Friend says he has $2500 for a computer...

[overst33r]

He would prefer not to overclock, he wants to play at the highest possible detail on the native resolution...(its usually 16xx by 12xx). I dont think it's smart to go either SLI nor Crossfire, because every 5 or 6 months a card comes out that is better than two combined...

No peripherals needed as of now.

Is the x1900xt the best choice? If so, is the proc a bottleneck?

Is decent watercooling possible or should i just stick with a scythe ninja?

I realize that the next socket is just around the corner, but i will tell him what he can get now and compare what he can get later, and he will tell me if he wants to wait or not.


Here is the parts i have picked out so far...suggestions welcome... (prices include shipping to FL)

Case: Antec P180 ~$123

PSU: SEASONIC S12 500W ~140

Mobo: DFI LanParty UT nF4-D ~$119

CPU: AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+ ~$458

Video: ATI Radeon X1900XT 512MB ~$517

RAM: OCZ (2 x 1GB) (OCZ4002048ELDCPE-K) ~$185 AR

Optical: NEC 3550 ~$44

Cooling: Scythe NCU-2000 w/Nexus 120mm ~$60

HDD (RAID 0?): 2x Seagate 7200.9 250GB SATA 3.0Gb/s ~$218

Monitor: Dell UltraSharp 2005FPW ~$465

Total: ~$2340

 

[Malladine]

That setup looks fine...you don't need help from us

I believe even the fx60 would bottleneck the x1900 series. I heard that cpu speeds are the problem now. Correct me if i'm wrong.

 

[Jaxidian]

Does that case have one of the newer PSUs with the extra pins on it? If not, then you'll need to buy another PSU. I'm too lazy to look

 

[overst33r]

Originally posted by: Jaxidian
Does that case have one of the newer PSUs with the extra pins on it? If not, then you'll need to buy another PSU. I'm too lazy to look

oh sh!t totally forgot!

 

[A5]

If he's not going to overclock, the DFI probably isn't a good choice - I'd get a comparable ASUS(or other top-name) board. The DFI is a good board, but it's designed to have the crap tweaked out of it, not necessarily to be the most stable.

Don't worry about RAID 0 unless you're buying two HDDs anyway.

Again, if he's not overclocking, the OCZ ram is probably overkill - tight stock timings translate to a 2-3% gain at best.

If he wants the highest possible detail at native res of a 20" LCD (1680x1050), he's going to need to go to Crossfire/SLI at some point - or keep buying $400 cards every year. May as well look into SLI and Crossfire motherboards to keep the option open.

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

If he's not overclocking, why do you have an overclocking board and a $60 heatsink picked out with watercooling in consideration?

 

[cubby1223]

Ditch the raid.

Go with value ram - mail in rebates are very iffy, I just had one rejected from Mushkin for saying I didn't send the UPC, which I did... $50 in mail in rebates on the OCZ ram is a gamble.

& see what kind of Dell coupons are out there for that monitor.

 

[cubby1223]

Originally posted by: YOyoYOhowsDAjello
If he's not overclocking, why do you have an overclocking board and a $60 heatsink picked out with watercooling in consideration?

Exactly.

I've got a friend with the X2 4400 cpu, and the stock amd hsf is massive with I think an 80+mm fan & two heatpipes. It keeps it sufficiently cool.

 

[overst33r]

Originally posted by: A5
If he's not going to overclock, the DFI probably isn't a good choice - I'd get a comparable ASUS(or other top-name) board. The DFI is a good board, but it's designed to have the crap tweaked out of it, not necessarily to be the most stable.

Don't worry about RAID 0 unless you're buying two HDDs anyway.

Again, if he's not overclocking, the OCZ ram is probably overkill - tight stock timings translate to a 2-3% gain at best.

If he wants the highest possible detail at native res of a 20" LCD (1680x1050), he's going to need to go to Crossfire/SLI at some point - or keep buying $400 cards every year. May as well look into SLI and Crossfire motherboards to keep the option open.

I agree on the RAM although it's at a decent price. I have never read any problems with stability on the DFI board, I might take a look at Epox though.

I am getting 2 HDDs, and i was wondering if RAID would be a good solution. I will ask him what he thinks about the SLI/ CF deal.

 

[Dimkaumd]

Try to get a liquid cooled computer. I got mine from pugetsystems.com a couple of months back and im very happy. good customer service too.

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

Why two harddrives?

 

[overst33r]

Originally posted by: YOyoYOhowsDAjello
If he's not overclocking, why do you have an overclocking board and a $60 heatsink picked out with watercooling in consideration?

I forgot to mention, he did consider OCing but only if he has too. The heatsink is 45 bucks but the voltage adjustable fan is 15. I'm trying to keep it as quiet as possible. I dont know if there is such a thing as a simple but effective WC system on the market, that is why I asked, and I would think his budget can handle it with some tweaking.

 

[overst33r]

Originally posted by: YOyoYOhowsDAjello
Why two harddrives?

