Woohoo, new computer time!

Disheveled DrFreeze · Post by **Disheveled DrFreeze** » Sat Dec 17, 2005 7:36 am

Stormwatch wrote:and it's far less likely that you'll get a crash.

my xbox has crashed more times then my desktop PC, its all about hwo you use it

consoles however, cant be tweaked and set up just the way i like

Caboose · Post by **Caboose** » Sat Dec 17, 2005 11:05 am

I have an ATI X800 SE (128mb vid ram, PCI X-press 16x) and the first thing I do with every game I get is turn the settings way up. It plays all of the games I've tried (CS 1.6, DoD, SWAT 4, CS: S, DoD: S, Black and White 2, Fable, HL 2, Doom 3, Far Cry, Star Wars Republic COmmando) really really well (near perfect, if there's such a thing with a PC games). I've got 1 GB of RAM. I suggest going with PCI X-press. It's better, and much faster, than AGP and regular PCI.

Post by **melancholy** » Mon Dec 19, 2005 11:28 pm

Alright, I built my dream computer, although the projected price overshoots my loan by about $130.

Ah well, perhaps Christmas money will help cover it. Anyway here is what I have:

AMD Athlon 64 3500+ Venice with 1GHz FSB
ABIT KN8 NVIDIA nForce4 SLI ATX AMD Motherboard
XFX Geforce 7800GT 256MB PCI Express x16

So, here's a couple of questions:
-If I step down in the processor slightly and get a 3200, will there be much of a difference (the price difference is about $25)?
-I currently have a 400 watt power supply. I also have 2 SATA hard drives, a DVD burner, a DVD-Rom, and an Audigy 2 sound card with a front panel that taps into the power supply. Will 400 watts be enough to run all of this?
-I've spent the night reading reviews for that Abit motherboard, and it seems solid enough, but I've personally never used one. Anyone have personal experience with Abit? Same question with the XFX card.

SadisticSaviorX · Post by **SadisticSaviorX** » Mon Dec 19, 2005 11:57 pm

im sorta in your same delema buddy...

im stuck on the cpu part.... im choosing between an opteron 148 and a athlon 64 3700...

which would work better with a Asus a8n-e?

Jacko · Post by **Jacko** » Tue Dec 20, 2005 12:18 am

Guys,

Be aware that with the AMD CPU's it will say 3500+ on the box but IT WILL NOT clock at that speed. My friend claims AMD CPU's however are more efficient than Intel CPU's.

Also steer clear of ASUS mainboards. My friend had one and stuffed up within a few weeks.

If you can afford it try and get as higher wattage powersupply as possible. One of the more crucial points to system performance is actually not having enough power to your components in the case.

Also make sure you have adequate cooling and stuff. You may need to spend more money on fans and stuff. If you are using IDE on your optical drives use rounded cables as they permit better airflow. Also remember hot air rises so you ideally would like air drawing in at the bottom and being dispersed at the top. If you are really serious about gaming you could use an alluminium case which will permit better heat loss thus making your system run cooler.

Just a few tips

Jacko

Nyarlathotep · Post by **Nyarlathotep** » Tue Dec 20, 2005 2:45 am

For gaming, money spent on a videocard is a better investment than money spent on a CPU - almost all high end games dump most of 'teh powar' onto the GPU not the CPU, HL2 is an exception, but HL2 runs very nicely indeed on quite low end stuff due to its scalable architecture.

Jacko wrote: Also steer clear of ASUS mainboards. My friend had one and stuffed up within a few weeks.

Lies, ASUS are one of the best on the market, if not the best.

Disheveled DrFreeze · Post by **Disheveled DrFreeze** » Tue Dec 20, 2005 5:28 am

his first statement about amd's not clocking to its advertised speeds on stock was clear enough, didnt even bother reading on, someone who thinks thats news or special is obviously an intel brain washed dell loving noob

as for Asus, YOU DO NOT WANT TO DISS ASUS AROUND ME, excellent stuff, all of it

bizzle · Post by **bizzle** » Tue Dec 20, 2005 7:08 am

Get the 3700+, it's about $10 more.

Make sure your PSU has atleast 20a on the 12v rail.

Also, consider buying from ZipZoomFly.

Jeeba Jabba · Post by **Jeeba Jabba** » Tue Dec 20, 2005 8:33 am

Id like to know how the fuck a college student who works at best buy has so much new shit all the time and even has his own place

Covar · Post by **Covar** » Tue Dec 20, 2005 9:01 am

get an SLI motherboard and video card. This way when you get some more money you can go ahead and by another video card.

i recently upgraded my pc, and bought this motherboard. its got 8 channel audio, tons of slots for expansion, and will overclock fine.

for video cards i recommend a nVidia(don't really know why except for good linux support). be sure to get a PCIe card, its faster than an AGP card. i have a plain 6800 with 128mb, i thought about getting a 256 card but decided not to since i'll be getting another card right after christmas.

[EDIT]Crap i didn't see the second page.

