Building new rig, need recommendations! ^^

[Hydra]

Alright, I've finally came up with enough money to build myself a new PC, but I'm not too upto date on what's best and hopefully someone here can help me out. Also if I any components are incompatible or have a better alternative at a slightly higher price (or lower?) I'd appreciate some recommendations.

OK, all my prices will be in pounds (GBP£), so if your from anywhere else conversions might be lower or higher than your local prices (Probably Higher ~_~). Anyway, my budget is around (£750-800).


CPU: AMD Athlon 64 3000+ (Socket 939) £111.57
-What's the difference between Socket 754 and 939? I'm guessing 939 is faster since it has more throughput?
-Is it really worth the extra £40 for the 3200+?

RAM: Crucial 1GB (2x512MB) DDR PC3200 £176.19

Graphics: Ok, need some help with this one, since I'm not sure what to get, so what's best out of the following:

• Sapphire ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB AGP £146.82

• XFX GeForce PCX6600 GT 128MB PCI-E £143.94

Now I'm not sure which of these 2 is the best, but the GeForce is PCI-Express, which means if I get it I'll get a fairly average priced PCI-E motherboard(Not Dual GPU). This way I can perhaps buy a new motherboard and 6600 GT in the future as a cheaper way of upgrading. Well I'll leave this to suggestions, so if there's anything better than these 2 for the same price recommend away(I don't want a ATI vs nVidia war either).

Motherboard:

PCI-Express: Asus K8N-E Deluxe nForce3 £78.72
AGP: Abit AX8 (Socket 939) PCI-Express £75.14

HDD: Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 200GB SATA £82.19

Monitor: Hyundai ImageQuest Q770S 17'' £93.94
-Good monitor? I'm not too bothered about the monitor as long as it gives a good quality image.

Case: Antec SX1040BII Black 430W PSU£68.84
-430W should be enough power?

Anyway, that's the end of my long post, hopefully someone can give me some good recommendations. Also remember I'm open for suggestions.

Thanks in advance.

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Mobo: Asus A8V Deluxe
CPU: AMD Athlon 64 3000+
RAM: 1024MB DDR400 Dual Channel
Graphics: nVidia Geforce FX 6600 GT 128MB DDR3
HDD: 260GB
OS: Windows XP SP2

[Aleksei (St)]

939 socket is better for future plans of upgrading
as for video card i could guess that the fx6600 is better cause it has more features than the radeon9800 imo

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[Evil_Neko]

well I've already given you plenty of suggestions for this but the only new thing I have to say is get more ram 1 gig will go out of date fast 2 gigs will last longer and makes more sense to do it when building the sytem because there is less to throw away later. same with the MB.

[72da9]

If this was me, I would go with the following:
1) The Geforce card.
2) The Abit motherboard.
3) I would not use Seagate HD (They have a reputation of high failure rate with me and slow seek speeds.) I use Western Digital as I have not had any failures or trouble with them.
4) Everything else listed is good. Antec Case's are great to work with.
5) I get myself a good DVD burner that does all formats.
6) I would try to afford the best AMD chip that is compatible with the board.
7) Remember the longer you wait for parts the cheaper these parts get as new stuff hits the market.

[Kane]

The S939 is what I just got. S754 is like the old Slot A to the Socket A IMO. It's likely AMD will stick with this socket for a while. I don't think it's worth shelling hte extra forty quid for the 3200. BTW, try looking at prices on http://www.cpucitystore.co.uk That's where I got mine. The rest of my machine is variously from www.Dabs.com/uk and www.Novatech.co.uk
I would go with the 6600GT, as it'll blow the 9800 Pro away. There should be AGP version of that around if you would prefer that.
With the motherboards, I hate to break it to you, but you got them 2 back to front; The Abit is the PCX part. As for which to choose? I'd say go PCX. As you are buying an entire new PC anyway, you might as well, however, if you wanted the SLI upgrade path, you'd need to fork out for an nForce 4 board.
Monitor...... I have to say TFTs have come a long way, and I would suggest a 15" TFT (it is about the size of a 17" CRT) or a 17" TFT would be worth the extra expence. The crispness of the image is an amazing jump.
I know what I've suggested will likely put you a bit over budget, but it'll be worth it in the long run IMO.

