Help, New Gaming Rig Build

[MoeBackus]

Hey guys, I just joined, and I love this board already.
Anyways,

So this is what im currently looking into building:

$129.99 Chaintech NVIDIA nForce4 MOBO
$269.00 AMD Athlon 64 3500+
$495.50 XFX nVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT
$99.99 (x2)or 1 Seagate 120GB Barracuda 7200RPM SATA II with NCQ
$175.00 OR Western Digital Raptor 74GB 10,000RPM SATA
Need help on RAM, but definetly 1 gigabyte.
Need help on a PSU, i'm thinking an Antec NeoPower 480?
Also need help on an affordable case, any recommendations?

Im also going to try out overclocking for the first time if that has any difference on recommendations...
Also feel free to suggest anything else like a different vid card or something..

Thanks!

-Moe Backus

 

[Moonbeam]

http://www.anandtech.com/guides/showdoc.aspx?i=2282

 

[ts3433]

A good case and PSU would be something like an Antec Sonata or Plus1080AMG. Both are very nice cases with TruePower PSUs (True380S in the Sonata, True430 in the 1080). If you end up getting a separate case (look at Antec, Cooler Master, and Lian Li) with no PSU (or a generic or insufficient one), look into a separate PSU from Fortron/FSP Group, Seasonic, Antec, or Enermax. (Fortron parts are used in OCZ, Zippy/Emacs, Sparkle, and PCP&C TurboCool PSUs, while Seasonic parts are used for PCP&C's Silencers. Antec is a remarketer, like OCZ and the others, and they use Channel Well. I have no idea who Enermax uses. When buying a Fortron, do NOT get one of the cheap "HiQ" models, which actually are generic trash. The others are great, though.)

I would suggest buying an AGP setup at the moment. It'll be cheaper (eVGA's AGP 6800GT is $388 at Newegg), and you shouldn't need to worry about upgrading your video card for quite a while (see how long the 9700 Pro has lasted).

For RAM, even if overclocking, just go for two 512MB sticks of Corsair/Mushkin/Crucial value RAM. See the 939 Memory Matrix stickied in the CPU/OC forum to see that running a divider doesn't affect performance much on the A64. (While on the overclocking subject, expect the stock A64 cooler to be quite effective. If you find you need something quieter or more effective later on, look into a Zalman or Thermalright setup.)

A Raptor may not be enough of a performance boost over a conventional 7200RPM drive when you factor in the price and loss of space, but it wouldn't be a bad idea to try using a Raptor as an OS/apps drive in conjunction with a larger 7200RPM drive for data storage.

 

[MoeBackus]

Thanks for the posts.

Yeah, I don't think Ill be going with the raptor after all, its way to expensive and like you said, I here from people and my cousin who has a server type of deal set-up, that it wouldn't really give you a performance increase.

SO, I should't get an nforce 4 ultra board that supports pci-e?
Wouldn't it be better/faster than to get an agp board?

 

[flamingspinach]

nForce 3 Ultra 250 Gb is an awesome chipset for socket 754 CPUs, and nForce 3 Ultra is great for socket 939s. Some good motherboards with those two chipsets are Asus K8N-E Deluxe for the former and MSI Neo2 Platinum for the latter.

-fs

 

[MoeBackus]

Since, im going to be upgrading pretty soon, I might as well go with the new generation stuff..(pci-e)
Can anyone recommend a good pci-e card?

 

[flamingspinach]

You mean a video card? The 6800GT looks fine to me (that's what's in your specs), but not sure if they come in PCI-E.

-fs

 

[Edward Lee]

Looks like an exciting system!

Although I think $99.00 is a bit much for only 120 Gig HDs. Isn't there anything cheaper?
Do you really need SATA?

 

[MoeBackus]

Yeah, good point Edward. I'm thinking though, i've used the regular IDE in the past, and since im upgrading, I might as well go with a SATA hd, seeing that they're a little faster. Im upgrading from a WD 80gig IDE hd, to a 120gig SATAII hd, because I noticed I was running out of space on my system and needed a little more. I'm just thinking I might as well go with a bigger and maybe faster, HD.

 

[homercles337]

Dont listen to the budget guys. AGP is dead if you plan on upgrading anything in the next year, your choices are nearly dead on what im currently doing.