Post by **melancholy** » Tue Dec 20, 2005 10:38 am

Jeeba wrote:Id like to know how the fudge a college student who works at best buy has so much new crap all the time and even has his own place

I don't live alone you know. I live with my financee, and between the two of us, we can usually pull in enough money for us to live comfortably and save back $200 each month for emergencies. As for my consoles, these aren't ever just spur of the moment purchases (well, okay, the Micro was). I've been putting money back since May in order to save up enough for the Xbox 360.

Post by **melancholy** » Tue Dec 20, 2005 10:52 am

Xylene wrote:Also, consider buying from ZipZoomFly.

I looked at there stuff, and both the video cards and motherboards are about $5-10 more on that site compared to Newegg. The processor, however, is about $20 cheaper, so I might order a processor off of them and the rest from Newegg.

Sir C.A.T · Post by **Sir C.A.T** » Tue Dec 20, 2005 4:42 pm

melancholy wrote:
Xylene wrote:Also, consider buying from ZipZoomFly.
I looked at there stuff, and both the video cards and motherboards are about $5-10 more on that site compared to Newegg. The processor, however, is about $20 cheaper, so I might order a processor off of them and the rest from Newegg.

Think about the shipping prices brother.

Nick · Post by **Nick** » Tue Dec 20, 2005 5:35 pm

melancholy wrote:Alright, I built my dream computer, although the projected price overshoots my loan by about $130. Ah well, perhaps Christmas money will help cover it. Anyway here is what I have:

AMD Athlon 64 3500+ Venice with 1GHz FSB
ABIT KN8 NVIDIA nForce4 SLI ATX AMD Motherboard
XFX Geforce 7800GT 256MB PCI Express x16

So, here's a couple of questions:
-If I step down in the processor slightly and get a 3200, will there be much of a difference (the price difference is about $25)?
-I currently have a 400 watt power supply. I also have 2 SATA hard drives, a DVD burner, a DVD-Rom, and an Audigy 2 sound card with a front panel that taps into the power supply. Will 400 watts be enough to run all of this?
-I've spent the night reading reviews for that Abit motherboard, and it seems solid enough, but I've personally never used one. Anyone have personal experience with Abit? Same question with the XFX card.

That's a pretty awesome setup. You might need a bit more juice to run that rock stable, especially if you plan on overclocking. Personally, I'd recommend getting a 500 Watt PSU, but that's up to you. Even if you don't OC, your system might not be getting enough juice with only 400 watts, especially if its a crappy generic PSU. I had a Rosewill 500 Watt PSU that costs $50 shipped now on Newegg that was stable, but pretty damn loud. It's a good budget option, but probably something that you'd want to replace within 3 or 4 months -- the sound is ridiculous.

I really wouldn't get a 6800GT; they were discontinued a little while ago. I got one, and I feel hosed. For the extra $70 or so that it takes to get a 7800GT, the performance increase is around 30% over the 6800GT. Basically, if I crank everything in AoEIII, I get around 20 FPS. That would be around 30 - 40 with a 7800 GT. AoEIII has a whole bunch of shit going on, so it's a pretty good test of what your card can do. Scale back the settings from "very high" to "high," and turn off aliasing, and I get 60 solid. As for brand, I personally have had a good experience with BFG cards, but they're generally up to $100 more than the competition. Not really worth it; plus they run hot. XFX seems decent; other brands to consider would be Leadtek or MSI. The graphics card is the key component in gaming; CPU is important, but the performance boost from a 3200+ to a 3500+ will not be as noticeable as that between a 6800 GT and 7800GT. If you're tight on cash, I'd say cut back a bit on the CPU -- since Venices overclock very easy anyway -- and spend it on the card.

You might also want to look into a DFI Lan Party SLI board. They overclock like motherfuckers and are quite stable. Heard good things all around for that board, except it's supposedly a bit complicated to set up everything if its a first install. The only brand I can give a big fuck you to is Gigabyte -- my SLI board sucks ass and was a royal pain in the ass to setup. Once I get the cash, I'm going to drop for a DFI or ASUS board.

Oh, and my experience with Newegg has been top notch every single time. Things came waaaay before their ETA, everything was packed really well, and the shipping prices were great.

Post by **melancholy** » Tue Dec 20, 2005 9:59 pm

Well, thanks to Slickdeals, I got the processor Xylene suggested for $195! Woohoo! The bad news is that my financial aid check doesn't come until January 5, so I'll have to put off buying the rest of the parts until after Christmas. Oh well, at least I just saved $40 on the processor.

mikozero · Post by **mikozero** » Wed Dec 21, 2005 1:10 am

could be blessing, maybe you'll get some more bargains in the January sales.

Skynet · Post by **Skynet** » Wed Dec 21, 2005 1:44 am

Jacko wrote:Guys,

[snip]

Just a few tips

Jacko

You want a real tip from one Adelaidian to another? Although not relevent to your post at all, just a tip. Stay the FUDGE away from ITWarehouse. Screw people over big time. Use shitty ass parts. Are generally rude to customers and don't mind ripping people off at all.

The guys here will remember my video card woes from a number of months back after dealing with ITW for the 3rd time or something. Never again. Everything PC related I'm buying is now coming from the net.

[/offtopic rant]