Need help choosing graphics card

joe123

I am building a new pc but i still dont know which card to get. Im getting it off komplett and will be using this for gaming mostly and i want a good card but nothing over 340...any help at all would be great....( please! )

btw this is my final final list ( finally have the credit card ) If any of you have any thoughts/ advice etc feel free to say cuz im ordering it later on tonight thanks. (still not sure on the g-card but read a few reviews and seems good )

Sony Floppy Drive, 3,5" 1,44MB WhiteFloppy Drive Internal
CNET Modem 56k V90/92 Internal PCIwith voice/fax
TwinMOS PC3200 DDR-DIMM 1024MB Dual PackKit w/two matched PC3200 DDR DIMMs
Western Digital Raptor 74GB SATA8MB 10000RPM
Microsoft Windows XP Home SP2Software English OEM
Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe, nForce4 SLI, Socket-939,S-ATA,Dual-GbLAN,Firewire,PCI-Ex16
AMD Athlon 64 3500+ 2.2GHz Socket 939,512KB, BOXED w/fan
Antec Sonata II Miditower, Blackw/450W PSU
NEC DVD±RW burner, ND-3540A, 16x,Dual, White OEM
Sapphire Radeon X850XT 256MB GDDR3PCI-Express, DVI-I,Tv-Out, Retail

VeVeX

Why buy an SLI board and buy an Ati graphics card?

joe123

Well im not interested in using two graphics card and I was told that Asus are the best make to go for with motherboards and it just happens they come with sli.

Can you recommend a different motherboard which is as good with the same extras ( cables etc )?

neon_glows

dont buy a floppy drive, windows (or a modem if youll be using broadband), are you getting 2 gigs of ram or is that 2x 512mb ram???? You probably have a windows key lying around from your old machine, or a mate might have one that there not using.

Jammer

OCUK have BFG 7800GT's for a great price ATM...

art

neon_glows wrote:

dont buy a floppy drive, windows (or a modem if youll be using broadband), are you getting 2 gigs of ram or is that 2x 512mb ram???? You probably have a windows key lying around from your old machine, or a mate might have one that there not using.

yah need a floppy for putting SATA drivers onto a Windows setup. Plus an initial HDD format/partition on a fresh build. Plus for rescue disks (which no-one probably has anymore, but nevermind...)

art

joe123 wrote:

Well im not interested in using two graphics card and I was told that Asus are the best make to go for with motherboards and it just happens they come with sli.

Can you recommend a different motherboard which is as good with the same extras ( cables etc )?

Abit, ASus, giga-Byte and DFI are all very good motherboard makes. Giga-byte do a good board that has nVidia 4 "Ultra" chipset, rather than the SLi, which will save you about 50 euros or so. Its the version "GA-K8NP-Ultra", or called something very similar to that.

Internal modems are generally a bad idea, there's better functionality and reliabilty with external 56K modems.

Why's your Hard drive so small? 74GB sounds very odd.

Graphics card is fine enough but a Nvidia GT variety will probabaly cost less, yet give at least as good, if not better, performance.

The advantage of the SLi option is you can always choose at some future date to add another card to bump up the performance of the GT when it starts to lag behind a bit...

joe123

art wrote:

Why's your Hard drive so small? 74GB sounds very odd.

I was told that this was an excellent hard drive because of its 10000 rpm and WD are supposed to be the best make. Dont really need a big hard drive, dont have broadband so wont be downloading much and i need a modem for dial up.

Havent ordered the bleedn stuff yet the credit card isnt working properly something about its reached its credit limit ( friends card :S ) *if only theyd accept laser!

budrick

if you want a motherboard ,try going for a msi mb ,they are perfect for gaming as they allow you to overclock your cpu,and if your overclock is to high it resets it back automaticly (built in safety). my pc has a 2 ghz intel p4 cpu overclocked to 2.45 ghz.and you can have a pci-e or agp graphics card slot, you will know from the specs.western digital are the best hard drives out there but a 74 gb is to small ,you will be surprised how fast it can fill up ,get yourself a 120 gb at least and split it into 2 .i agree with ART ,an nvidia card is your best bet ,everything else in your list is ok.

ShiverinEskimo

This is the machine i'm buying off komplett - the price at the bottom is wrong though for some reason - if you add it up it comes to 1255

Please note I already have this mobo

But as was previously mentioned this deal (the first on the list) is excellent - works out to 356 euro plus delivery. Even with the 2 days parcel force delivery it will only cost 390 euro.