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[[Thoughtless]]

-I would have go with the Asus mobo. nForce3 chipsets are better than Via chipsets IMO
-ATI RADEON. Although I prefer Nvidia but that nivida card comes from a company from which I really really dislike (XFX). Bad customer support.
-The case is a good choice (You really need a decent PSU for gaming if that's what you're intending to do)

[Hydra]

Ok, I've changed my mind on motherboard and decided to go for the new Asus A8N-SLi Deluxe nForce4 SLi (Socket 939). My with the extra money I'm gonna have to forget about a monitor and use my current one for a bit. One question though: Even though this is a dual GPU mobo, I can still use just one card right? I figured it would be a nice way to upgrade in the future.

As far as the graphics card goes, I've pretty set on the Geforce 6600 GT since it's fast and has SLi + PCI-E. There are other makes at the same price, so maybe someone can recommend one:

-MSI NX6600GT-TD128E
-Leadtek WinFast PCX6600GT-TDH
-AOpen GeForce PCX6600 GT
-Asus Extreme N6600GT TOP GeForce PCX6600 GT (Have to pay a bit extra for since it comes with Doom 3)

Also what kind of power supply am I going to need? I'm considering a case with a 430W PSU. Last question, should I get a CPU fan? I hear the retail fans kinda suck.

__________________

Mobo: Asus A8V Deluxe
CPU: AMD Athlon 64 3000+
RAM: 1024MB DDR400 Dual Channel
Graphics: nVidia Geforce FX 6600 GT 128MB DDR3
HDD: 260GB
OS: Windows XP SP2

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Last edited by Hydra; December 1st, 2004 at 21:53..

[fivefeet8]

Originally Posted by Hydra

One question though: Even though this is a dual GPU mobo, I can still use just one card right? I figured it would be a nice way to upgrade in the future.

-MSI NX6600GT-TD128E
-Leadtek WinFast PCX6600GT-TDH
-AOpen GeForce PCX6600 GT

Also what kind of power supply am I going to need? I'm considering a case with a 430W PSU. Last question, should I get a CPU fan? I hear the retail fans kinda suck.

Yes, you can use 1 6600gt in a dual gpu motherboard. Nice way for a future cheap upgrade. Your 430 PSU should be fine.

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[Kane]

>should I get a CPU fan? I hear the retail fans kinda suck.

The retail A64 fans are fine. They don't seem to run much hotter tham my Thermaltake Venus 12 (which in retrospect is kinda a sucky fan, but....)

>Even though this is a dual GPU mobo, I can still use just one card right? I figured it would be a nice way to upgrade in the future.

Indeed: Hence the reason I suggested it. Basicaly you can run in x16 or 2x8 mode (don't worry about the b/w change it makes no difference in the real world, hell on the P4 SLi board, one card had x4 and it was performing at hte same speed as a x16 one).

>I'm gonna have to forget about a monitor and use my current one for a bit

That way you can save up for a DVI-TFT as your next upgrade. At Novatech they are about £220 last time I checked.

>I've pretty set on the Geforce 6600 GT since it's fast and has SLi + PCI-E. There are other makes at the same price, so maybe someone can recommend one:

I'd suggest you choose one you think is likely to stick around if you want it as an upgrade path.

__________________

>Site Live<
Pop over to my site for help with setting up PSX emulators.
Help for the Final Fantasies and other RPGs avalaible
Celes: (Desktop) Phenom II X4, 4Gb DDR2, GeForce 8800 GTS 320Mb, 32Gb OCZ Vertex SSD, 500Gb RAID HDD, Windows 7 Home Premium
Erika: (MCPC) Revo3610, Windows 7 Home Premium
Kimiko: (Craptop) HP Mini 210