13-136-147&depa=1" target="_new">DFI Lanparty UT nF3</A> or the <A HREF="http://www.newegg.com/app/viewProductDesc.asp?description=13-127-190&depa=1" target="_new">Abit NF8</A>.

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[sjonnie]

If you have the choice on the HDDs get the ones with NCQ like the Seagate ST3160827AS.

Err why? Surely if he's building a gaming rig he will want maximum single user performance, so why degrade that by inserting an NCQ drive which performs <b>worse</b> in those situations that an non-NCQ drive?

 

[Cybercraig]

I didn't want to spend the $$$,
fffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff


Socket 754 is the value system right now. A Northwood 3.2C or 3.4C at the right price would be OK too.

Abit IS7 - 3.0C @ 3.6ghz - Mushkin PC4000 (2 X 512) - Sapphire 9800Pro - TT 420 watt Pure Power
Samsung 120gb ATA-100 - Maxtor 40gb ATA - 100
Sony DRU-510A - Yellowtail Merlot

 

[Rugger]

Could you elaborate a little. The things I've read are saying drives with NCQ perform better than non-NCQ. What am I missing? Do you have a good link for me to read? Thanks for putting me on track!

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[Spitfire_x86]

I have been leaning toward a 754 Athlon 64 3400+ (best bang for the buck), but I am now wondering if I should either a) go with a 939 Athlon 64 3500+ at ~$110 price increase; or b) go with a Pentium 4 3.2 or 3.4

Great choice, 2.4 GHz A64 3400+ gives you high-end performance at mid-range price. The more expensive 2.2 GHz 3500+ is actually slower than 2.4 GHz 3400+ in almost every applications.

I suggest you to get a nForce3 250 based mobo. And stay away from GeForce FX 5700 by all means. Get a GeForce 6600GT instead.

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[dabbler]

Yeah, I think I will scale back the disks to a single Hitachi 160 SATA and upgrade the video card to a GeForce 6800 (but not GT or Ultra). I am definitely going with the nForce3 250 Chipset with a 754 Athlon 3400+.

I can always throw in more drives later if I need them.

Thanks everyone for your comments.

Wish me luck!

 

[Rugger]

Good luck! One thing you should note with the nF3 250 chipset and 6800 cards: OCing the card has been causing systems to be unsable - even mild OCs. Lazerous is one of the recent posters on THG to have this issue. Another poster that had those types of symptoms was kenshindono. It doesn't happen to everyone, but it is something to have in the back of your head when burning in your system. If you have probs, then check the settings of your vid card to see if they are OC'd from the factory. Let us know how it comes out!

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[palmerg]

Does that include MSI Neo2 Plats as well as ASUS. Maybe its the 939 boards that aren't having the trouble. I will read the posts you mentioned. I was just beginnning to think about OCing my setup.
Thanks for the warning.

 

[Rugger]

The only thing I've heard is that it applies specifically to the nForce3 250 chipset, but I haven't read any specific concerns witht the Ultra version... [

<A HREF="http://forumz.tomshardware.com/hardware/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&p=570202#570202" target="_new">Here</A> is a link to the lazerous thread, he was using the Asus K8N-e deluxe with the nF3 250GB chipset - not Ultra.

Let me know if you see anything about the nF3 Ultra chipsets having the same issues...

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