Buying a games PC

Newshound · 11-09-2005 8:17pm #1

Just found my bosses new PC spec while he is away on holidays.
He and another guy here have ordered it, but i want to go 1 better by the time he's back

They got the list on the reccomendation of some people here.

For about another €100 could i make any improvement on this spec.
eg more ram, processors etc.
What would the €100 be best spent on. If you can supply the komplett order number with it even better.
Also can a normal IDE ATA disk be used as a slave disk when the master is SATA. I've got monitor, mouse etc
Thanks

ps Its for Games like Battlefield 2

Here's the PC spec and Komplett shopping list.

* Upgrade Kit AMD 64 3500+ (S939),Motherboard, 1024MB DUAL RAM, CPU Fan. details below
# 307203 - AMD Athlon 64 3500+ 2.2 GHz Socket 939, 512KB cache, BOXED

# 302393 - Corsair TWINX1024-3200C2 DDR-DIMM 1024MB Kit w/two matched CMX512-3200C2 DIMMs

# 303412 - EPoX EP-9NDA3+, nForce3 Ultra,Socket-939 ATX, S-ATA, GbLAN, Firewire, DDR, AGP8X

* Seagate Barracuda 7200.8 250GB SATA8MB 7200RPM NCQ
* Antec P160 Miditower, Silver(Without PSU)
* Antec NEO480GB 480-Watt PSU
* NEC DVD recorder ND-3540A IDE Silver OEM
* Gainward GeForce 7800GTX 256MB 2xDVIPCI-Express,"U/3500PCX XP" ViVo

and the shopping list is

https://www.komplett.ie/k/shoplist.asp?mode=edit&ShoppingListId=280498

Jammer · 11-09-2005 8:48pm

Decent System, but what motherboard/ram?? List doesnt work.

Will handle any games out now, and any gamesd out in the near future.

Maybe grab a raptor for common applications/boot disk/games

shanethemofo · 11-09-2005 10:08pm

the mobo and graphics card dont go together

Newshound · 11-09-2005 10:21pm

I actually put up the original list that he had a few weeks ago.
I think he went online here and someone suggested a new spec.

I'm glad you pointed that out for me or i would have went ahead and bought that one. phew! Thanks for that Shane.

Here's a link to the revised PC - again suggested by someone on boards.

http://www.komplett.ie/k/shoplist.asp?mode=receive&si=280528&su=61CB0D6D-DBF5-45CF-A843-8882BCA2F9DB

art · 12-09-2005 9:15pm

Newshound wrote:

Also can a normal IDE ATA disk be used as a slave disk when the master is SATA.
https://www.komplett.ie/k/shoplist.asp?mode=edit&ShoppingListId=280498

That doesn't make sense - a SATA drive doesn't "do" master & slave, that's an issue just for IDE drives.

Plus they've separate sockets and cables: the SATA drive will go into the SATA socket and the IDE drive into the IDE socket (as a "master" there; ie the only drive connected via that ide cable).

Newshound · 12-09-2005 9:17pm

art wrote:

That doesn't make sense - a SATA drive doesn't "do" master & slave, that's an issue just for IDE drives.

Plus they've separate sockets and cables: the SATA drive will go into the SATA socket and the IDE drive into the IDE socket (as a "master" there; ie the only drive connected via that ide cable).

I guess what i'm asking is that if i get a SATA drive for my new PC can i also use my current IDE drive in the box too.

art · 12-09-2005 9:23pm

Newshound wrote:

I actually put up the original list that he had a few weeks ago.
I think he went online here and someone suggested a new spec.

I'm glad you pointed that out for me or i would have went ahead and bought that one. phew! Thanks for that Shane.

Here's a link to the revised PC - again suggested by someone on boards.

http://www.komplett.ie/k/shoplist.asp?mode=receive&si=280528&su=61CB0D6D-DBF5-45CF-A843-8882BCA2F9DB

You're buying RAM twice? Buy the motherboard and CPU separately, drop the RAM included with the upgrade bundle, and you could get a AMD 3700+ cpu instead which has a bigger level 2 cache on it compared to half that on the one in the list. Alternatively, add on the 100 euros and get a Dual Core procesor (AMD X2 3800 +) or, if the PC is really just for gaming, spend the extra 100 and get the AMD 4000+ ?

art · 12-09-2005 9:25pm

Newshound wrote:

I guess what i'm asking is that if i get a SATA drive for my new PC can i also use my current IDE drive in the box too.

Yep. Definitely - doing it here now, have the same Seagate SATA you've in your list there plus two ATA IDE drives for backups and stuff.

TomCo · 12-09-2005 9:29pm

Why are you buying an upgrade kit with 512mb and a further 1gig of ram, you cant dual channel with three sticks on an Nforce 4 board. Only the Nforce 2 boards could do that. Buy the stuff separately instead of part of an upgrade kit.

Edit: Got there before me. :rolleyes:

SnotNosedGit · 13-09-2005 7:57am

Hi Guys,
Thanks for all your help.
Fantastic advice for me.

