Finally building my Rig = Advice needed

The Gnome

So Komplett don't take bankdrafts and my whole self build is thrown into confusion and panic. Luckily Elara also have what I need. Therefore without further ado I present my components.

Case: ANTEC - Plus View II EU/SOHO File Server MiniTower
PSU: Q-TEC BIG FAN PSU 500W BLACK LOW NOISE
Mobo: A8N32-SLI DELUXE
CPU: Athlon 64 X2 4200+/
RAM: KINGSTON - Memory/2GB Kit 400MHz DDR PC3200 DIMM
GFX: GeForce6600GT/PCI-E 256MB
HD: SEAGATE - Barracuda 7200.10 Hard Disk Drive 250GB SATA II
DVD: LG Electronics DVD¦RW Dual Layer
LCD: BENQ 19' LCD Silver 8ms+DVI

I have a budget of 1600 and I'd like to keep everything from Elara to save hassle. I already have keyboard, mouse and speakers.

It'll mostly be used for gaming, 3d modelling and rendering.

Thanks in advance

Psycopat

this would work better

http://komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?sku=318798

mac_leinn

OP, just a couple of things for you to consider...

Amd also have a new socket with ddr2 support so that expensive new mobo you're getting will be obsolete soon (obsolete is a strong word, its still a great board but it just wont have the same upgrade path as the new am2)

Intel are releasing conroe next month (23rd July iirc).
Now, you may not be interested in conroe but amd have announced that they will be dropping the prices of their 1mb cache cpu's (like the one you're getting) by up to 40%. And you can use the money for somehthing else (like a more expensive gpu )

Now is really a bad time to be building a pc. Im in the same boat, I got the funds but dont want to buy now and regret not having waited for conroe or amd retalitory price drops.

Oh I almost forgot... you wanted advice about your parts.
Stay away from q-tec psu's. Antec would be better if you have to buy from elara.

PogMoThoin

Ya gfx card gonna b a bit of a let down. go for this if ya can stretch your budget:
http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?sku=318628
That 6600 is outdating quickly

The Gnome

PogMoThoin wrote:

That 6600 is outdating quickly

Psycopat wrote:

this would work better
http://komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?sku=318798

Agreed, might aswell go for a better card.

mac_leinn wrote:

Amd also have a new socket with ddr2 support so that expensive new mobo you're getting will be obsolete soon (obsolete is a strong word, its still a great board but it just wont have the same upgrade path as the new am2)

Yeah, no more 939 I think I'll stick with em for now though as the new socket will probably be pricey.

mac_leinn wrote:

Intel are releasing conroe next month (23rd July iirc).
Now, you may not be interested in conroe but amd have announced that they will be dropping the prices of their 1mb cache cpu's (like the one you're getting) by up to 40%. And you can use the money for somehthing else (like a more expensive gpu )

Sounds like a good plan, I might hold out for this so or perhaps upgrade later...hmmm.

mac_leinn wrote:

Now is really a bad time to be building a pc. Im in the same boat, I got the funds but dont want to buy now and regret not having waited for conroe or amd retalitory price drops.

I know, it's always something! Seem the Universe objects to me having a PC at all. But my laptop fried about a month ago so I'm itching to get this build together ASAP.

mac_leinn wrote:

Stay away from q-tec psu's.

Noted!

Well thats for the help so far, looking forward to hearing more:)

PogMoThoin

Dell & Hp are goin to snap up all the conroes available when they are 1st released. prob gonna be oct b4 ya get your hands on them. be overpriced at start 2. all bad news. buy a new fone or Psp 2 keep your fingers busy.

Dancing_Priest

Regarding Qtec psu's, Ive been running an overclocked rig on one solidly for nigh on 3 years now, a dual fan 450 watt, it keeps up with 4 hard drives, 2 optical drives an oc'd 9500, an 1800 dut3c@ 3200, tv card, and wlan without any noticing any bother of any sort, never checked the rails though. However that said, I have heard many bad stories about them, So i may well be the exception to the rule.

mac_leinn

The Gnome wrote:

Yeah, no more 939 I think I'll stick with em for now though as the new socket will probably be pricey.

Heres an article about when amd is going to kill off socket 939 and 754: Link

And another one about the price drop: Link

TBH, Im sorry I used the word obsolete now (I didnt want to put you off ). If I was you and I built that system, in 12 to 24 months time I'd throw in an fx60, maybe a couple of dx10 cards in sli plus windows vista. Mybe even a WD raptor and a PhysX Card and that would be a pretty sweet upgrade for a supposedly obsolete system. And it would probably still be able to play any games released at that time.

