Building a new computer

jpogorman

Hi,

I was hoping I could get some advice about a computer I want to build. I've included my spec below and was hoping someone might have a look over to see if components are compatible, cost effective. I'm going for general purpose computer that can handle Microsoft Vista, multimedia applications etc. The graphics card is one thing I'm not sure about as I don't need it for games but want to be able to handle the increased graphics needs of Vista.

Any advice would be appreciated.
Thanks,
JP

Motherboard €157 - http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?sku=305190&cks=SPC
Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe, nForce4 SLI, Socket-939,S-ATA, Dual-GbLAN, Firewire, PCI-Ex16

Processor - €325 - http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?sku=311700&cks=ACC
AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ 2.0GHz Socket 939 1MB, BOXED w/fan

RAM €193 - http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?sku=309845&cks=ACC
Crucial PC3200 DDR-DIMM 2048MB CL3 KIT Kit w/two matched PC3200 CL3 DDRs

Case €129 - http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?sku=311799&cks=SPC
Antec Sonata II Miditower, Black w/450W PSU

Harddrive €108 - http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?sku=309535&cks=SPK
Western Digital Caviar SE16 250GB SATA2 16MB 7200RPM

DVD RW - €45 - http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?sku=314090&cks=SPK
NEC DVD±RW burner, ND-3550A, 16x, Dual, Black OEM

Graphics Card - €154 - http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?sku=315478
Sapphire Radeon X1600PRO 512MB DDRII, PCI-Express, Tv-Out, DVI-I, Lite-Retail

8T8

Everything looks fine though I have not had good experiences with Asus's A8N line of motherboards, I'm sure others have had nothing but clear sailing but personally speaking I would steer clear of them as they are quite buggy.

Not only that but the fan commonly fails on the chipset for those models, if you don't need SLI support then this Gigabyte or MSI board would do just fine.

The only requirements for the Aero Glass interface under Vista are that you have a minimum of:
DX9 SM 2.0 card (then one you picked is SM 3.0)
A VDDM driver (Vista Display Driver Model which ATI will provide when Vista launches)
Ideally 256MB of RAM on your graphics card otherwise the Aero Glass interface would be resolution bound to 1600x1200 or lower.

If you are never going to be playing games this €105 X1300 Pro with 256MB of RAM will do the job just fine.

srdb20

I like the ASUS board i have one myself, found it very stable and reliable!

And it has some room for future proofing.

Also i have to agree with the above, theres no point buying an SLI system and putting an ATI card into it... Your only paying for something your not going to use, have a look at some of the single card boards or a crossfire board.


SRDB20

mordeith

I bought the Gigabyte model mentioned above myself. I did not need SLI and there was a lot of reports about the chipset fan being (a) loud and (b) failing regularly on the ASUS model. It was my first build and the board layout was nice although I did have a bit of bother getting my Power, HD, etc LEDs to work properly. Mind you that was just a matter of playing around with the positioning of the connectors.

jpogorman

Thanks for the advice. I will look into the other options. Does anyone know what cableing might be required to connect everything together? I was going to order all the parts, see what cableing came with them and then order any additional ones in a seperate order. That ruins my 10 day cooling off period in case any part is not compatible for some reason. Any advice on this?

Khannie

Maybe I'm wrong here, but is SLI not nVidia only? If you're never going to use it, I'd go with a cheaper mobo tbh.

Looks like a fine machine overall. The CL3 is a bit high for the ram, but other than that it'll be a fine general purpose machine. As someone else said, if you're not going to be playing games, a cheaper card would be fine.

8T8

Most motherboards usually come with the cables to get a basic system up and running 1x SATA, IDE, floppy cable but the floppy cable isnt too common anymore.

The power supply comes with the case so no need for anything extra in that department.

If you wanted anything extra any of these will do.
SATA
IDE
Molex-SATA Power adaptor (this might be handy to have just to be on the safe side you'll more than likely get one with the HD anyway)

[Just to clarify SLI capable motherboards are not needed unless you have plans to make use of the second PCI-E x8 slot on them with something other than an NVIDIA graphics card & yes SLI only works with NVIDIA graphics cards, ATI's dual GPU version called Crossfire only works with their GPU's on selected ATI & Intel chipsets]

jpogorman

I'm not sure what CL3 refers to and why it is too high? Could you give a brief explanation Kannie or maybe a link to RAM you would recommend? Thanks.

uberpixie

jpogorman wrote:

I'm not sure what CL3 refers to and why it is too high? Could you give a brief explanation Kannie or maybe a link to RAM you would recommend? Thanks.

CL3 refers to the latency of the ram.

CL3 is a very high latency, CL2 would be the lowest latency in ram which means it is more responsive and more expensive :-)

CL3 is very slow, CL2.5 is a good bit faster than Cl3 (10% performance diff in applications)

The difference between CL2.5 and 2 would only generally be 2-3% for most things except video editing.

Have a look at
http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?sku=302138

Especially if you are going to be doing a lot of video editing.

