Need opinions!

red_fox

I'm in the market for a new pc and I was thinking of going with one from http://www.ankermann-pc.co.uk but I'm not sure if what I've selected is any good and if there's a few things I might to change, the set up I'm looking at is:

System: AMD Athlon 64 So. 939
Equipment:
- So.939 AMD X2 Athlon 64 4200+ Dual Core: £ 199.60
Edit: Removed - So.939 ASUS A8N-E nVidia nForce4 Ultra (PCI-e):
- Gigabyte So.939 K8NSC-939 nForce3 (AGP 8x): £ 10.2
- AGP8x 256MB ATI RADEON x700 TV-out & DVI: £ 65.00
- IDE 320 GB Western Digital (8MB cache-7200rpm): £ 64.24
- 256 MB PC3200 DDR RAM 400 MHz
- upgrade from 256MB to 1024MB SAMSUNG: £ 55.53
- 1024 MB SAMSUNG 400MHz DDR PC-3200: £ 75.17
- NEC ND-3550A 4xDVD-RW+- 16xDVD-R DualLayer: £ 20.84
- NEC ND-3550A 16xDVD-R 16xDVD+R 4xDVD-RW: £ 32.42
- Floppy Drive: £ 4.42
- Standard Case: £ 0
- Thermaltake TR2-M6 SE cooler
Edit: Changed for below - 350W BESTPOWER (standard): £ 0.00
- 420W LC-Power 420W ATX SATA 12cm L: £ 17.00
- 8 Channel AC 97 Audio Codec Sound on Board
- 10/100 MBit Network on Board = DSL ready

What do you think?

youcancallmeal

Looks like you have 2 motherboards in that selection?

red_fox

Just looked and there's seperate boxes for AGP 8x Motherboard and PCI-e Motherboard, what's the differance between them? What should I go for?

youcancallmeal

As long as its socket 939(for your CPU) then it depends on which graphics card your getting. From the list I see its an AGP card so you'll need the AGP motherboard which is the Gigabyte one.

Also Standard Case: £ 0 ???
Does one come free with this deal or what?

red_fox

There's a basic price which includes the case and power supply and you can get a different one for more.

Is my graphics card any good? I don't need anything great, just something decent!

BopNiblets

Standard PSUs are generally crapola, and 350W is a bit low, I'd say go 400W or higher, Akaska Paxpower or Antec or something like that.

red_fox

So removing the PCI-e motherboard, and changing the power supply for:
420W LC-Power 420W ATX SATA 12cm L: £ 17.00
Anything need fixing? I'm not sure I need that much RAM but it's good to have in reserve I think. I'm looking to get something to last me a few years.

It's coming to just over €1000 for just the system, I don't need moniter or that.

zilog_jones

If you're planning on keeping this PC a while and are hoping to upgrade it a bit in the future, you're probably better off going for a PCI-Express motherboard and graphics card. AGP and standard PCI are kinda on the way out.

Also, why do you have two of the same DVD burners - and why are they different prices? It'd be cheaper to get one burner and just a normal DVD-ROM drive if you really need the 2 disc drives.

red_fox

I think it'll be PCI-e so. And a different graphics card! I want two drives and was just thinking that for a little extra I could get a second burner, be good in case anything happened, although I might just rely on one burner and if something does happen then just replace it!

How does the €1050 or so that'll it cost sound?

Rollo Tamasi

red_fox wrote:

How does the €1050 or so that'll it cost sound?

It sounds the same in words as it does in numbers
€1050 = one thousand and fifty euros


what a stupid question :v:

red_fox

And yet you say that without speaking

Rollo Tamasi

the voices in my head heard me just fine.

riptide

Rollo Tamasi wrote:

the voices in my head heard me just fine.

Do the voices also have ears!

Stephen

Definately get the PCI-E motherboard and graphics card. The PCI-Express board has a more modern nforce 4 chipset than the AGP one with its nforce 3.
I wouldn't bother getting two dvd burners. What's the point? If by any chance one does die you can get a new one for a pittance anyway. I wouldn't bother with a floppy drive either.

SeanW

Good choice on the RAM: you may not see it as necessary now but in time, it will. Just wait till you buy some new flashy high powered game - then you'll notice the diffrence between 1024 and 512.

As for twin DVD burners - go for it. Only a recording drive can read R an RW discs, the same is true for both DVD and CD. Theres another bonus with twin DVDs, you can set the region code of one to Irish region 2, and set the other to 1, and use all the American DVDs you want if I'm not mistaken RPC protection is on a drive-by-drive basis. The final benefit of twin optical drives is that if you have a favourite game and are lazy, you can install the game, and leave the CD/DVD in the drive.

zilog_jones

That is incorrect about DVD-ROM drives - it is not just burners that can read recordable media. My Sony (re-branded Lite-On, really) DVD-ROM drive can read anything besides DVD-RAM (no surprises there) and dual-layer DVD+R. And I have an old NEC CD-ROM drive (from back when a CD burner would have set you back £250+) that can read CD-RWs no probs.

riptide

zilog_jones wrote:

That is incorrect about DVD-ROM drives - it is not just burners that can read recordable media. My Sony (re-branded Lite-On, really) DVD-ROM drive can read anything besides DVD-RAM (no surprises there) and dual-layer DVD+R. And I have an old NEC CD-ROM drive (from back when a CD burner would have set you back £250+) that can read CD-RWs no probs.

I thought so. Sean talking SHI';E!!

SeanW

Well, whenever I tried to use R ad RW media in ROM drives, almost without exception, it always failed or struggled. Perhaps some brands of drive work better than others?

red_fox

Hadn't thought of the region benifit of having two drives, good point! And since I'm going with two drives I'll make the second a burner too, it's not that much extra.

What's the differance between different motherboards (all PCI-E), what effect would a more expensive one have over a cheaper one, is it worth splashing out or should I be conservative?

zilog_jones

The motherboard's quite an important part of the PC. Getting a PCI-E motherboard would make it more "future-proof", i.e. it'll be easier to upgrade in the future as PCI and AGP products will eventually be phased out. Also, the nForce4 chipset used in your PCI-E choice above is newer than the nForce3 - I can't really find anything to say it performs much better than the nForce3 but there must be some other benefits to it than just PCI-E.

Basically the price of motherboards just relate to the amount of features they have - a top of the range PCI-E mobo would have SLI (which allows you to plug in 2 graphics cards and combine their processing power) and more overclocking/configuration features - you may not need nor want any of these extras though.

However, you don't want to get too cheap a motherboard - they might use cheap and unreliable components. Some of the cheaper manufacturers like PC Chips do not have the best of reputations. Gigabyte and Asus (like you mentioned above) are usually very good though.