To buy or not buy

GoneShootin

ROISH - my dad's mobo went graveside yesterday, and I have him temporarily running on my piece of crap laptop. He wants to buy my current system from me : p4 1.4 - 384MBRAM - 15Gb+20Gb HD's - onboard sound (modified DELL Dimenion 8100 in other words).

You may remember me on about upgrading before, and I finally stayed with waiting until 2006 'til longhorn was due. But **** it, I cant wait that long. I've got a terrible itch that needs scratching.

I was looking at something along the lines of:

P4 3.00GHz +HT - 800fsb - 1MB cach
1Gb RAM DDR2 400MHz
250Gb 72000 SATA HD
Suitable Mobo - PCI-E ???
Decent sound card (dont really require 5.1 and so on)
128MB PCI Express Radeon X300SE (should I go bigger on gfx card/ram ??)
DVD
CD-RW
Win XP HOME v PROFFESIONAL ???

Monitor/Keyboard/Mouse/Speakers already have.


What throws me into a wobbly is talk I hear about PCI-E2, and Prescott 2MB Cach, all in the not too distant future ? (early 2005). As with all things IT, as soon as its installed in your house its already out-of-date, but would it be a big mistake to buy all this, only for something new and shiny to be so close around the corner.

HELP!

Note the ???'s

Woden

not that up on the new tech like ddr2 and pci-e myself but i can tell you that that graphics card is not the way forward if you are anyway of a gamer.

minimum upgrade graphics card wise these days seems to be a 128mb radeon 9800 pro which will set you back about 200.

it would also be worth your while looking at the new X700 range of cards and the nvidia 6600 range depending on how much you have to spend.

with regards to system ram i'd recommend a gig of ram like you mentioned above

StRiKeR

i would jump into PCI-E just yet, too new and look at the results from many review, hope I'm wrong but all i've seen were not great, AGP 8x is still way ahead in the game!
thats why I have just bought myself a 775 3.4 on AGP board, cant wait for it to arrive!

BloodBath

Hey GS that card really is brutal. You should try and get something a wee bit better if your going to be playing much games. I'd recomend the standard 6800 which you should be able to pick up under 300e.

I presume your going socket 775. I wouldn't bother with ddr2 unless you were getting high speed ram, otherwise get a ddr1 mobo for the better timings.

Pci-e isn't even being put to use yet so I wouldn't worry about pci-e2. So go either agp or pci, it makes no difference atm apart from upgrade potential down the line or the possibility of using sli with nvidia cards.

If you get a good mobo you won't even need a sound-card. A lot of the onboard sound on top mobos is really good these days.

The 2mb cache prescotts will be out later this year but they will cost a fair bit. They are 3.73ghz with 1066mhz fsb so they will need a mobo capable of that at stock speeds and ddr2 533mhz at stock speeds. I'd expect a price tag of about 500e.

Xp home is fine. It has everything you need.

The Do stepping Prescott's are amazing overclockers. I don't know if that's your thing but you should consider it. With decent ram that 3.0 could and should go to at least 3.7-3.8ghz.


BloodBath

GoneShootin

After some research I have a first draft of me spec:

Intel Pentium 4 530 3.0 GHz Boxed Socket LGA775, 1MB cache
€185
http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?sku=301043&s=sc

Sapphire Radeon X600PRO 256MB DDR PCI Express, VIVO/DVI-I, Retail
€155
http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?sku=301232&s=sc

Q-Tec Midi tower ATX L-MD02, Black w/350W AMD/P4
€39
http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?sku=300693&s=sc

Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 160GB S-ATA 8MB cache 7200RPM
€104
http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?sku=117681&s=sc

Abit AG8-3rd Eye Mainboard for S775 I915P,SATA,ATX,GbLAN,Dual-DDR,PCI-Ex16
€146
http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?sku=301603&s=sc

TwinMOS PC3200 DDR-DIMM 1024MB Dual Pack Kit w/two matched PC3200 DDR DIMMs
€172
http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?sku=118498&s=sc

Plextor DVD recorder PX-712A IDE Retail Black, DVD+R/+RW and DVD-R/-RW
€110
http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?sku=300197&s=sc

Total (ex delivery) €911

comments?

