Building a new PC

digitaldeath

Hey guys!

I'm building a new PC after I sell my temp one here.
Anyways - I have these parts lying around here:

EPoX EP-8KDA3J Mainboard for Socket 754 and an AMD 64 2800+ (1.8Ghz) chip and a Radeon 6500 w/ 256MB on it - I'll be pairing a gig of ram to the mainboard and I've 3 monitors lined up for a multimonitor setup (any power supply issues here?)

Anyways - what are the bottlenecks here - and what could I do with eBaying to make this machine more suitable for games. Should I get a better gfx card?

I haven't been able to find a case I really like on Komplett - any suggestions?

Thanks in advance,
Digi.

Orion

No power issues as the monitors use their own power supply. Does that card support three monitors though? I'd say get a new gfx card and have both cards in your system. How much do you want to spend on a good gaming card?

If you're going to have two good cards in your system you might need to check the requirements - what wattage psu have you got?

digitaldeath

I haven't got a case yet - so if you guys could reccommend something - and a decent enough power supply - but nothing too crazy!

I'd be willing to spend around the €200 mark for a new graphics card.
Currently - I'm planning on using the VGA and DVI out to power two monitors and I'm going to use an old PCI GeForce 2 card to run the third.
So should I just eBay the old Radeon - what should I get instead? Is the processor enough?

Digi.

Cuddlesworth

What programs are you going to be runing?

digitaldeath

Games eg. Half Life 2, Quake 4, Black & White 2, Call of Duty 2 etc.

Converting movies (dvdSanta) and burning (Nero).
3d work (3dsmax and Maya)
Photoshop CS 2
Studio 8 etc.
All that kinda stuff - needs to be high end(ish) really.
Hope that helps!

Digi.

Orion

This card is a pretty good one for your budget. As for power supply go for a minimum of 450w - I'm running dual screen with a Radeon 9800 Pro and all the latest games are fine on it.The card and all the trimmings in my pc run fine on a 450w psu. I'd recommend BeQuiet power units as they are very quiet. You can get them from www.hitide.ie.

As for cases - I'm not the guy for advice - I just get the cheapest one going. As far as I'm concerned a case is just a case and any old one will do.

Endurance Man

Can you plug 2 graphics cards in and display 3 different screens on them at the same time .

digitaldeath

Yup, just set the AGP card as the primary display much like IDE devices (I'm sure) - shur there's only onw way to find out! :-)
Cheers for the help - now I just need a good case as my last one (which was just any old case) caused me more headaches than I would've liked!
Digi.

Dr Bolouswki

You cant have a PCi Graphics card and an AGP card running simulataneously

That Radeon 800 mentioned above is a nice enough card....