another thread asking yeer oppinion of a rig!

knifey_spoonie

well all , Im building a budget system for games, what do ye think of these specs? and one more question before you all humble my buying choices , whats the deal with these lite radeon 9800 pros? are they still going around , am I right in thinking that the cache is what is crippled, and is the powercolour that Ive chosen one of those crippled ones?
I chose the cpu and motherboard because I love the stepping on the dut3c series of chips , they are little animals!

Well Here goes:


123050 AMD Athlon XP2000+ 1.67 GHz
- Socket A 266MHz, Thorton, OEM
€58

118267 Abit NF7 V2.0 Mainboard for Socket A DDR
- nForce2SPP/MCP/Ultra 400,ATX,USB2.0,LAN
€65

119402 Spire WhisperRock IV CPU-Cooler
- Socket A, Up to XP3200+
€9.99

117212 Corsair Value S. PC3200 DDR-DIMM 512MB
- Unbuffered, Non-parity, 64Megx64, CL2.5
€95

116436 Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 80GB
- IDE ATA/100 2MB cache 7200RPM
€62.9

121052 Sony DVD Drive 16x/40x IDE Black OEM
€31

120304 PowerColor Radeon 9800 PRO 128MB DDR
- AGP, ATI 9800PRO, DVI-I, TV-Out, Retail
€218.01

300693 Q-Tec Midi tower ATX L-MD02, Black
- w/350W AMD/P4
€ 39

What do ye think of that combination for €598.90?

Zakalwe

The "lite-retail" means it comes without any bundled games. Sapphire is a superior make to Powercolor. Get the Sapphire card. It's not crippled in any way.

Q-Tec make crap powersupplys. Try get a better case, preferably one without a Q-Tec or Codegen PSU.

Deadwing

Dont bother with the amd 2000+. Sure, its not necessarily a bad cpu by any stretch of the imagination, i had one myself and it served me perfectly fine, but for an extra 30-40 euro you could get yourself a 2400+, or if your mobo supports it, a 2600+. Youll be happy you did when you try playing far cry, trust me.

knifey_spoonie

Yeah , I've been thinking about that qtec psu ,but I have one 450w qtec powering my system with 2 neons, 7-9 fans ,2 optical drives 4 hard drives and heavily overclocked ram cpu and gpu and never any problems, but it sounds that my case is really the exception to the rule

as for the cpu the stepping on the dut3c series will allow an exceptional overclock, I run a 1800 dut3c at a speed of 200fsb x11 getting 2200 mhz on 1.725 volts with 400mhz ram which is well beyond the performance range of a bog stardard 2400 or 2600 especially when you consider their propensity to run at 400 mhz fsb, or over compared to the stardard 333mhz fsb and locked multiplier of your garden 2400 or 2600 ,I reckon that a 2000+ dut3c would be good for a fsb of 210 or 220 with the right voltage.
Thanks for the heads up on the saphire, I have a modded 9500 saphire that takes any abuse I give it, so i guess I'll stick with what I know.

Cheers for any advice at all, Ive been out of the hardware loop for a while now and am just building this system for the little brother who is on a really tight budget

BloodBath

The "lite-retail" means it comes without any bundled games. Sapphire is a superior make to Powercolor. Get the Sapphire card. It's not crippled in any way.

Q-Tec make crap powersupplys. Try get a better case, preferably one without a Q-Tec or Codegen PSU.

Sapphire make Powercolor cards so there isn't a whole lot of difference. I would go for Sapphire over Powercolor though.

I don't normally recomend q-tec psu's either but they are ok for a budget system.

Everything else looks fine except the processor. I have a 2000+xp and they are not great for overclocking.

For an extra 30 euro you can get the 2400 mobile xp. It only outputs 45watts of heat so they are great for overclocking + the multis are unlocked. Jes-computer.de have them for 85 euro. At stock they are 1.8ghz and in most cases will go to 2.4-2.7ghz depending on the cooling. You will be guarenteed to reach 200mhz fsb to max your RAM out anyway.



BloodBath

Zakalwe

Originally posted by BloodBath
Sapphire make Powercolor cards so there isn't a whole lot of difference. I would go for Sapphire over Powercolor though.

A thread on another forum I read regarding Powercolor vs Sapphire was packed with Powercolor users complining of having to RMA cards. Not one Sapphire user complained.

Perhaps they ship them their ****ty cards

knifey_spoonie

I think We'll stick with the 2000 CPU ,I have a 1800 of the same line which clocks at 3200 speeds and cost me 47 euro ex vat 18 months ago. The Dut3cs are legendry overclockers , something about them being downgraded 3200's.
I'd love a mobile cpu but to my knowledge the nforce2 chipsets don't support the mobile processors. and tbh as it is he is allready over budget, but i just couldnt let him go and buy a feckin 9800se!

BloodBath

They are compatable but anyway if he's over budget then fair enough.

Good luck on getting that 2000 to 3200 speeds.


BloodBath

duridian

Just something I wanted to point out about the Spire Whisperrock IV cooler. I spotted on another thread where David Clayton says it isn't so good:

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&threadid=176626

He's using it with a 2500+, unsure if that's stock speed or not but he could tell you more himself.
Just thought I'd mention it since you are talking of o/clocking the 2000+.

OfflerCrocGod

Originally posted by duridian
Just something I wanted to point out about the Spire Whisperrock IV cooler. I spotted on another thread where David Clayton says it isn't so good

One of my rigs here at home has it - it cools a 2500+ OCed to a 3200+ BUT there is some good case cooling AND it's quite noisy for a "whisperquiet". Under normal circumstances I would never buy such a patently crappy cooler but the system had to be built for less then €500:(. knife_fighter spend more money and get a better Cooler a good PSU and a good Case trust me when I say these components are important - you don't want to find yourself down the line buying another PSU/HS+Fan etc... or getting annoyed at the less then stellar performance. Also if you're sticking with a monitor you already have I hope it's a good one - as with that Gfx card you are getting could easily play games at 1600x1200 and have you desktop at that res; it's a pleasure to browse at that res