The Gnome wrote:

I know, it's always something! Seem the Universe objects to me having a PC at all. But my laptop fried about a month ago so I'm itching to get this build together ASAP.

I know Im just itching to build a system. I feel like im going to explode :mad:

L31mr0d

Dancing_Priest wrote:

Regarding Qtec psu's, Ive been running an overclocked rig on one solidly for nigh on 3 years now, a dual fan 450 watt, it keeps up with 4 hard drives, 2 optical drives an oc'd 9500, an 1800 dut3c@ 3200, tv card, and wlan without any noticing any bother of any sort, never checked the rails though. However that said, I have heard many bad stories about them, So i may well be the exception to the rule.

Had the 400w model by Qtec, it couldn't power my PCI-E 6800 Ultra and SATA2, RAID 0 setup. It actually fried the 6800 Ultra I was getting artifacts all over the shop, I RMA'd it and the GFX card for an 400w Enermax thanks to some advice on the boards.

Stay away from Q-Tec, just read around any online review, they do not make stable PSUs and are horribly inefficient.

When can we expect the prices to be dropping on the dual cores and 939's? Is there any date yet when the Conroe and the AMD2 will effect the prices?

B00MSTICK

Got my rig from overclockers.co.uk for under 1600. Although I did get the RAM and case off boards I didnt get an LCD either but the prices of my components would have went down since then so something comparable to mine is what you should look for.

Alternatively get a Conroe ready mobo ( most 965 chipsets are) a Pentium D805 for now, and a Conroe when you can.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/Online_Catalogue_Asus_177.html

One of those maybe? You could put a preorder in for the Conroe there too.

^whitey^

For the love of GOD stay away from Q-Tec PSU's ... that's speaking from personal experience.

conzy

Q-tec:eek:



Get a 400watt enermax liberty, rock solid PSU and priced nicely too:)

I would get the X2 3800 instead of the X2 4200 and use the money you save to buy a 7600gt or a X1900GT if you can afford one.......

I would wait till conroe come out, but not to buy a conroe.......

They are fairly pricey as you can see on Overclockers and there will be a very limited supply.......

The AMD price drop will be here when Conroe hits, so you could get a X2 3800 for maybe €160 and get a much nicer GFX card......

And that Kingston ram is crap and overpriced..........

Why not go AM2 if you are going to wait?

4Xcut

The Gnome wrote:

PSU: Q-TEC BIG FAN PSU 500W BLACK LOW NOISE

For the love of all that is good and holy in the world avoid qtec like a plague covered leporacy infected .....really bad thing

Dooom

Yeah seriously, if you don't want your PSU to blow up and take a few components with it, invest in a decent one. For god's sake don't get a Q-Tec..

DemonOfTheFall

I can also chime in to exploding Qtecs.

The Gnome

Hmmm, my spidey sense is tingling.... warning me about Qtec.... Alright no Qtec.

I'm thinking I'll give conroe a miss because I'm just too damn impatient though I might upgrade the cpu depending on the price when they do come out. What's the difference between the X2 3800 and the X2 4200?

iggyman

the new am2 processors aint that pricey from looking at them on komplett..what makes these new am2 chips better?

^whitey^

Consider the ANtec Sonata II on komplett good price and has a quality PSU if you don't go SLI it should be fine. http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?sku=311799

The Gnome

^whitey^ wrote:

Consider the ANtec Sonata II on komplett good price and has a quality PSU if you don't go SLI it should be fine.]

Yeah Komplett has some nice stuff alas I have no credit card so I'm stuck buying from elsewhere.

SouperComputer

The Gnome wrote:

Yeah Komplett has some nice stuff alas I have no credit card so I'm stuck buying from elsewhere.

what about www.jes-computer.de

Great prices and a good range.

The Gnome

SouperComputer wrote:

what about www.jes-computer.de

Great prices and a good range.

Nicht schlecht aber kann ich ändere die Sprache zu Englisch? Mein technischer Deutsch ist nicht so fließend, wie sie sein könnte.

SouperComputer

The Gnome wrote:

Nicht schlecht aber kann ich ändere die Sprache zu Englisch? Mein technischer Deutsch ist nicht so fließend, wie sie sein könnte.

Wha?

The Gnome

The Gnome wrote:

Nicht schlecht aber kann ich ändere die Sprache zu Englisch? Mein technischer Deutsch ist nicht so fließend, wie sie sein könnte.

