New PC - Specs

Posted: Thu Jun 01, 2006 3:01 pm

Right thinking of getting a new PC, going to have to soon to play some of the tasty game that are coming out.

Heres what I have been looking at.

CPU
AMD® ATHLON® 64BIT X2 4400 2 x 1MB L2 Cache

Memory
2048 MB DDR400 PC3200 WITH LIFETIME WARRANTY!

Motherboard
ASUS® A8N-SLI SE: DUAL DDR, S-ATA, 2 x x16 VGA, 3 PCI

USB Options
SIX USB 2.0 PORTS (4 REAR + 2 FRONT)

Hard Drive
SATA II 250 GB HARD DISK @ 7200rpm 8mb cache

Second Hard Drive
NONE

RAID
NONE

DVD ROM/Combi Drive
16X DVD ROM WITH 48X CD ROM

CD/DVD Writer
52X 32X 52X CD WRITER

Graphics Card 1
512MB GEFORCE 7900GTX PCI Express + DVI + TV-OUT

Graphics Card 2
NONE

Sound Card
HIGH END ONBOARD 8 CHANNEL SOUND (RECOMMENDED)

Network Facilities
2 x 10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORTS (1 PORT ON A8N-SLI SE)

Floppy Drive/Card Reader
1.44MB FLOPPY DISK DRIVE

Case
Stylish Black X-Plode Case + 2 Front USB

Power Supply & Cooling
500W (Peak) Super Quiet Rail PSU + 120mm fan & CPU Cooler (£45)

Anything I have missed??

Price for above is around £1000.00. Good Price?? P.S - Already Built.

Joined: Feb 09, 2006 Posts: 14

not bad at all but you should really get DDR2 if your going to spend that sort of money also Ati instead of nvidia

Guest

Think you should get a better Power supply Drewcat

Consider: Coolermaster RealPower 550W *SLI* Very nice and VERY Stable Powersupply, Peak Watt is 650

And mabye consider a Raptor Harddisc WD has a 150GB Raptor now its such a huge preformance increase...

Rest looks good yea Smile

EDIT: PS... Yes like hey-Hey said... i totaly forgot Go with ATi Now as nvidia isn't that super good atm like it can't run HDR+AA toghter wich is a huge bump in the head....

Consider the **Sapphire 1900XTX Toxic** It's water cooled and is faster then the Geforce 7900XTX and the ATi can use HDR+AA at the same time wich is a huge plus...

Posted: Thu Jun 01, 2006 3:42 pm

Cheers for feedback.

Always been a fan of Nvida.

Is it worth waiting, as in any new stuff coming out.

Also I get different prices for the same thing, just with a different badge (gainward, asus ect). is there a big difference between them.

Was thinking higher PS Only had 500w max on the site I was on, currently run a 600w so would probably use a simmalar one.

Just dont want to rip myself of and regret it later. so many things its baffeling.

Joined: Oct 04, 2005 Posts: 179 Location: Wigan

ye iv seen this offer drew it looks like a good deal
saw it for just over 800 if its the same one

thinkin bout it meself
jus gotta wait for the babies Wink

Posted: Thu Jun 01, 2006 6:12 pm

Price was around £1000. on some website.

Would prefair to buy locally though at least then you can go and 'see them' if something goes wrong.

Need some 'set up' list then can hit all the local shops for the best price.

Quote:

jus gotta wait for the babies

Need to get mine sorted, pain getting the starting cut-in. Crying or Very sad

Joined: Oct 04, 2005 Posts: 193 Location: Leeds, UK

Hey drewcat here's my 2 cents (or whatever that is in normal money)

Firstly as hey hey says go for ddr2 memory i hear good things about it.

I have that motherboard on my work machine but have you heard there is a new AMD socket on the block? the AM2 which will support the next gen of cpu's making it upgradable.

I wouldn't trust the onboard sound too much. It will do until you can afford an upgrade but i tend to just disregard anything onboard as it takes away from your processing power and adds to the price of the mb. so i would suggest some kind of creative soundcard depending on budget and wether you intend to use surround sound or just stereo.

With regard to the different manufacturers i bought a Leadtech A400GT which equates to a Nvidia 6800GT for around £100 less than the Nvidia and was pleasantly suprised to see a huge heatsink which apparently allows for some (havent tested this) major overclocking. I'm not saying this is the case with all hardware but i was impressed with the leadtech card and i definatley recommend them.

By the way the SATAII HD's are very good especially Hitachi ones, i have a hitachi Desktar thingy at work and BF2 loads much quicker than on my raptor at home which is supposed to run at 10,000rpm.