Otherwise stick with the CL3 stuff.

Also depending on what applications you use:you might get away with half the ram you are looking to buy.

L31mr0d

I actually have 2 of those SATA Drives in a RAID0, very cheap for the performance, and silent, even at full load. I can hear them slightly in my machine due to it being a cheap aluminium case and suffers from vibrations.

You might consider, dropping down to a cheaper motherboard and graphics card and investing that money in a Raptor drive, you wouldn't need the instability of a RAID0 but you'd still benefit from the increased performance.

Could you update your H/W list with any new choices?

Stephen

I've an AN8 here too, and the only complaint i have about it is the awful onboard sound, which I have replaced with a soundblaster audigy 2 ZS, bought from Wizzard here on boards

astrofool

If you're worried about the northbridge fan, then you could go up to the premium which is 100% passively cooled

With regards SLI, I can see in the next year or so all motherboards with two x16 slots supporting SLI and xFire, the ULI patch which allows SLI support on their motherboards has already been adapted to allow other chipsets to use it, it's only going to be a matter of time now.

christophicus

CL3 isnt bad that is the standard for ddr 400

jpogorman

Hi,

Thanks for all the advice. I've attached the updated list. I've downgraded the mother board and graphics card and used the money to upgrade to faster RAM. I think I'll add another Harddrive in a year or so and maybe get a Raptor then. Don't know if I'd get value for money for it right now.

I have to do one further check before I buy to make sure they are all compatible (my big fear!).

Thanks,
JP

Motherboard €94 - http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?sku=307571
Gigabyte GA-K8NF-9, nForce4-4x,ATX, Socket-939, 4xSATA,GbLAN,Firew, PCI-Ex16

Graphics Card - €105 - http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?sku=318276
Club3D Radeon X1300Pro 256MB DDR2 PCI-Express, DUAL DVI-I, VIVO, Retail

RAM €246 - http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?sku=302138
Corsair TWINX2048-3200C2 DDR-DIMM 2048MB Kit w/two matched CMX1024-3200C2 DIMMs

Processor - €325 - http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?sku=311700&cks=ACC
AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ 2.0GHz Socket 939 1MB, BOXED w/fan

Case €129 - http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?sku=311799&cks=SPC
Antec Sonata II Miditower, Black w/450W PSU

Harddrive €108 - http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?sku=309535&cks=SPK
Western Digital Caviar SE16 250GB SATA2 16MB 7200RPM

DVD RW - €45 - http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?sku=314090&cks=SPK
NEC DVD±RW burner, ND-3550A, 16x, Dual, Black OEM

Khannie

looks pretty good to me for what you're after.

astrofool

downgraded the motherboard and gfx to get faster ram? You do know that cas latency makes a real world difference of 1-2% max? The difference between the X1300 and X1600 can be double if its a game, the more expensive motherboard has much more expansion potential, and Asus would generally be of greater quality than Gigabyte (not saying Gigabyte are bad, just Asus would be better).

In addition, DDR ram will be deprecated by the summer, so the ram couldn't even go into a newer system.

Actually, has anyone got any benchmarks which would back up Uberpixie's claim of 10% perf. difference? I haven't ever seen any myself that ever showed cas to have any real world effect (>5%).

8T8

He isn’t playing games with it according to his first post, just wants something guaranteed to run the Aero Glass interface under Vista which the X1300 is.

If you really wanted to save even a bit more cash this GF6500 with 256MB of RAM for €70 would also do but the X1300 has a bit more kick, plus it has some nicer video decoding features than the 6500 which will be easy to use with Vista as it has DXVA 2.0 which makes hardware acceleration of video much more easy to take advantage of without having to install third party decoders and special drivers etc.

uberpixie

astrofool wrote:

Actually, has anyone got any benchmarks which would back up Uberpixie's claim of 10% perf. difference? I haven't ever seen any myself that ever showed cas to have any real world effect (>5%).

I have seen 2 or 3 benches over the last 2 years, Tomshardware has one hidden somewhere and I am pretty sure CustomPC did a ram test a few months ago.

From any of the benchies as far as I remembered.

Cas3-->Cas 2.5 (10% diff)

Cas2.5-->Cas 2 (2-3% in general except high end video editing where it is
a wee bit higher)

http://www.tomshardware.com/2004/01/19/ups_and_downs/index.html

Would actually put the difference in cas more inline with astrofools figures.

Sorry for being incorrect, I was working from memory.

Personally I use cas 2.5.

If I had the choice between cas3 for 215euro and cas 2 for 233 euro corsair 2 gig kits off komplett I would get the cas 2.

As regards the motherboard, the only features the deluxe has over the gigabyte are 2 network ports vs 1 and 2 x16 pci express slots over 1 on the gigabyte board and it supports SATA 2.

Only really worth paying the 60euro for if they are going to be used.
(Having SATA 2 would be better than not having it though.)

The extra 18 euro for the cas 2 ram he prob will get more use out that extra 5% performance long term! :-)