The choice is yours!! But i'll be a happy camper having spent only 1300 odd euro.

Airblazer

you'd be better off going for a Sata2 config board..sata2 hard drives are outperforming the raptors even though their normal price is the same as sata1.
So the money you save on a raptor can get you a bigger driver.
I'd recommend this board "MSI K8N SLI Platinum, nForce4 SLI, ATX Socket-939,4xSATA2,GbLAN,Firew,PCI-Ex16".
Processor wise I'd recommend the "D Athlon 64 X2 3800+ 2.0GHz Socket 939 1MB, BOXED w/fan". This is a dual core processs and provides fantastic overlocking potential. Will even outperform the FX 55.
Video card is a very good card and wil easily keep you going for 2-3 years..
One thing. AMD at the moment are only compatible with DDR memory. However in approx 2-3 months they will start supporting DDR2.Another thing to think about.
If you need further info about the proc etc..look at the below webpage for the overclocking potential for the 3800
http://www.tomshardware.com/index.html

joe123

Ok ive changed the list a bit ( again )

btw i dont even know how to overclock and im not that interested in doing it ( at the moment ) incase i damage something as this is my first build.

Samsung SpinPoint P120S 200GB SATA28MB 7200RPM NCQ
TwinMOS PC3200 DDR-DIMM 1024MB Dual PackKit w/two matched PC3200 DDR DIMMs
Gainward GeForce 7800GT 256MB GDDR3PCI-Express,"U/3400PCX XP ViVo"
NEC DVD±RW burner, ND-3540A, 16x,Dual, Black OEM
Antec Sonata II Miditower, Blackw/450W PSU
MSI K8N SLI Platinum, nForce4 SLI, ATXSocket-939,4xSATA2,GbLAN,Firew,PCI-Ex16
Sony Floppy Drive, 3,5" 1,44MB WhiteFloppy Drive Internal
Microsoft Windows XP Home SP2Software English OEM
AMD Athlon 64 3700+ 2.2GHz Socket 939,1MB, BOXED w/fan

Im still unsure of either the asus motherboard or the msi one. In reviews the msi is getting good reviews but something about a little plastic peg keeps coming up and seeing as this is my first time building one i dont want no crappy little plastic peg breaking :S

How am I for cables because i checked the specifications and the one thing i know i need cables for is for the dvd drive but the Asus motherboard i was going to get has a bundle but what am I like now as i changed the motherboard and it doesnt mention any extras? Id prefer paying the extra 15 euro if that included cables as i dont want no hassel seeing as this is the first go of putting one together....?

Thanks for the help tis great. Again any thoughts or whatever would be great

DemonOfTheFall

Any motherboard should come with a bundle of IDE cables and whatever else you might need.

art

joe123 wrote:

Im still unsure of either the asus motherboard or the msi one. In reviews the msi is getting good reviews but something about a little plastic peg keeps coming up and seeing as this is my first time building one i dont want no crappy little plastic peg breaking :S

Think you were right to switch the HDD - I looked up the one you had originally listed and it was terrible value.. the one you have here now is fairly new so don't know nothing about it. But I have heard its very quiet and that is always good to have.

On the motherboard, I'm lookin gto get a new one myself and haven't been convinced by reviews of the MSI board. Its fine, but I've got the clear impression the ASUS is better. There's a fairly detailed review of six boards, which includes mentioning the cables and kit you get, at the link below, which includes the ASUS and the MSI, if you are up to ploughing through it

http://www.ocprices.com/index.php?rev_id=270

savemejebus

ok a couple of things,

You're getting a black case make sure to get a black floppy drive
Maybe you should get 1 stick of 1024mb ram rather than 2 x 512s, it would make a future ram upgrade more cost effective.
Regarding main boards the DFI LANPARTY UT nF4 SLI-D is supposedly an excellent board.

Also your gfx card is quite powerhungry (450w is min power requirements for a 7800gt iirc) so you should check whether the sonatas psu can handle this. The case itself is great (can be a little bit of a tight squeeze when assembling) but it is a joy to work with and really quiet.