Oh yeah and buy the components and build it up yourself. You will generally get better components and you will know the inside of you rig intimatley. I have got my pc building down to 2hrs from ordering the bits to installing windows (who rules?) I often bring the grand kids around and have them look into my pvc side panel and say "ya see that kids? grandad built that " and just walk away mumbling about how kids have no respect these days. ....(by the way im 24 i dont have grand kids)

I just started to bore myself so im off but columbo is the one to speak to he just built one up and he's a right tight arse so he will know where to get the bits from and there are stacks of people around here who will help you pick the bits and guide you through building it up if you need it.

Posted: Fri Jun 02, 2006 11:49 am

Hi Drew,

Yeah it seems peeps have been saying the right things. I would certainly get the AM2 socket for AMD, however little the DDR2 actually may affect performance its always best to get the latest technology otherwise you will totally regret it. The 4400 is a very good cpu.

Make sure the memory you get is a matched pair and dont bother with more than 2gb yet, just get 2 1GB sticks.

As for HDD, you have to get SATAII like dickster says, i have been professing the superiority of these drives for months, and i think its the main reason my maps load in fast. Get the Hitachi T7k250 250GB model, and i will be racing you to the tank lol.

I cant really tell you about the mboard, or recommend an AM2 one, but just read a few reviews before buying, i havent had chance to yet. But dickie is right dont rely on onboard stuff, its usually substandard and just bumps the price up!

That graphics card rocks, so your ok there, try get a factory overclocked one to like 670+. Then it will be under guarantee at that speed

The power supply is a vital piece of kit, i know that you live close to scan, they are good for most things, just power supplies is sometimes not there best range. You want 550W+ so you can run SLi in the future, and i would stick to Tagan, Antec, Seisonic. Again read up on the exact model you buy, and you will ensure a steady flow of power to you parts

Case, ANTEC P180 is supposed to be ace, stick to them Silverstone, Coolermaster, Lian-Li, but i would exect to pay a premium for a decent case, make sure that it has front and rear 12cm fans, you need the cooling!

DVDs etc are all very similar, i have NEC and they are super, but there is not much noticable difference between them all i would say.

Make sure you get a third party heat sink, Arctic Cooling 64 pro is best all-rounder, and only about £15. Dunno if scan have this tho, but i would deffo get it, and some Arctic Silver thermal grease.

For all other parts that scan dont have, check out www.overclockers.co.uk they are very good too, they are the two companies i use.

Think thats it, any questions im usually about mate!

LT!

Guest

go with what columbo, says, graphics card a good 7900 nvidia 512mb should do the trick, but remember bf2 does not like sli, trust me got caught in that trap

Posted: Fri Jun 02, 2006 1:24 pm

Thanks chaps. Smile

So it would seem like and the desision is to build my own.

Things what worry me is getting uncompatable parts (or ripped off), I know its all about research, doesnt help when it makes no sence. Embarassed

Quote:

but remember bf2 does not like sli, trust me got caught in that trap

So far

CPU
AMD® ATHLON® 64BIT X2 4400 2 x 1MB L2 Cache

Memory
2048 MB DDR400 PC3200 WITH LIFETIME WARRANTY!
Or this new DDr2 - sound the way to go.

Motherboard
ASUS® A8N-SLI SE: DUAL DDR, S-ATA, 2 x x16 VGA, 3 PCI
Confused about this one. but want a upgradable one.

USB Options
SIX USB 2.0 PORTS (4 REAR + 2 FRONT)
Is this important or standard stuff really

Hard Drive
SATA II 250 GB HARD DISK @ 7200rpm 8mb cache
Hitachi T7k250 250GB

Second Hard Drive
NONE - Any need??

RAID
NONE - ??????????

DVD ROM/Combi Drive
16X DVD ROM WITH 48X CD ROM - Most are same

CD/DVD Writer
52X 32X 52X CD WRITER - Do I need to or will one do all jobs

Graphics Card 1
512MB GEFORCE 7900GTX PCI Express + DVI + TV-OUT
Prefair Nvidia to ATI

Sound Card
Unsure of which one just start away from onboard.

Network Facilities
2 x 10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORTS (1 PORT ON A8N-SLI SE)
??

Floppy Drive/Card Reader
1.44MB FLOPPY DISK DRIVE

Case
Nice case with good cooling - ANTEC P180 is supposed to be ace, stick to them Silverstone, Coolermaster, Lian-Li

Power Supply & Cooling
550W Minimum - Tagan, Antec, Seisonic.

So would you say scan & Overclockers are the cheapest around or do the use quality parts???

I did look on Alienware website, MMMM Nice - £££££££££ Crying or Very sad

Guest

Intel can kiss my ass....

Anyways Drew don't go with a Tagan Powersupply they aren't that trustworthy when you play a intense game like bf2 o.o

Anyways i still want to say that you should go with ATi....

