build me a pc

wingnut299

ok guys I need a PC built w/o monitor for €1000, would like an X800 Pro included that I can flash or overclock to an XT

Matt Simis

With a budget of EUR1000, half the price will be spent on gfx.. other components will have to suffer. Bear in mind shipping etc also.



Matt

Redrocket

presume you want a64? a gig of ram? raptor? dvdr?

jozi

Why not get a 9800pro and flash it to XT, the cheaper card will leave you with more money for the rest of your pc but you still have a good card. (I don't own one so i'm only telling you what i know about the card)

Jozi

Mutant_Fruit

Do you want someone to physically get the pieces and build it for you? I'd be willing to do that for ya if you do.

An X800 will cost about 450euro, so you're not going to be able to get good parts for the rest of the computer.

Here's a rough price guide..

X800: 450
HDD: 160gb 110euro
DVD-+RW: 80
CPU: AMD64 (3000+ i think) 220eur
Motherboard: 100eur
RAM: 1gb 200eur
Case: 60euro

Those are rough prices, and will definately take you overbudget.

BloodBath

If you want an x800 the rest of your system is going to suffer with a budget of 1000.

If you really wanted to get the x800 and stick to budget you would have to get a 2500 mobile xp or a P4 2.4a and overclock either. Both are under 100 euro but stick a good cooler on that and your looking at about 150. The 2.4a will go to at least 3.0-3.2, i've seen them at 3.6-3.8 with air cooling. I've seen the 2500 mobile at 2.6-2.7ghz with air cooling. The stock is 1.8 I think.

So far that's 550 euro.

A decent mobo will set you back near enough to 100 euro.

512mb of decent pc3200 ram will be about 100. A gig is really recomended. Windows xp alone uses about 200-250.

Case + psu will be about 50-60 for the cheaper ones. I recomend an antec sonata or something similar though for a quality case and psu for an extra 50 euro. You will need a decent psu for overclocking.

Dvd/cd burner combo about 50

160gb hd 110euro.


So with delivery that should be just inside your budget and would be a great performer but you should really stretch your budget to getting 1gb of ram.


If overclocking isn't your cup of tea you may drop the x800 and get an a64 or p4 system with a 9800 pro although if your willing to mod an x800pro to an xt then you should have no problems with basic overclocking.


BloodBath

duridian

I don't want to start up another Nvidia v. ATI war here but anyone thinking of buying an X800 Pro should have a look at this site:

http://www2.hardocp.com/article.html?art=NjQy

These are the official Doom3 benchmarks from Id Software. I make no further comment just have a look.

BloodBath

Doom 3 is open gl and nvidia cards have always performed better with open gl. You will see a similar performance difference in HL2 except in Ati's favour.

Most games however are direct 3d.

If I was buying though I would get a 6800gt over an x800 pro unless you were guarenteed to unlock the other 4 pipelines to make it an xt.



BloodBath

Töpher

Hmmmm... I've always run half-life in Open GL, don't see why I'd do differently in Half-life 2, unless there's a big difference in graphical quality?

duridian

Originally posted by BloodBath
Doom 3 is open gl and nvidia cards have always performed better with open gl. You will see a similar performance difference in HL2 except in Ati's favour.

Most games however are direct 3d.

If I was buying though I would get a 6800gt over an x800 pro unless you were guarenteed to unlock the other 4 pipelines to make it an xt.
BloodBath

:dunno: Somehow I think HL2 performance will make very little difference in this generation of graphics cards, it's almost become the 21st century equivalent of Duke Nukem Forever I reckon. I am also reminded of Daikatana. If it does make it out next year there will probably be newer and faster cards to judge it on by then.
Another thing is the fact that Id's graphic engines are almost always franchised out and adapted to lots of other games. Look at Quake 3 for example, RTCW, Medal of Honor games, JK2 Jedi Outcast, JK Jedi Academy and lots of others used it.

BloodBath

Hmmmm... I've always run half-life in Open GL, don't see why I'd do differently in Half-life 2, unless there's a big difference in graphical quality?

Yeah I think everyone runs it in open gl, myself included. I don't know if HL2 has an option for both though.

