Building a computer

Matthewthebig

Right. I intend on building a computer in the near future, and i thought i'd ask you lovely chaps for your opinion on my provisional build. I'd like to stay around this price bracket. So rate and abuse please.

* AMD Athlon 64 3500+ 2.2GHz Socket 939,512KB, BOXED w/fan
* Antec NEO480GB 480-Watt PSU
* Asus A8N-E, nForce4 Ultra, Socket-939,ATX, S-ATA, GbLAN, Sound, PCI-Ex16
* Samsung 19" LCD Syncmaster 913N TCO03Monitor, Silver, 8ms
* Crucial PC3200 BallistiX DDR 1024MB CL2Kit w/two matched,2.8V,64Meg x 64,184pin
* NEC DVD±RW burner, ND-3540A, 16x,Dual, White OEM
* Gainward GeForce 6600GT 128MB 1,6ns SLIPCI-Express, Pack with 2pcs 6600GT GLH
* Maxtor DiamondMax 10 250GB SATA16MB 7200RPM NCQ
* Maxtor DiamondMax 10 250GBIDE ATA/133 16MB 7200RPM

garthv

Screw Windows!
http://www.ubuntulinux.org/

Matthewthebig

Windows for gaming

garthv

http://www.linux-gamers.net/ ;p

commited

What is your price bracket?

Fabritzo

I thought buying cd burners went out with the Indians

elusiveguy

Matthewthebig wrote:

Right. I intend on building a computer in the near future, and i thought i'd ask you lovely chaps for your opinion on my provisional build. I'd like to stay around this price bracket. So rate and abuse please.

* Seagate Barracuda 7200.8 250GB SATA8MB 7200RPM NCQ x2
* Microsoft Windows XP Professional SP2Software English OEM
* AMD Athlon 64 3500+ 2.2GHz Socket 939,512KB, BOXED w/fan
* Asus A8N-E, nForce4 Ultra, Socket-939,ATX, S-ATA, GbLAN, Sound, PCI-Ex16
* Crucial PC3200 DDR-DIMM 1024MB CL3 KITKit w/two matched PC3200 CL3 DDRs
* PowerColor Radeon X850XT 256MB GDDR3PCI-Express, VIVO/Dual-DVI, Retail
* Samsung 19" LCD Syncmaster 913N TCO03Monitor, Silver, 8ms
* Sony CD burner, CRX230, 52x32x52x,Black OEM x2
* Antec NEO480GB 480-Watt PSU

The Asus isn't all that compatible with ATI Cards, there's a better monitor,same brand but a 4ms one for 50 squids extra on komplett.ie, and a dual layer 8x dvd burner will set you back max 8o notes...

Stephen

No point paying an extra 50 quid for 4ms over 8ms. You won't notice the difference anyway.
Also, garth_v, anyone who builds what is clearly a gaming PC and then runs only linux on it needs their head examined.

Zounds

http://komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?sku=313500&cks=PRL Dual layer DVD burner, only €50

Mac daddy

Get different memory low CAS pref 2.0 or even 2.5 with nice tight timings.
And a Dvd Burner instead of a Cd rom burner.

Matthewthebig

i misread the drives. 1 of them and a dvd drive

commited:not usre but that current build is over €1,600 so around that

commited

Are you starting from scratch or have you bought anything yet?

Matthewthebig

starting for absolute scratch.

revised version here

commited

why an IDE and a SATA drive? Why not just get 2 SATA & go raid - it'll be much quicker.
Are you planning on overclocking?

Matthewthebig

no. my first build. so not going to risk it. I have heard that IDE is much easier to set OS up on

uberpixie

Matthewthebig wrote:

no. my first build. so not going to risk it. I have heard that IDE is much easier to set OS up on

Getting your head around IDE would def be the better idea.

And you can always get sata harddrives later when you feel up to it.

Have a look at either a x800xl or a 7800GT for gfx.

X850XT is a very good card but X800XL is cheaper and is the same speed more or less.

7800GT is a faster card and is only slightly more expensive than the X850XT.

