Changes Recommendations New Kit

Mac daddy

Its getting close to that time of the Year again to Build a new kit

What would you guys change about the below or any other recommendations.

I was thinking of holding out for another month/ month and a half on the GFX card - what to get the new 520 core ati sli's when they come out.

Couple of questions the memory anybody any exprience with it, i normaly go with OCZ thought lets go for Corsair for a change

The Dual Core Cpu has anyone got one if yes what do you think of it ?

The Motherboard i have always had Asus boards not complaints what so ever,

Also need to get a TFT

MY budget is €2000 Max €2400

Western Digital Raptor 36.7GB WD360GD 10,000RPM SATA 8MB Cache - OEM
Price: €114.00

AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ 2.0GHz Socket 939 1MB, BOXED w/fan
Your price: €390.00

Asus A8N-SLI Premium, nForce4 SLI,Socket -939, Super Cooling pipe,PCI-Ex16
Your price: €189.00

Corsair TWINX Xpert 3200XL DDR 1024MB Kit w/two matched 2x512MB PC3200 2-2-2-5 €251.99

Sapphire Radeon X850XT PE 256MB GDDR3 PCI-Express,ViVO,Dual DVI-I, Full-Retail €460.01

Western Digital Caviar 400GB SATA 16MB 7200RPM
€265.00

Antec Performance One P180 Miditower, Aluminum Silver (Without PSU)
€147.00

Antec NEO480GB 480-Watt PSU
€139.00

Samsung 17" LCD Syncmaster 730BF TCO-99 Monitor, DVI-D, D-sub, 4ms
€310.99

WizZard

Nice, PSU might be a bit underpowered for that system though.

Would you not wait for a month and see what Crossfire brings to the table, even if it's just price decreases?

Ciaran500

Get the 7800GTX for €30 more.

I don't think the Raptors are really worth it any more with some of the new 16mb drives only being slightly slower but much bigger for the same price.

EDIT: I thought they put back the release of Crossfire again.

WizZard

Crossfire will appear before the end of September for the current cores, and the new R5xx series will be launched in October. IIRC.

po0k

Hang on to the raptor as a boot drive (use nLiteOS to customise windows), replace that 400gig WD with 2x Samsung P2504Cs, raid0 them if you like for more than twice the storage, twice the performance if using raid0 and half the noise for a fiver less.

Change the mobo for a DFI LanParty NF4 SLI.

Get some good BH-5 or TCD/TCC5 based ram in whatever clockspeed you desire.

As Ciaran50-0 says, get the 7800GT/GTX or wait for the ATI R520s at the end of the month.

WizZard

SyxPak wrote:

Change the mobo for a DFI LanParty NF4 SLI.

This is the only thing I'd query. It's a great board, but with the ASUS you'd get a good overclock but without as much hassle of messing aorund trying to get settigns that work.

I would recommend the DFI, but only if you're someone who doesn't mind spending hours tweaking settings (there are lots!) to get the best overclock out of your hardware.
While it is possible to plug and play with the DFI, it often takes hours, even days, of setting up before you have a stable, fast system.

You could get a similar OC with the ASUS, maybe ~10% less than the DFI, but with less hassle.
Just something to think about.

Since I've bought my DFI, I am on my 3rd set of RAM and 3rd CPU (tonight - yay!) and have gone through the clear, install, boot, tweak, test, tweak, test,... etc routine each time.
Here's a quote explaining better from Angry_Games on www.dfi-street.com

Angry_Games wrote:

You want to overclock? You had better be prepared with the right hardware, and even more, the right frame of mind. Overclocking is not just popping a rig together and cranking out 2750Mhz instantly.

Overclocking is a process that takes me (AG) anywhere from 3 days to 10 days to complete and verify that it is right and stable. I reboot my overclocking rigs about 500 times during this phase because I have a single (or multiple) setting(s) wrong and it has to be changed.

The worst part is when you finally get about 3-4 hours Prime95 stable, and then it fails...and you have to go back again and again and fiddle with one setting that you THINK might or might not be the cause of the problem, and then wait 3-4 seconds to find out it isn't Prime stable, or wait another 3-4 hours to find out that it is or is not.

K.O.Kiki

Well screw that for a game of soldiers.

I may no be above learning multiple characters in fighters, or getting 100% completions in RPG's/racers/anything , but rebooting your PC 500 times!! :eek: No way, hosé.

BTW, are there any good non-SLI nForce4 boards around?

To help: I got nothing; sorry. Still waiting to see if I need XP/Linux/Mac for college course.

<edit> screw the non-SLI's; here's an amazing board: Jetway 939GT4-SLI

po0k

WizZard - point taken, but why's posting on the Tweaking / Modding board if he's not looking for performance?