Guest

ive used novatech,overclockers and ebuyer to build mine...and if uve got a faulty component they are all very good at dispatching a replacement...so thats my 3 choices for you Very Happy

Guest

Even if intel was twice as fast i wouldn't buy it...

Posted: Sat Jun 03, 2006 12:14 pm

Hey Drew,

The onlly compatability issue i can see depends on the socket processor you want. I will explain.

If you want the old, but still good socket 939, then you will have to buy a socket 939 mboard and DDR 400 ram.

However, if you want to go for the newer and better socket, the AM2 socket, then you will have to get a socket AM2 processor, mboard, and DDR2 Ram.

That is the main difference. If i were you i would get the newest technology, dont think it is that much more, if at all. You cannot mix and match with these decisions.

Hope that has cleared up any confusion

LT!

Joined: Apr 24, 2006 Posts: 525 Location: Manchester UK

Hey mate, ive been building PCs for about 6 years now and here's some of my collated wisdom to throw into the mix:

1. NEVER BUY INTEL (hehe no bias here honest Razz

)

I wont go into details, but cost/performance, heat/power dissapation and many more make intel just suck. AMD are much better, have been for years and will be for years to come. The only reason why Intel survives is cos of that stupid "dadadadaaaaa Intel Inside" marketing bs and Dell providing all of their sales to sad lonely people (and businesses Razz

) LOL

The AMD xp4400 is the best value/performance processor you can get and almost beats Intel's top of the line CPU for £500 more. Make sure you buy the one with 2x 1MB cache, not the cheap one with 2x 512kb cache.

Dont believe the hype about Intels new processors. The last 2 years of Intel offerings have sucked and so will these (unles you buy the best one at £1500 and install a cryogenic cooling system to cool it down).

Also, remember that gaming performance is GPU limited, not CPU limited. Buy a middle-range CPU and excellent GPU and you will see good performance. AMD always win for gaming and even the top of the range conroe chip will not outperform an overclocked xp4400 by much.

AMD = the win!

2. ATI vs. NVidia will always be tough decision

At the moment, the ATI X1900XT will beat the 7900GTX in cost, performance, features. In 6 months it will all change hahaha. Dont be tempted to buy SLI/crossfire, and dont be tempted to buy the best best card. Get one that is 3-6 months old and you will get to within 10% of the performance of the top of the range, for 50% of the cost.

Personally, if I was buying, Id get the 512MB ATI x1900xt. The nvidia card is awesome, but has some feature limitations, and suffers from overheating at the moment. Plus, its more expensive.

3. Hard drives - go for RAID

Second hard drives - if you buy two identical SATA drives on a RAID0 enabled motherboard (most are now), you can set up a RAID array. This stands for Redundant Array of Identical Discs and is used in servers for advanced backup & recovery. RAID0 provides no redundancy but does speed ALL hard disc transfers by 100%. So, instead of 1x 300GB disc, get 2x 150GB discs, put them in RAID0 and your computer will see 1x double speed 300GB disc!! w0000ped!

Setting up RAID0 is pretty easy. I can tell you how via email/MSN if you want.

4. Memory - get loads and the best you can afford

With a good motherboard and good DDR1 memory, lets say you buy DDR500, you have the potential to overclock your CPU by 25%. That is the equivalent of getting an xp4400 at 2.4GHz and turning it into a 3GHz FX62 for absolutely NO MONEY! Overclocking is easy and not dangerous (contrary to popular belief), so long as you dont increase the CPU voltages.

Dont bother with DDR2 for AMD as there is no real performance increase to be had at the moment. Get a good brand DDR500 such as corsair (not value), geil, ocz with low latency settings and you're sorted.

5. Cooling - buy the best!

Get a Zalman cooler for your CPU. its virtually silent and will run it cool. This means it will last longer, allow more overclocking (ie: more free processor upgrades!) and be quieter. This one is the best:

http://www.quietpc.com/gb-en-gbp/products/amdcooling/cnps9500-led

6. Get good mouse!!

Logitech MX510 series & icemat / steelpad mousemat will greatly improve your accuracy and aim!!

7. Build yourself!!!

NOOO DONT GO TO PC WORLD OR BUY DELL!!! build it yourself! With practice, you get to the point where you can build a PC in 30 minutes. The first time you do it, it will be more difficult, but always remember danny from PC world can do it, so can you.

Building your own PC means you can customise parts, get the best stuff, learn how it all works when it goes T*ts up and save £100's of pounds.

8. Finally sell & upgrade regularly

Once you've built your own PC, you'll know what parts go where and how it all works etc... When your G-Card becomes too slow, pop it out, sell it on ebay and get an upgrade. The same applies for any component in your computer. If you aim to upgrade one part each 6-12 months, you will maintain a high quality PC for less cash!

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Good luck!!!!!

AndyB aka w00p!