OfflerCrocGod

GoneShootin wrote:

comments?

You want a better Gfx card I suggest a 6600GT.

BloodBath

Are you going to overclock it gs? If so your going to want pc4000 ram. You really should, it would only cost you about 50e extra and you could crank that processor up to 3.8ghz with ram over 500mhz and your system fsb over 1000. That will give you a very noticeable boost.

You really shouldn't skimp on the case and psu. Q-tec are brutal and you will have major problems with a q-tec 350w psu on that setup and forget about overclocking with it. There is no mention of case fans on the case either. Look for something from antec.

Seagate makes the quietest drives but they are also one of the worst performers. The best performing hd's are the western digitals. I think the samsungs are the best all round as they are almost as quiet as the seagates but perform almost as good as the wd.

The stock cooler is ok especially with the new D0 stepping but at least get a tube of artic silver 5 and use that instead of the crap compound you get with the stock heatsink.


BloodBath

Woden

i would also suggest a better graphics card, the aforementioned 6600GT or take a look at the 9800 pro's

similary a better case and psu is in order, i built a cheap rig for a friend around that case and its crap, absolutely crap its not the way forward. a lot of people like the antec sonata which is also black and comes with a decent antec psu.

with regards to the burner also, plextor are a very good make but somewhat overpriced imo and it doesn't mention that that drive does dual layer burning on komplett and its only a 12x drive. take a look at the 16x nec one that also comes in black and does dual layer at 4x available for only 80 blips.

data

GoneShootin

Bloodbath - I'm not out to overclock it. Want I want is a faster PC than my current one. I'm not a heavy gamer - and as such the 64megger I have has served me well

Thanks for the headsup on the case though. I checked out your problems with it and found other similar cock reviews. Can you point me in the direction of one of the cases you mentioned ? What wattage PSU should I looking at ?

I'll mull over the HD - but tbh Im trying to save money, so I might hedge my bets....

Dataisgod
Ty for the info on the DVD burner. I didnt cop the NEC one that you mentioned.

All
I'm a little confused about the extra dosh involved from the 9600 256MB to the 9800 256Mb. Is it really worth the 300+ euro just for the gfx card ? Surely your not saying that I should get the 9800 @ 128MB ? I assumed that more memory on the card was the key ?


Thanks again lads

_CreeD_

Are you planning on recording Video to your PC? If not don't spend the extra on a Vivo model card. I'd be inclined to get a faster card with lower memory tbh. The only game out at the moment that can really benefit from the 256mb over 128 is doom3 on higher settings. If you rcard doesn't have the raw horsepower to process the textures it won't matter how much ram you have onboard, whereas the areas where the amount of texture ram may become an issue in the future will most likely be configurable via the games control panel.

BloodBath

Well a lot of people are put off by overclocking. You should look into it. You would be surprised at what you can achieve with little risk.

Have a look at the antec sonnata. I think they have a cheaper one as well.

All hd's should cost around the same price. The samsungs and wester digitals should cost no more than the seagates.

Memory means **** all when it comes to graphics cards. The core is the most important factor. A 9800 has twice as many pipelines as the 9600 and performs a lot better than it despite having half the memory. The only purpose of the memory is to hold the textures. Only new games require 256mb of texture memory but it's no good if the core can't handle the calculations.

-edit- you beat my drunken state to it creed.

BloodBath

GoneShootin

Drunk and all as you were, you explained it well. Thanks also for the tip there CreeD.

Woden

you're graphics card choice will be quite limited on a pci-e board just judging from the samples here

http://www.komplett.ie/k/kl.asp?bn=10488

off that selection i'd be looking at the 128mb 6600GT for 286 which i think is quite expensive but the performance difference over the X600XT is huge though which would make it worth it