The Asus is fine I guess, but it wouldn't/isn't/wasn't my choice. And as for you with your 3 sets of ram and 3 cpus...wtf :)
I view overclocking and modding as a hobby to take what I end up with (after researching each component) and then trying to eek as much performance out of it. That to me is what makes it an enjoyable hobby/exercise.
Spending wads of cash of buying multiple parts that only differ slightly because I didn't read what other's have already found is obscenely extravagent at best and downright lazy at worst, imho. No offense like :)

Mac daddy

WizZard wrote:

Crossfire will appear before the end of September for the current cores, and the new R5xx series will be launched in October. IIRC.

I was plannig on waiting till the end of the month untill the R520 core comes out.

Tthe Mobo DFI - need to read up on them a bit more, i don't mind tweaking one bit
The only reason why i was thinking about the asus is i have always had them from the p4p800 deluxe series and up all sockett 478's never had any problems with those mobo's.

As for Raid and storage, I have my file server with roughly 800Gig in it, and my NAS 300Gig attached to my WRT54GS router.
What i really wants is good old performance and be able to play games on max settings.

The Nividia 7800 doesn't interest me, rather hold on for the crossfire.

What about the TFT any thoughts on it.

Might look for a 550W psu

Thanks for all the info Guys.

WizZard

SyxPak wrote:

The Asus is fine I guess, but it wouldn't/isn't/wasn't my choice. And as for you with your 3 sets of ram and 3 cpus...wtf :)

I only have epxerience with the DFI and ASUS boards and I tend/try to recommend only what I have experience with.

SyxPak wrote:

I view overclocking and modding as a hobby to take what I end up with (after researching each component) and then trying to eek as much performance out of it. That to me is what makes it an enjoyable hobby/exercise.
Spending wads of cash of buying multiple parts that only differ slightly because I didn't read what other's have already found is obscenely extravagent at best and downright lazy at worst, imho. No offense like :)

None taken
But just to clarify, I don't just throw money at my machine and hope it works. I do research all parts and try to make sure they will all work together well before I buy.
But, because I like to keep up with new tech and so tend to be one of the first to buy new products I sometimes discover previously unknown compatability problems.

eg. My 3200+ Winchester CPU worked great with my first set of RAM, Corsair 4400C25. However at the time I ran 4 512MB DIMM's and the Winchester could only run them at a 2T command rate. When the new Rev E cores came out I decided to try them, as they were supposed to be able to handle 4 DIMM's at 1T. This should have solved all my problems according to AMD reports, and preliminary reviews. Thus I was one of the first to buy the new 3800+ Venice (it was the first speed level available in UK/Ireland).
I then discovered, after endless nights spent tweaking and more hours of Prime95 and memtest than I care to remember that that specific Corsair RAM did not like the Rev E cores! So I bought the new OCZ nF4 Special RAM, rated DDR625. It, too was very new at the time,. with nothing but great reports on XS etc.
And true to my luck at the time, I found, with one of the OCZ reps, that the Rev E cores cannot really handle high FSB's. They manufactured the RAM against the previous cores, and with AMD's Rev E spec. However, AMD's spec turned out to be slightly different in real life - to make the memory controller on the Rev E chips stronger for 4 DIMM's etc, it ended up being weak at anything above 270FSB. OCZ thus discontinued the nF4 Special RAM...
Still I managed to get a nice overclock out of my Venice, nothing special, and the RAM timings were very loose, so I didn't consider it anything special.
The 3rd set of RAM was a lend from dubdvd to tide me over between sets.

I jumped on the dual core bandwagon last night and will be seeing how my new X2 4400+ handles 300FSB. I'm honestly not expecting it to do too well at that so I may change my RAM eventually and go for tighter timings at a lower FSB instead of higher FSB with slightly looser timings.
As such I am researching the RAM again at the moment...

Tweaking is a hobby for me aswell, and I have no problem spending time reading up on components before I buy, but due to my penchant for being first to try new things I sometimes get stung by incompatability. I accept this as part of the risks of the game.
Due to my not owning a money tree I generally have to sell old stuff before I buy new, and so had to sell my Winnie before I bought the Venice. Had I kept that CPU I would not have had to change RAM etc., I could've just sold the Venice and dropped to 2 sticks of RAM.

Wow, reading back on this post it seems like an episode of "This is your life"
Hopefully the tweaking gods will smile at me now and this chip will handle high FSB. It's a good week, so I have high hopes for it!

WizZard

Mac Daddy, go to www.dfi-street.com and read through a lot of the overclocking and AMD nF4 forum before you buy. Find someone who has a setup you like and copy it as much as you can.