On the subject of hard drives in my opinion the best option is having 2 1 small and fast (say a 36gb raptor) for os and stuff and one large 200gb sata for all your data. This method is also handy as it can save your data if the os drive crashes or gets infected with a virus, still thats only my opinion though.

Hope this helps

joe123

Well im trying to stay under a budget of 1300 as i will be getting a monitor a bit later on and i dont want to go crazy on the price. So far with the current list im on 1295 i think it is. and will have to add 20 for delivery but sure thats ok..ish :P

The case comes with a 450w psu and is really good value so ill be definetly sticking with the case. Ive changed the choice of graphic card so many times now but i thought id be sticking with this. On the specs on Komplett it says at the very bottom for the graphics card

"Peripheral / Interface Devices CD-ROM, 350W power supply "

what exactly does that mean? ( sorry im a bit of a novice )

Also i checked through the review for the mobos and the dfi seems really good but all them models listed are just too dear. I cant really afford to go over 150 if i want to stick to my budget but the msi plastic peg thing has put me off that mobo :S

The hard drive i was recomended that WD are the best bet but the samsung one seems great value. Ill just mention I dont and wont have broadband for a looong time nowhere near my area and i wont be downloading much at all just using it for gaming mostly. The pc im on at the moment has a 4gb hard drive and is doing fine lol.

Once again thanks for all the help

art

joe123 wrote:

Also i checked through the review for the mobos and the dfi seems really good but all them models listed are just too dear. I cant really afford to go over 150 if i want to stick to my budget but the msi plastic peg thing has put me off that mobo :S

The hard drive i was recomended that WD are the best bet but the samsung one seems great value. Ill just mention I dont and wont have broadband for a looong time nowhere near my area and i wont be downloading much at all just using it for gaming mostly. The pc im on at the moment has a 4gb hard drive and is doing fine lol.

Once again thanks for all the help

I agree that the DFI mobo is the best but it is definitely far too dear really - how about tis one for €159: http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?sku=309209&cks=PRL

Its by EPox, fairly new, and well reviewed. You'll get pics and info on the bundle etc here:
http://www.pcstats.com/artvnl.cfm?articleID=1840

The WD Hardrive is definitely too dear for what it provides. Its spinning very fast which means fast data access but also loads of noise and heat. Plus it really really is very small. I know you say you wont download much stuff but you'll be amazed how the drive fills up anyway. Stick with a good standard 7200 rpm SATA drive thats at least 160GB, its the better option in the long term. Plus, the Samsung you mentioned is a SATA2 drive so it has the potential to offer twice as much throughput of data as a normal SATA drive anyhow (the EPox has the controllers for SATA2, too!)

art

PS, the Nvidia GT 7800 has lower power requirements compared to the full product, the GTX, so I think your 450 watt should be fine.

joe123

The epox board is definetly an option seems like a good board.

Which would you choose between the asus deluxe and the epox as i had the asus down in my list at first but people recomemended other boards. Is there any reason that this asus one isnt that good?

Between the epox and asus which should I choose as it finally looks like my list is set apart from the motherboard...

art

joe123 wrote:

The epox board is definetly an option seems like a good board.

Which would you choose between the asus deluxe and the epox as i had the asus down in my list at first but people recomemended other boards. Is there any reason that this asus one isnt that good?

Between the epox and asus which should I choose as it finally looks like my list is set apart from the motherboard...

Hmmm, I hate making final decisions... To be honest, I was thinking of re-doing my own PC for the last few weeks (I've postponed that now for another few weeks cause I just can't afford it yet). But I was picking pretty similar stuff and I had decided on the EPox one based on performance versus value for money (it seemed the best combination) or the ABit Fatality (for overclocking options and that nice panel you can put in the front of your PC!). So my third choice was the Asus. Can't remember now exactly what put me off the Asus but the odd heat pipe was an issue: it won't work if you use a case that requires installing the mobo upside down (and one good case I like requires that). The BIOS options and inability to set fans speeds is another thing I remember not really liking. But, at the same time, it is a well respected board in various reviews etc - that was just my own take on things

joe123

I think its between the Asus and the Epox now.

Im more in favour of the epox though as the reviews seem more positive towards it than the asus although both seem to be getting good reviews really.

What do others think?

The EPoX EP-9NPA+ SLI
http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?sku=309209&cks=PRL

or

the asus Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe
http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?sku=305190&cks=PRL

T-Square

which did you choose?