Because i am not sure if RAID is the best choice or a 400GB HDD would be the better choice. Plus its much cheaper...

 

[Jaxidian]

Originally posted by: A5
If he's not going to overclock, the DFI probably isn't a good choice - I'd get a comparable ASUS(or other top-name) board. The DFI is a good board, but it's designed to have the crap tweaked out of it, not necessarily to be the most stable.

Don't worry about RAID 0 unless you're buying two HDDs anyway.

Again, if he's not overclocking, the OCZ ram is probably overkill - tight stock timings translate to a 2-3% gain at best.

If he wants the highest possible detail at native res of a 20" LCD (1680x1050), he's going to need to go to Crossfire/SLI at some point - or keep buying $400 cards every year. May as well look into SLI and Crossfire motherboards to keep the option open.

I agree completely about the DFI. Unless he wants to spend a LOT of time tweaking it for best stability, go with another board. I'm not saying anything bad about the DFI board as I have one in my main box and LOVE it but I also spent about 2+ weeks getting it stable and overclocking the crap out of my poor 3200 Venice.

I agree with the RAID comment as well as long as the user isn't planning on buying more drives later. However, having it around just in case isn't a bad idea and it comes for free with many mobos now, so if you can, might as well get a board that supports it just in case.

OCZ RAM is sometimes cheap too. Buy what's right for the price (ask for a list of acceptable name brands if you don't already know and don't buy "cheap" brand memory) but that's not to say, don't buy OCZ.

With something like an ATI X800XL, you can play games with reasonably high settings at native resolutions on 20" LCD's. I play EQ2 on a non-widescreen 20" Dell (1600x1200) with some of the settings at max and some others turned down or off but overall, it's much higher than on my secondary gaming box. If you want everything turned up all the way at that resolution, expect to spend big bucks on video cards! The video card you have listed is probably not cost-effective for what this person wants but don't let me be the one to say what he or she really wants.

Good luck!

 

[Bobthelost]

Why 2 HDs? A single WD4000KD would give you 400gb of space and be faster than a single 200gb 9.7200. Slower for really big files than the RAID0, but saves all the headaches and for most tasks it'd be faster.

 

[Jaxidian]

Originally posted by: mariok2006

Originally posted by: YOyoYOhowsDAjello
If he's not overclocking, why do you have an overclocking board and a $60 heatsink picked out with watercooling in consideration?

I forgot to mention, he did consider OCing but only if he has too. The heatsink is 45 bucks but the voltage adjustable fan is 15. I'm trying to keep it as quiet as possible. I dont know if there is such a thing as a simple but effective WC system on the market, that is why I asked, and I would think his budget can handle it with some tweaking.

If you want simple, don't get water cooling. It's a lot of work.

 

[Miklebud]

Originally posted by: Jaxidian


If you want simple, don't get water cooling. It's a lot of work.

So true.

 

[Superoo]

I'm running an X2 4400+ at stock speeds with the supplied stock HSF.
Last week the ambient temp in the room where my system is would have been hovering around 29C. The CPU never reached more than high 30's.

 

[Tostada]

I agree with pretty much everything people are saying except the freak saying to get a water-cooled system.

With that budget, though, you should probably be getting a Raptor 150. You need to decide definitely whether or not you're going to overclock. If you're not, it would be a total waste to get that mobo and heatsink but not get the fastest hard drive you can.

Originally posted by: mariok2006

Originally posted by: YOyoYOhowsDAjello
Why two harddrives?

Because i am not sure if RAID is the best choice or a 400GB HDD would be the better choice. Plus its much cheaper...

RAID is usually irrelevant. Depending on what he's doing, you'll often be much better off having separate drives. RAID rarely helps anything, but if you do anything like DVD encoding, you'll get a big boost from being able to encode from one drive to another instead of reading and writing on the same drive. If you don't think that matters, and you're not going to be separating your OS from your data, the 400GB one would be a little better, but a 400GB drive is the same price as two 250GB ones, so you're missing out on 100GB there.

http://www.storagereview.com/php/benchm...0=292&devID_1=285&devID_2=314&devCnt=3

I'd get 2 x 250GB WD2500KS drives if you want a lot of space, or 1 x Raptor 150 if you don't need the space.

It really depends how you're using it, though. You can run into a lot of situations where you want to rip a DVD to your D: drive while you're accessing stuff on your C: drive, or you want to do any number of things that read a file from your C: drive onto your D: drive, or have a ton of ISOs (using Alcohol to keep from ever having to use your CDs again) on your D: drive that you can install on your C: drive, or having Ghost backups on a separate drive for safety/security (and so you don't have to partition off your C: drive). Ideally I'd get a Raptor 150 for the C: drive and then either a 160GB Seagate 7200.9 or a 250GB WD2500KS from the D: drive, but that's about $400.

 

[unclebud]

19" widescreen lcd
http://www.officedepot.com/ddSKU.do?level=SK&id=617762&&An=text