Somehow I think HL2 performance will make very little difference in this generation of graphics cards, it's almost become the 21st century equivalent of Duke Nukem Forever I reckon. I am also reminded of Daikatana. If it does make it out next year there will probably be newer and faster cards to judge it on by then.

HL2 will be out within a few months beleive it or not. The game is still one of the most graphically intense games due this year. Don't forget Ati are a partner of valve as well and from early testing the ati cards are supposed to perfrom better with it. We'll have to wait and see though.

Only far cry and doom3 are as good/better graphically. The pysics in HL2 are second to none though.

Doom3 has got great reviews and i'm sure it will be one of the best single player games of all time but it's multi-player is lacking and so far there are no mods on the horizon.

Another thing is the fact that Id's graphic engines are almost always franchised out and adapted to lots of other games. Look at Quake 3 for example, RTCW, Medal of Honor games, JK2 Jedi Outcast, JK Jedi Academy and lots of others used it.

You base this on Q3 alone. I'm sure the doom3 engine will be used by some titles as will the HL2 engine but Q4 is in development so who knows. The unreal3 engine is amazing as well so there are a lot of choices for developers.


Anyway apart from all the crap my main point is that I don't think anyone's decission in buying a card should be swayed by one game, even if it is doom3.

Back on topic, you can pick up the x800pro for 400 euro on jes. Whats the cheapest you can get a 6800gt? I would definately go for the 6800gt and it should be about the same price.


BloodBath

wingnut299

hey mutant if I get rid of this dell i will definitley give you a shout

duridian

Originally posted by BloodBath
You base this on Q3 alone.

Back on topic, you can pick up the x800pro for 400 euro on jes. Whats the cheapest you can get a 6800gt? I would definately go for the 6800gt and it should be about the same price.

No man, I take Q3 as a good example to illustrate my point. The same can be said of any major graphics engine developed by Id. To give further example; Q2 had lots of others such as Kingpin,Sin and Soldier of Fortune based on its engine. Even the original Halflife is based on a hybrid of Id's Q1 & Q2 engines. Likewise Q1 had Hexen II, Jedi Knight, Doom had Heretic, Hexen. Wolfenstein3D had Blake Stone, Rise of the Triad and so on. There are many more but there just the ones that come to mind quickest.

My point is that the trend will almost certainly continue and therefore the card that performs better with Doom3 will probably perform similarly in a great many other games thereby making it perhaps more appealing. HL2's engine may well be used in other games (if it ever really does arrive - I'll believe it when I see it) Will there be enough of them to justify going for the X800 though?

Asus V9999 GeForce 6800 256MB Gamer Ed. on Komplett is €482. This supposedly is a GT but has 400MHz core. It also has 2 molex connectors unlike other GTs. This I reckon is the most interesting of the GT cards. AFAIK it has 1000MHz ram. I would love to know how far it can be pushed.
http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?sku=301395&view=detailed

blobert

"HDD: 160gb 110euro"

Where I can I get one of these.

You can only get a 120gb one on elara.ie for this price.

Thanks

Töpher

Elara can be quite expensive, try Komplett (but watch shipping options :dunno:.), Overclockers.co.uk, and Jes-Computers.de

jesus_thats_gre

Originally posted by Einstürzende
Hmmmm... I've always run half-life in Open GL, don't see why I'd do differently in Half-life 2, unless there's a big difference in graphical quality?

Half Life 1 ran on a optimised version of the Quake 1 engine with elements of the Quake 2 engine bolted on. This engine was based on OpenGl thus you could run it in OpenGL mode..

Doom 3 is also based on OpenGL. The new GeForce graphics cards are very good at handling OpenGl code while ATI cards are not so good. This is basically because for the past two or so years, the majorrity of big releases have been DirectX (Direct3D) and ATI pretty much considered OpenGL a dead duck, thus didnt develop their drivers much for OpenGL.

Nvidea on the other hand kept developing and partnered with ID Software quite early on as the "official" graphics card partner for Doom3.. So its certainly obvious from this that OpenGL games should run better on the 6800 series and they do.. ATI are seemingly doing some development work to improve how OpenGL games perform on their graphics cards and hopefully this will evem things up again... I say hope as I have a 9800 Pro...