By the way, I'm Newshounds Boss. I see he's been sneaking around looking to outdo my new PC Spec. Thanks for spotting the flaws guys. I'll show him haha. Our plan is to Play battlefield 2 after work, so we'll get the computers on the company account. They are for work during the day and for playing games in the evening. Keeps them in later you know.
A couple of them will be ordering for home as well. Thanks to boards for the help here with our new working environment

Now, can you buy battlefield 2 on a company account?

I've revised the spec to this. As suggested in this thread went for the higher cpu, mother board seperate and increased the ram to 2GB.

If i get the ok from the experts here, i'll order tonight.

Antec NEO480GB 480-Watt PSU

Antec P160 Miditower, Silver (Without PSU)

Gainward GeForce 7800GTX 256MB 2xDVI PCI-Express,"U/3500PCX XP" ViVo

NEC DVD recorder ND-3540A IDE Silver OEM

Seagate Barracuda 7200.8 250GB SATA 8MB 7200RPM NCQ

AMD Athlon 64 4000+ 2.4GHz Socket 939, 1MB, BOXED w/fan

MSI K8N SLI Platinum, nForce4 SLI, ATX Socket-939,4xSATA2,GbLAN,Firew,PCI-Ex16

Corsair Value S. PC3200 DDR-DIMM 2048MB Kit w/two matched Value Select 1024MB

Newshound · 13-09-2005 4:27pm

oops caught. You werent supposed to be back yet

shanethemofo · 13-09-2005 9:55pm

nice.. wats the total price?

K.O.Kiki · 14-09-2005 6:33pm

That's a nice, lovely spec... except for the RAM.
Unless you're not planning on overclocking much (and as it's a games PC, I would think you would want to), maybe you should get some performance PC3200, or perhaps PC4400 -- 1Gb should be good.

Newshound · 14-09-2005 8:08pm

Thanks Guys,
It comes to about €1700 inc vat.
KO Kiki, Which ram from komplett.ie would you recommend?

art · 22-09-2005 9:51pm

K.O.Kiki wrote:

That's a nice, lovely spec... except for the RAM.
Unless you're not planning on overclocking much (and as it's a games PC, I would think you would want to), maybe you should get some performance PC3200, or perhaps PC4400 -- 1Gb should be good.

PC4400 is not compatible with the motherboard listed.

DemonOfTheFall · 22-09-2005 10:31pm

Yes it is, PC4400 is compatible with any DDR motherboard. Youre thinking of PC2-4400, i think. You can get normal DDR in quite high speeds, it isnt DDR2 just because it's faster than PC3200.

mp3guy · 23-09-2005 6:52am

DemonOfTheFall wrote:

Yes it is, PC4400 is compatible with any DDR motherboard. Youre thinking of PC2-4400, i think. You can get normal DDR in quite high speeds, it isnt DDR2 just because it's faster than PC3200.

AFAIK you don't need anything higher than PC3200 unless you're overclocking, the higher speeds are to give you some overhead room to clock up

art · 24-09-2005 11:07am

DemonOfTheFall wrote:

Yes it is, PC4400 is compatible with any DDR motherboard. Youre thinking of PC2-4400, i think. You can get normal DDR in quite high speeds, it isnt DDR2 just because it's faster than PC3200.

SDRAM means synchronised RAM: to get the best performance, the RAM speed should be the same as the FSB speed, which in the the case of PC4400 would not be true when using the MSI board with the Athlon XP - I said "incompatible", I probabaly should have said "unsupported" - in the end, the buyer could in fact get reduced performance with PC4400 compared to PC3200, using out of the box options.

DemonOfTheFall · 24-09-2005 3:24pm

It wouldnt go and run at above PC3200 speeds without him setting a divider or raising the FSB (and overclocking the processor at the same time). It would however run PC3200 at tighter timings.
It's not an Athlon XP we're talking about here either, it's an athlon 64. A64s dont suffer a noticeable performance drop when running the RAM out of sync with the FSB. The Athlon XP used to have a huge performance hit when running the RAM out of sync, the A64 has nearly none.

art · 24-09-2005 11:26pm

DemonOfTheFall wrote:

It wouldnt go and run at above PC3200 speeds without him setting a divider or raising the FSB (and overclocking the processor at the same time). It would however run PC3200 at tighter timings.
It's not an Athlon XP we're talking about here either, it's an athlon 64. A64s dont suffer a noticeable performance drop when running the RAM out of sync with the FSB. The Athlon XP used to have a huge performance hit when running the RAM out of sync, the A64 has nearly none.

Meant athlon 64, but as you said yourself, why have a performance drop at all? Its more sensible to stick with the supported memory.

DemonOfTheFall · 25-09-2005 1:53pm

But the thing is that it WONT run at PC4400 unless he raises the FSB aswell.

Since PC4400 isnt an official JDEC standard, putting it into a normal motherboard won't have it running at PC4400. It will just default to PC3200 with tighter timings than normal PC3200, meaning it will be a performance increase

Buying a games PC

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