Also consider getting cas 2.5 ram over the cas 3.

There is actually a bit of difference in frames between cas 2.5 and 3 ram in games.

The difference between cas 2.5 and 2 is marginal for gaming.

youcancallmeal

Stephen wrote:

No point paying an extra 50 quid for 4ms over 8ms. You won't notice the difference anyway.
Also, garth_v, anyone who builds what is clearly a gaming PC and then runs only linux on it needs their head examined.

I'd still say at least go for something with dvi instead of vga only. Seems like a waste getting this big fancy flatscreen montiors and then not even running them with a digital cable.

Also if you have a sata and an ide Hard drive you would be mad not to install windows on the sata. Performance will be notably better.

ozt9vdujny3srf

uberpixie wrote:

Getting your head around IDE would def be the better idea.

And you can always get sata harddrives later when you feel up to it.

Have a look at either a x800xl or a 7800GT for gfx.

"getting your head around?"


What a pile of turd. S-ata drives present no more problems then IDE ones do. Why spend money on an old standard?

Matthewthebig

youcancallme>al wrote:

I'd still say at least go for something with dvi instead of vga only. Seems like a waste getting this big fancy flatscreen montiors and then not even running them with a digital cable.

Also if you have a sata and an ide Hard drive you would be mad not to install windows on the sata. Performance will be notably better.

Would i notice that much of a difference using DVI as opposed to VGA?

Mac daddy

uberpixie wrote:

Getting your head around IDE would def be the better idea.
And you can always get sata harddrives later when you feel up to it.

Stick to dell pc's my friend.........

There is no difference with sata and ide regarding the setup what so ever!
just as easy.

All you need to do is plug your sata power connector to the drive and and the sata connector to the hard drive, make sure your boot order is correct.

IF you are using raid well yes you will need to install the driver at F6!

at least with sata you won't have long ide cables running through your case and they are faster than ide!

My opinion get sata and not ide,

The latest sata's ie samsung sataII drives are make less noise then ide drives.

youcancallmeal

Matthewthebig wrote:

Would i notice that much of a difference using DVI as opposed to VGA?

Taken from another forum

DVI is better than VGA for TFTs because they are digital and VGA is analog. A TFT displayes its picture digitally, pixel per pixel. Via DVI the panel gets data for each pixel, so the picture generated in the graphics card will match exact with the pixels on the panel itself.

Not so with VGA. First, the picture is generated digitally in the graphics card. Then it's converted to analog. In the TFT they will be converted again to digital (=> senseless twice conversion => quality loss), using the phase and the clock, and it'll be calculated which pixel should display what color. As the phase and clock can't be adjusted so precisely that a pixel of a picture generated by the graphics card will be displayed by the appropriate pixel on the panel. Means that the picture will be interpolated a little bit, which again means quality loss.

The electron cannons of the CRT need analog signals, that's why VGA is the best for CRTs and DVI would make no sense here.
For TFTs, DVI is the best.

Matthewthebig

Would raid be a bitch to setup?

commited

I've never set up raid myself (because i have a whole messa drives!) but it's not hard at all - lots of online guides etc.
Basically if you're going to build, do it right.
2x SATA all the way

astrofool

If you're going RAID, GET A FLOPPY DRIVE.

If not going RAID, SATA is as simple as IDE to setup. RAID on parallel ATA also needs a floppy disk for install during setup.

Matthewthebig

I'll probably avoid the RAID then

commited

You must go RAID - it makes quite a difference.
Does the PC you're using now have a floppy drive? If so - take it out and temporarily put it in the new build.

Matthewthebig

actually i think i do have a floppy drive lying areound somewhere. that would be rather handy

steveland?

Matthewthebig wrote:

i misread the drives. 1 of them and a dvd drive

commited:not usre but that current build is over €1,600 so around that

Have you looked into second hand parts?

I built my whole PC for €355 using parts from boards.ie that I bought in the FS forums...

1GB RAM, 2.8GHz AMD Athlon, 80GB IDE and 120GB IDE, GeForce fx5200, Abit MAX2, DVD+-RW etc...