HL2, a Direct X 9 game, runs better on the highend ATI cards... The FX5900 series at all had major problems running HL2 because Nvidea implemented a part of the Direct X 9 spec differently that they should have. I am not sure if this has been improved for the new range of cards.. Also, ATI have partnered with Valve as the office graphics card partner for HL2 so its predicatable that it will run better on ATI based cards...

I think I got the above right

Pretty sure..

/I predict Nvidea pulling slightly ahead of ATI until the next generation of GPUs come about.. ATI have pretty much stuck with the similar architecture now since the 9700 and the X800 is just the same thing with some stuff bolted on (not so as simple as that).. The 6800 series seems to be a complete new design and some argue is technically more capable than ATI's now old, but still powerful spec.. ATI's next core (R500???) is supposedly a complete fresh start.

jesus_thats_gre

Originally posted by BloodBath

Somehow I think HL2 performance will make very little difference in this generation of graphics cards, it's almost become the 21st century equivalent of Duke Nukem Forever I reckon. I am also reminded of Daikatana. If it does make it out next year there will probably be newer and faster cards to judge it on by then.

You base this on Q3 alone. I'm sure the doom3 engine will be used by some titles as will the HL2 engine but Q4 is in development so who knows. The unreal3 engine is amazing as well so there are a lot of choices for developers.

While I agree you cant just assume that this technology will be licensed out, I would be very comfortable to put a few quid on the line and say this engine will be used by alot of games...

That is how ID have been doing it since they released the likes of Doom over 10 years ago. The Doom engine was used in many games (Heretic, Hexen....) as was the Quake 1,2 and 3 engines. John Carmack is seen in the industry as one of the best games engine makers in the world still and Doom 3 is certainly looking to be a very scalable and powerful engine...

The engine used in Doom 3 will be licensed out. Developers like ID probably make more money from licenses than they do from publishing games. The Unreal engine is the perfect example of someone else trying to get a slice of the pie. Valve are also doing the same with the HL2 engine. Note that the HL2 engine is also meant to be extremely scalable as well... Quake 4 will use the same engine as Doom 3. The engine itself has been in development for years now and it certainly seems to offer a massive amount of potential..

duridian

I agree, I reckon Nvidia will fare better in this generation of cards. Whatcha make of that Asus card I mentioned?

jesus_thats_gre

Originally posted by duridian
I agree, I reckon Nvidia will fare better in this generation of cards. Whatcha make of that Asus card I mentioned?

If it is the GT then certainly should be fine.. 2 molex's are a good sign that it may over good overclocking potential for me.. Nvidea specified before that one molex is only required for the card to run at stock but that if you want to over clock at all you will need to plug both Molex's in.. ITs pure speculation on my behalf but I think I am guessing on the money...

Mutant_Fruit

Originally posted by blobert
"HDD: 160gb 110euro"

Where I can I get one of these.

You can only get a 120gb one on elara.ie for this price.

Thanks

Sorry, i lied. The price isn't 160gb drive for 110 euro, its only €96.00

wingnut299

nybody interested in taking a dell off my hands

Mutant_Fruit

post the specs up in the "For Sale" section of boards.ie. You'll get the most looks there.

BloodBath

I wouldn't buy that Asus card. The usual overpriced Asus crap. You should be able to pick a gt up for about 400 euro.

You could get a x800xt for close to that price.

The 6800's only use a little more power than the x800's. They don't need two molex's for stock or for overclocking. I've seen a lot of the gt's being clocked to ultra speeds + they have the 16 pipes so they are definately a better buy than the x800 pro's but not for 480 euro. How much is Jes charging for them? I can't access their site.

While I agree you cant just assume that this technology will be licensed out, I would be very comfortable to put a few quid on the line and say this engine will be used by alot of games...

Aye I read an article somewhere that valve were licencing the engine out and there is another game under production using it. I'm sure the D3 engine will be used by a lot of games. It is graphically amazing but the pysics are not a touch on HL2. I'll reserve my judgement until I play full versions of both games though.

Hopefully ati pull the finger out and get cracking on their drivers to improve open gl performance. I have an ati card too. It performs the same as a 5950 on max detail without AA and AF though so i'm not too worried. With AA and AF on the fps drop too low anyway.


BloodBath