As far as ram go with PC3200 non-ECC 2x512. Corsair, Mushkin, or Kingston. Let price dicate this. If you want to spend extra for 3500 or whatever for more stable 1:1 overclocks do it.
If you go with the Raptors buy 2 of them and do a RAID0. I have kind of given up on this and plan on doing a 7200 x 2 RAID0 config or no RAID at all. Performance gains are minimal, plus you have to worry about 1 of 2 drives failing which will result in total data loss.
Cases are cases, im going with the Coolermaster Wavemaster or the Tsunami by Thermaltake.

Question: you claim to plan on buying sataII HDs. Care to provide linkage? As far as i can tell these drives are not on the market yet.

 

[flamingspinach]

AGP is not dead...

-fs

 

[Stangs55]

ram - OCZ Plat Pro Rev 2

 

[Edward Lee]

AGP is not dead. PCI-e card right now isn't any faster than any AGP card. Although next generations cards might be faster there is no guaranty that it will be a significant improvement over current AGP speeds. The real advantage of PCI-e I think will come from peripherals.

 

[imported_Krypto]

I have a quick questions, what is case latency for ram? Is it better to have more or less of this?

 

[homercles337]

In terms of upgrading down the line AGP is a dead end. If you build a new rig every few years (every 3 years like me) then you have to go with a PCIe mobo now. Thats all i was trying to communicate. However, if you build a new rig every 9 months to a year, then AGP is fine for now until there is more PCIe market penetration.

 

[Dijital]

Originally posted by: MoeBackus
Since, im going to be upgrading pretty soon, I might as well go with the new generation stuff..(pci-e)
Can anyone recommend a good pci-e card?

i like my xfx 6800gt pci-e, but my friend has the ati x800pro agp. both come in agp and pci-e flavors so take your pick.

depends upon your use really, but ati is optimized for HL2, while nvidia is optimized for doom 3, etc.

both are actually good products. just got to watch out for price gauging since the demand is high and supplies are low.

 

[Kiad]

heres a really big change i would make. i recently bought a system almost exactly like yours and then found myself kicking myself because i got the wrong CPU. i highly suggest u not get the 3500+ cpu that u are looking to buy for 269. That cpu is the .13m chip. There is a new chip thats on the 9m platform thats 3500+. its basically the same card as the $700 4000+s but scaled back. this 9m cpu can be overclocked like CRAZY. it costs about $305 and is worth the upgrade if u ever think about overclocking in the future.

 

[doublejbass]

Make sure to read Zebo's RAM thread, you'll see that for your 969 A64 processor, performance RAM is wasted money over value ram.

 

[MoeBackus]

homercles337, http://www.newegg.com/app/View...tion=22-148-039&depa=0
for the sataII hd

 

[MoeBackus]

Originally posted by: Kiad
heres a really big change i would make. i recently bought a system almost exactly like yours and then found myself kicking myself because i got the wrong CPU. i highly suggest u not get the 3500+ cpu that u are looking to buy for 269. That cpu is the .13m chip. There is a new chip thats on the 9m platform thats 3500+. its basically the same card as the $700 4000+s but scaled back. this 9m cpu can be overclocked like CRAZY. it costs about $305 and is worth the upgrade if u ever think about overclocking in the future.

wait so.. is there a link on this??

 

[Kiad]

unfortunately i do not know of a link for this. this was actually shown to me by a friend who works for the IT dept at axa financial. he bought the newer version of the 3500+ and oc'ed the card to 4000+ speeds with virtually no mods. he says the cpu is more or less the 4000+ card intentially scaled back. incidently, he did the same to the old 2500+ barton and oc'ed it to 3200+ speeds. this is the same concept, 1.5 years later.


i was hoping he could oc my 3500+ .13m chip but alas it is a different beast. a 30 dollar cheaper beast.

 

[MoeBackus]

w00t! I found it! http://www.newegg.com/app/View...tion=19-103-498&depa=0

Thanks for bringing that to attention. Is the link above what you're talking about??

 

[MoeBackus]

Can anyone recommend any ram. People have recommended PQI, Corsair, and others. Certain Models would help.
http://www.newegg.com/app/view...tion=20-141-194&depa=0
Is that some good ram for gaming maybe?
I might do a little overclocking too, but I don't know.

Thanks!

 

[ts3433]

That RAM's overkill. You can save about $100 by going with Corsair/Mushkin/Crucial value RAM. That's perfectly sufficient for anything, even overclocking, because dividers don't kill A64 performance when overclocking. Read about it here. Lower timings at stock speed aren't going to do a whole lot for you either.

 

[SaberDicer]

If you're getting the chaintech board, you need to get a 24pin PSU ( I know this from expirience, as I bought a chaintech board with a 20 pin PSU and nothing happened, RMAing it now)