Yet another "is this PC any good" thread

GiMiC

I know these threads a two a penny here, but I'm still interested in hearing you guys' opinions on the following setup I'm thinking of putting together. This particular list is one of the new PC builder things on the komplett site (the athlon 64 option, needless to say):

Chenbro GamingBox 350W Power Supply
MSI K8N NEO Platinum Edition S754 nForce3 250GB
AMD Athlon 3000+ 2.0 GHz Socket 754
2 x Crucial PC3200 DDR-DIMM 512Mb
Sapphire Radeon 9600XT Atlantis 128Mb AGP
Seagate Barracude 7200.7 200GB S-ATA
LG DVD-ROM 16x/48x
Creative SB Audigy 2 ZS, THX, 7.1
Samsung 19" CRT Syncmaster 957p

Comes to 1184 euro (I'll probably get a set of Logitech X-530 speakers from Elara as well).

My main questions are:
1) Which gfx card would be recommended for gaming? I'm not really prepared to buy one of the mad expensive ones (i.e. X800 or 6800), so which would be the next best thing?
2) According to the info I got on the Komplett forum here, the Athlon 64 comes with a heatsink and fan. Will they be good enough, or should I buy those seperately?
3) Any other advice on the components selected??

Thanks for any help,

G.

Khannie

I would try to get a socket 939 chip if you will be looking to upgrade at any time in the future. AFAIK, socket 754 is on its way out (if you're not going to want to upgrade the chip while keeping the same mobo, this isn't a problem at all).

On the graphics card front: I'd recommend a 9800 pro. I got mine on ebay and the fan was bogey (but I had an arctic cooler to slap on it), so you do run the risk of getting shafted by not being able to RMA it. Otherwise they're around the 200 euro mark.

Also, one noticeable absentee there is a burner.

GiMiC

I had heard the same thing about the 754 boards/chips alright, but I've yet to just upgrade a CPU on a PC I've had, so I don't think that'll bother me (especially since the 989 boards and chips don't seem to provide that vast a difference in performance yet). This is the same reason why I'm not going for a PCI-E board and gfx card, as it doesn't provide any immediate advantages.

I definitely need to do some more reading on the gfx cards. I kind of stopped following the industry when I bought my GeForce Ti4400 (over 2 years ago), but looks like I'll need to catch up. I'll be sure to look out for the 9800 one though.

With regards to the burner, I already have a NEC 2500a, so that'll do me nicely for another while yet.

Thanks for the tips.

davmigil

If I was building from scratch, I would wait a little longer until the dust settles on PCI-express and the AMD Athlon 64 PCI-express MoBos are widely available. I am going to buy an AGP card as I have too replace my current card (don't ask) and can't afford to upgrade rest of parts yet. It won't cost you much more, but does improve your upgrade path in the future. Prices of PCI-express to AGP GFX much same, sometimes in favour in PCI-express (as ATI and NVIDIA moving production to those and bridging etc to AGP, after all that is what they will be providing the OEM market). I know, sad but true, PCI-express will be forced on us all!

A 9600XT would have to be really cheap if I was to consider it (as in with the intension of changing MoBo away from AGP in future anyway). Otherwise 9800Pro if cheap, or 6600GT (hyped as the true successor to the GeForce 4 4200!). If PCI-express 6600GT or X700.

And on other bits: Audigy 2 lovely card (check creative refurbished store for cut price one sometimes)
Stock cooler should be fine unless you plan major overclocking