Building a new PC. Recommendations?

LoGiE

I'm planning to build a new rig at the end of the month and have quickly come up with the items below. My budget is roughly €1600 so if anyone can recommend any changes I'd like to hear them. I already have a monitor keyboard etc. It'll will be used for gaming Half-life 2, Doom3 , BF2 and anything else that comes along in the next few months.

Gainward GeForce 7800GTX 256MB 2xDVI PCI-Express,"U/3500PCX XP GS"ViVo,470MHz €580

Intel Pentium D 830 3.0GHz Socket LGA775, 2MB, EM64T, BOXED w/fan
€350

Gigabyte GA-8N SLI Pro,nVidia,Socket-775 ,ATX, SATAII, GbLAN, DDR2, 2XPCI-Ex16 €143

TwinMOS DDR2 PC4300 1024MB CL4 64M*8/16chip, 533MHz, 240pin
x 2 €198

Western Digital Caviar 250GB SATA2 16MB 7200RPM
€138

Antec P160 Miditower, Silver (Without PSU)
€109

Antec NEO480GB 480-Watt PSU
€139

Cheers for any recommendations

LoGiE

Ciaran500

You should go for a AMD processor if you are building a gaming machine.

Malafus

Get an AMD processor - Possibly Dual-Core, if you are willing to spend the extra cash. This necessitates the purchase of DDR RAM, as opposed to DDR2. However, DDR RAM is cheaper(or maybe not...), so get 2x1GB sticks. [Edit]Ah, you appear to have been going to buy 2 sticks of RAM anyway. Beh, need to learn to read slower[/Edit]
Buy Samsung HDDs instead of WD, quieter, better seek times, only €127 on Komplett for a 250GB model.

K.O.Kiki

Seconded, the Samsung Spinpoint 120S is the one to get; it's got a higher disc density than the WD's (which are basically updated but elderly technology).
Processor: AMD64 3800+ Venice is within your budget; should overclock nicely with a decent cooler attached (tho I know of none yet, knowledge best left to others).

Wow, you're spending 200 on RAM & 145 on mobo??
At those prices, you'd probably be better off getting a DFI-Lanparty mobo & OCZ memory for speed (and OC-ing!! )

As for the graphics card, the 7800GTX is tops, but you should look out for cards by XFX or EVGA--they have better reputation for speed :cool:

Case & PSU look ok

Khannie

3rd the samsungs. The 250GB ones are apparantly fantastic. I have a single 200GB one. It gets 60MB sustained, 140 burst (just as a reference point for you).

Also 3rd an AMD processor. With a graphics card like that you're going to need all the processing power you can get your hands on to actually make use of it properly. For 350 you can have a 3800+ or thereabouts (I think I paid 290 for my 3700+). Also 2nd the xfx cards. I think the xfx is actually cheaper than the gainward for the 7800GTX. You might want to google reviews to see if there's any difference.

DemonOfTheFall

That CPU is a total mismatch for the graphics card. You absolutely need a Athlong 64 3500+ or faster to get anything near the potential of it. A 3800+ would be preferable. Or you could risk buying a 3000+ and overclocking it up to a 4000+. My mate got a 3000+ and withing 5 minutes I had it running at 2.75ghz (Nearly an FX-57). That was with a zalman 7700 cooler and very little tweaking.

If you get that 2x 3.0ghz Pentium your rig is not going to be fast.

Praetorian

You should definitely go for an athlon 64, but it might be worth your while picking up a cheap (but fast) 3500+ and overclocking it. My own easily does 2400 mhz with stock cooling. With a decent copper cooler I'd expect 2500 mhz. I'm talking about prime for hours stability. The dual cores are too expensive at the moment, but you could pop one into the pc when they fall in price.

Stay away from intel. They can't compete right now.

The western digital hard drives may not be quite as advanced as the other drives now, but I'm positive they are more reliable technology. I've had a western digital raptor and 2 250 gig (older model) western digitals for ages now. They are more reliable than samsung / maxtor / hitachi / fujitsu.

You are spending a lot of money on the gpu, it may be worth waiting for the ATI R520 (Codename). I'd expect it to be 20% faster than the 7800gtx for the same price.

Did we mention stay away from Intel?

LoGiE

How about replacing the mobo and cpu with the following?

AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ 2.0GHz Socket 939 1MB, BOXED w/fan
€390

Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe, nForce4 SLI, Socket -939,S-ATA,Dual-GbLAN,Firewire,PCI-Exp €155

By moving to AMD I know that means no DDR2 is this a big issue? What about SATA2?

uberpixie

LoGiE wrote:

How about replacing the mobo and cpu with the following?

AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ 2.0GHz Socket 939 1MB, BOXED w/fan
€390

Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe, nForce4 SLI, Socket -939,S-ATA,Dual-GbLAN,Firewire,PCI-Exp €155

By moving to AMD I know that means no DDR2 is this a big issue? What about SATA2?

Lack of ddr2 is not an issue. currently no performance diff between ddr2 and 2. That will of course change when bus speeds get ramped up and newier chipsets come out a take advantage of ddr2 properly.

But for the moment ddr2 is no great shakes.

Also have a look out for a 7800GT. Offers much of the performance of the GTX, can over clock to a GTX if you wish and is a good €100 plus cheaper.
Well worth a look imho.

Honestly don't know about sata 2.

HungryJoey

Well no the 7800GTX and GT are different, completly. You cannot just over clock it to match a GTX, The 7800GT has 20pipeline's, the 7800GTX has 24Pipeline's and highclock speeds.

And that 3800+ Dualcore system would be pretty damn sweet.

Hj

K.O.Kiki

HungryJoey wrote:

Well no the 7800GTX and GT are different, completly. You cannot just over clock it to match a GTX, The 7800GT has 20pipeline's, the 7800GTX has 24Pipeline's and highclock speeds.

Oh yeah!?

A quick browse through Komplett.ie:

• Choice 1:Athlon64 4000+ €395 & XFX 7800GT €455
  OR
• Choice 2: X2 3800+ €345 & XFX 7800GTX €552
• MoBo: MSI K8N-SLI Platinum €144 (couldn't find much else!)
• HDD: Samsung Spinpoint 120S SATAII €127
• Case: Antec P160 Miditower, Silver (Without PSU) €109
• PSU: Antec NEO480GB 480-Watt PSU €139

The only thing I can't help you with is RAM, but that leaves you with around €200 to spend.

WizZard

If I had that budget for a gaming system I could buy this
and the "1Gb kit DDR PC-3200 Level1 Dual Channel - Mushkin (€144)" from Shop4Memory.com which comes to a grand total of €1,599

And it will be a very good gaming PC too. I'd also overclock both the graphics card and the processor

<edit>Oops. Didn't notice the 2GB spec'd. If you really want 2GB RAM get the "2Gb kit Low Latency PC3200 Dual Channel - Patriot " kit from shop4memory. It seems to be the best price/timings combination.</edit>