Any Help is appreciated

[Trendkill]

Hi everyone,

After reading through these forums, i've noticed that alot of you guys know what your talking about when it comes to computers(atleast a lot more than me!). I'm about to start building my own system, and i will accept and helpful hints or suggestions that any of you have to offer. I'm looking to keep it under $1500, i will use it primarily for gaming(Rainbow Six 3, Warcraft 3 right now, HL2 and Doom 3 when they come out). Here's what i'm looking at now:

P4 2.8 800FSB HT
Possibly and Abit MOBO
Radeon 9600 XT
1 Gig of Corsair XMS PC 3200Pro DDR400
Not sure on a case yet
Not sure on optical drives or hard drives either
NEC 19" Flat CRT SuperBright
Probably other stuff i forgot

Does this sound good or does it suck? Any suggestions that anyone could give me would be wonderful. I'll probably order all the stuff from newegg.com if that helps. Thanks in advance if you can help.

 

[mechBgon]

Welcome to the Forums Trendkill

One school of thought regarding the future games that will work your computer over: the longer you wait to upgrade, the more you'll get for your money, so wait until you really need to upgrade, or start with the stuff that isn't dropping in price fast (monitor, case/power supply) or which might jump in price (memory). What's your current system like, is it meeting your needs for now?

Athlon 64 CPUs seem to be excellent gaming CPUs, both on a per-dollar basis and an absolute basis, so you might consider that route too. 1GB of high-quality RAM is a smart move in either case, and so is a powerful high-quality power supply in the 400W+ range. Do you plan to overclock? If so, PC3200 might hold you back, particularly on the Intel side where there's a lot of headroom.

 

[Mday]

everything seems okay, just narrow down the motherboard. the ppl over at cases and cooling can help you with a case, if you have any specific likes and dislikes that is. otherwise any case will do (dont forget powersupply).

be glad mechBgon didnt tell you to go scsi =D

 

[mechBgon]

Originally posted by: Mday
be glad mechBgon didnt tell you to go scsi =D

Uh oh, they're onto me! :Q I better give it a rest...

 

[Trendkill]

Thanks Guys!

Anyway, no i will not be overclocking. As for the motherboard, i'm not really sure which one would be right for a p4 2.8. Maybe and abit 865 a17? Or 875 IC7-g Max 2? As i said, i really have no idea when it comes to computer parts. Any suggestions on a hard drive, RW drive, and DVD rom drive? As for monitors, i've heard good things about the NEC, what do you guys think is the best monitor for gaming at a good price? I appreciate your guys' help, keep it coming!

 

[Trendkill]

Oh and i don't have a system right now, this will be my first one. I want it to be a solid one for a little while, then i will upgrade when the games become too advanced.

 

[mechBgon]

Maybe someone can do a reality check on me here, but how about a Radeon 9700 Pro? The performance is quite a bit higher than the 9600XT and if you want to play HL2 and Doom3... yeah. It could mean being able to jump up one resolution level. If it comes down to money, get the Corsair without the LED activity meters, and spend that on the video card Here's one of Anand's benchmarks with a hard-hitting game, Halo: link

Here's why I was talking up the Athlon 64: benchmarks It does well against even the P4 3.0 and 3.2, and may do better yet when 64-bit Windows and 64-bit-optomized games are out.

For an RW drive, Pioneer's A06 DVD±R/RW drive is a possible blanket solution... DVD-ROM, DVD-R/RW, DVD+R/RW, CD-R/RW (not ultra-fast tho), CD-ROM. I have one of them, plus a Sony CD-RW/DVD-ROM combo drive (I use retail Nero 5.5 so I can burn on both, the OEM Nero that comes with many drives is only going to work for that particular drive ). The Sony might seem redundant, but for the extra $50 it's nice to have a faster CD burn than what the Pioneer can do.

 

[ed21x]

I suggest going the 875 route for the dual ddr functionality. Also, choose a MB with integrated LAN and 6 channel audio. Right now, the integrated audio of most newer MB's are as good as any Soundblaster Audigy card and can surely save you a good amount of cash and clutter inside your case. For the ram, I've used both Kingston Valueram and Corsaire XMS and havn't really noticed a difference among them besides the fancy color/heatsink on the latter.

 

[Trendkill]

Hey Mech, what kind of messenger service do you use? You seem to be full of insight and if i could, i'd like to contact you to talk further about things. If you don't want to post it on here, send me an email with your information, my email is Trendkillcfh02@yahoo.com. It would be much appreciated!

 

[Trendkill]

and if anyone else has any more useful suggestions, please keep em coming! I'm looking for as much info as i can from people that have experience in computer parts.

 

[biostud]

get a GF FX5900 XT (SE) instead of the 9600XT it can be bought at newegg for 188 and is far faster:

Review at hothardware

 

[mechBgon]

Originally posted by: Trendkill
Hey Mech, what kind of messenger service do you use? You seem to be full of insight and if i could, i'd like to contact you to talk further about things. If you don't want to post it on here, send me an email with your information, my email is Trendkillcfh02@yahoo.com. It would be much appreciated!

I don't use an instant-messenger service, but I'm here a lot so don't hesitate to send me a Private Message using the lil' padlock icon on the right there

 

[snidy1]

I have the Asus P4C800-E and the Abit IC7-G. Both are great boards, the Asus is slightly faster and some nice options, but I like the Abits bios a little better. If I could only have one, I would choose the Asus though.