Now it's not a gaming PC but if you put a bit more money in I'm sure you can get top notch parts for much, much cheaper than Komplett...

It does carry an extra risk of getting dodgy parts but the FS forums are usually trustworthy sources...

The only thing is that it took me over a month to get it up and running because I had to wait for everything to become available...

Also as GaRtH_V said, go for Linux. Install XP in a partition on your master HDD but leave space (maybe 10GB) unpartitioned.

Once XP is installed reboot using the installation CD for Ubuntu (possibly one of the easiest to pick up going straight from Windows) and it'll basically set up Ubuntu and dual booting (via GRUB) for you really quickly...

You may aswell install a Linux distro anyway, 10GB out of 500GB odd that you seem to want in your PC isn't going to be missed and you have it there if you ever fancy messing around with it

Matthewthebig

i was thinkiong of some sort of other Os hadn't decided on which one to pick though. FreeBSD has been recommend to me

Sarunas

FreeBSD is great(I use it for ~2 years), but ubuntu is a lot easier to set up.

Voodoo2

Im using mandriva and it picked up all the driver including auto mounting my USB external etc but with regards to raid, raid it grand but keep backup and update the firmware of what ever motherboard you get before you set up the raid!

WizZard

Wow, lots of strange info!

If you're building a gaming PC then Linux isn't really an option, at least not while you are still confused between SATA and IDE.
By all means install it, but I would advise perhaps using a Virtual PC environment for doing so. Especially since you'll have power to spare on this machine. Then if you don't like it you can just delete the disk image and not have to repartition etc. Or try the new DVD version of Knoppix and boot up from a DVD.

As regard SATA RAID it is very simple and I would recommend it, for speed if nothing else. Hard drive speed is important for game load times.
Get yourself a USB floppy drive (I'm selling one </plug>) and hook it up when you are installing windows. The motherboard should come with a RAID drivers floppy that you insert after pressing F6, then it's the same as installing windows normally.
Go for DVI for the TFT, it's much clearer. The normal human eye cannot distinuish the difference between a response time of 8ms and 4ms for a digital display - but make sure the monitor has 16.7 million colours and NOT 16.2 million. This is a trick often used to get quicker response times, but at the expense of sharper, brighter images.

gamer

i see no point in getting sata since u can get a good fast ide drive cheaper ,if this is a gaming pc get 1 gig ddr ram, and grafix card with at least 128meg ram with analog and dvi and maybe tv outputs ,i dont think u,d notice any difference in regard to loading times if u r buying a 100gig drive,and get dual layer dvd rom /dvdwriter.crt monitors are better for games in my opinion.get mouse with 5 buttons ,handy for gaming shortcuts as u can assign reload change weapon etc to side buttons. tft or plasma screens are too slow for far cry ,or hl2 etc.

astrofool

the main reason for sata is that pata is going to disappear before long. It would be like getting an agp motherboard a few months ago.

Hard drives are one of the things generally brought forward to new computers, so are worth future proofing.

Also, NCQ does provide a good performance boost over pata drives.

Hercule

Erm - this might be a non-point, but i guess it needs to be said just in case - In your revised PC you say your going to get the gainward 6600gt 2pieces powerpack? - is that not two seperate cards? its a bit pricey for one 6600 so im assuming it is - in which case im wondering why you would need a second card (considering its not an SLI motherboard) - unless of course you want to use several monitors

Matthewthebig

from what i read on komplett its a single card. someone correct me if i'm wrong though

Hercule

I have to say its damn hard to tell if its one card or two

Pack with 2pcs 6600GT

that bit from komplett seems to say its two cards (2 6600GTs) - but it is the only mention of it being two cards, even the picture of it shows one card!

However as i said if it is a single card then €379.00 is quite overpriced for a 6600GT regardless of how overclocked or adjusted it is.

For around the same price range I would recommed you get a far superior
7800GT (http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?sku=311506&cks=PRL)
or a RadeonX850XT (http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?sku=307120&cks=PRL)

WizZard

It's two cards. Double check with McK on the Komplett forum, but I'm 99% certain it's two cards