=

The Gnome wrote:

Not bad but can I chnage the language to English? My technical german isn't as fluent as it could be.

conzy

lol:D

The difference between the X2 3800 and X2 4200 is 200mhz, which isnt worth €70........

And even the most moddest OCing components will get you 200mhz extra......

The Gnome

conzymaher wrote:

lol:D

The difference between the X2 3800 and X2 4200 is 200mhz, which isnt worth €70........

And even the most moddest OCing components will get you 200mhz extra......

Yeah, but how much extra could I squeeze out of an OC'd 4200?

SouperComputer

The Gnome wrote:

Not bad but can I chnage the language to English? My technical german isn't as fluent as it could be.

I dont speak German, but ive still dealt with them. If all else fails you can use Google to translate.

The Gnome

SouperComputer wrote:

I dont speak German, but ive still dealt with them. If all else fails you can use Google to translate.

Cool, I'll have a browse and see what I can find thanks.:D

jesus_thats_gre

conroe conroe conroe

iggyman

ye just search for babelfish in google thats a good translater

The Gnome

Well for the moment sticking with Elara and taking note of some of the advice, here's my revised specs.

Case: ANTEC - Plus View II EU/SOHO File Server MiniTower
PSU: Antec 450w
Mobo: A8N32-SLI DELUXE
CPU: Athlon X2 3800
RAM: KINGSTON - Memory/2GB Kit 400MHz DDR PC3200 DIMM
GFX: GeForce 7900GT
HD: SEAGATE - Barracuda 7200.10 Hard Disk Drive 250GB SATA II
DVD: LG Electronics DVD¦RW Dual Layer
LCD: BENQ 19' LCD Silver 8ms+DVI

Should I be going for AM2 or 939?

iggyman

nice list not sure bout processor but apart from that looking good..your gfx card links to a 7900gt not a 7800gt as it says in the link title..

conzy

The ram is very expensive for a generic 2gig kit

You can get much better ram on Komplett/Ocuk for the same price

Ocuk also have a BFG 7900gt for €289.

I think you can pay OCUK with a cheque or a bank transfer.

I would be more enclined to go AM2 and wait a few weeks.....

jesus_thats_gre

The Gnome wrote:

CPU: Athlon X2 3800


Should I be going for AM2 or 939?

There is no point in not going AM2. But you really should consider Intel's new platform. The E6600 is only slightly more expensive than that 3800 and would give it a fair drubbing!

conzy

Its €60 more expensive than a X2 3800 ( now ) and they will be unavailable, so that price will rise and at the same time the X2 3800 price will fall and will give him the option of going K8L in the future.......

The 6600 is faster, but a X2 3800 is still an amazing CPU:)

quarryman

Ot but did elara not go into liquidation a while back?

jesus_thats_gre

conzymaher wrote:

The 6600 is faster, but a X2 3800 is still an amazing CPU:)

Yes but the man has a budget. If he is a grand to spend and can buy the Core 2 Duo processor without making any major sacrifices he should be advised to do so. There is no doubting thr X2 3800 is an excellent processor but the Core 2 Duo E6600, going by early indications anyway, is considerably better.

So to sum up. You can wait a month and get a better processor for about 15% more than todays prices on the 3800X2 or you will be able to buy the 3800X2 in months time for about 20% less than todays price.

Also, I seriously doubt there will be major shortages. Intel have the largest manufacturing capacity of any semi conductor company in the world. The whole shortage craic is just hype IMO to drive sales and pre-orders.

DemonOfTheFall

I'd say that the Core2Duo chips will be like golddust for the first couple of months. Intel don't have that many fabs dedicated to them yet as far as I know. That and the OEMs will be eating them all up

jesus_thats_gre

Intel today guaranteed that OEMs will not have priority over web stores..

DemonOfTheFall

I saw a post by Overclockers.co.uk 's head purchasing guy where he was saying how supply is limited enough...

The Gnome

Well just back from holidays and I've finally been paid so Phase 1 has begun. It hasn't gone exactly to plan but I'm happy. I've avoided the Q-tec and pulled back to a 3800. Case + Mobo are also different.

So far I have the following:

Case: Thermaltake Soprano (Black not silver)
PSU: OCZ 520w
Mobo: DFI Lanparty nF4 SLI-DR
CPU: Athlon 64 X2 3800+

So any comments or recommendations? Will be going for RAM, HD, DVD RW, Floppy and Keyboard.

Advice so far much appreciated guys.

awhir

all good

The Gnome

Peter Griffin: Sweeeet.