Need advice on components please...

[ksuWildcat]

Well, I am looking at building a "new" machine for myself (this is a temporary box until I get an X2 at the end of the year) and interchanging some parts with some of my other boxes to create another rig for my GF.

A little background: if you look at my sig, you can see my current specs. It's a good machine, but it is much slower than my roommate's 3200 A64. When I'm playing Generals, I get some serious lag once the game gets going. His is fluid at all times.

Anyway, I just wanted to throw out some ideas and see what others had to say. Here is what I am considering purchasing:

3.2 Northwood (alt., 3.4 Prescott)
ABIT IC7-G Max2 (alt., ASUS P4C800-E Deluxe)
1 GB OCZ RAM, anything for OCing

I guess I could go A64 now, but I do like how responsive my machine is for business/multitasking.

Anyone out there have opinions on the IC7-G M2 vs. P4C800-E Del?

How about for Northwood vs. Prescott? I like to OC, but stock performace w/ stability is more important than sheer OC performance.

BTW: I have a P4C800-E Del, and it's very stable when stock, but not a great OCer. Get's to be unstable ~240+ FSB.

 

[mparr1708]

Originally posted by: ksuWildcat
Well, I am looking at building a "new" machine for myself (this is a temporary box until I get an X2 at the end of the year) and interchanging some parts with some of my other boxes to create another rig for my GF.

A little background: if you look at my sig, you can see my current specs. It's a good machine, but it is much slower than my roommate's 3200 A64. When I'm playing Generals, I get some serious lag once the game gets going. His is fluid at all times.

Anyway, I just wanted to throw out some ideas and see what others had to say. Here is what I am considering purchasing:

3.2 Northwood (alt., 3.4 Prescott)
ABIT IC7-G Max2 (alt., ASUS P4C800-E Deluxe)
1 GB OCZ RAM, anything for OCing

I guess I could go A64 now, but I do like how responsive my machine is for business/multitasking.

Anyone out there have opinions on the IC7-G M2 vs. P4C800-E Del?

How about for Northwood vs. Prescott? I like to OC, but stock performace w/ stability is more important than sheer OC performance.

BTW: I have a P4C800-E Del, and it's very stable when stock, but not a great OCer. Get's to be unstable ~240+ FSB.

IMHO you arnt making enough of an upgrade to warrant the money spent for what you have suggested. I would say bank the cash until you are ready to go all out. Just my opinion though.

 

[Amplifier]

Ok I say this often, my P4 w/HT isn't noticably better at multitasking than my A64.

That said...

Get a 3000+ 939 venice. Since you know how to OC you'll get it to 2.4 pretty easily. Grab a gig of decent value memory. Then after you decide on whether you want AGP or PCIE I'll recommend a good GPU/mobo .

p.s. If it's APG I'll say 6800gt and if it's PCIE I'll say either 6600gt/X800XL.

 

[ksuWildcat]

First off, thanks for the replies everyone!

Yeah, I pretty much figured that A64 would be a better route. I just want to hold out on that until the X2 comes out, and I want to see how SLI matures next quarter.

I have a lot of spare stuff laying around, and I figured I can build a new P4 system (and cannibalize some parts to make a 2nd P4 system) for less than an A64 system, simply because if I were to get an A64, I'd go with the DFI LanParty NF4 SLI Ultra and OCZ VX RAM. I was thinking...maybe a San Diego 3700+ and that setup until the X2. What do you guys think about that?

The only thing is, if I were to go the P4 route, I doubt that I'd spend more than about $650. But for my "dream system" A64, I bet it'd be well over $1000, simply because of what I really want with that. I'm stubborn, I know .

My roommate's 3200 A64 is nice, and faster than my P4, that is until we start encoding and multitasking with more than 10 apps running. Then my P4 *seems* more responsive than his A64, but it could be subjective.

 

[rise]

a 3000+ venice, dfi ultra d and 6800gt will run you about 650. add an sli option for 50 more if you want ( i did just in case i want to add another later)

i'm not sure how your memory will run, check dfi.street for compatibility/recommended list, for your psu as well.

i'm thinking of a san diego from my winnie but i'm debating on the price/performance gain.

 

[ksuWildcat]

Well, I think you guys have convinced me to do more than I had originally hoped LOL. I've got to get an A64.

It looks like the EVGA 6800 GT can be had for under $300. Is this a decent price and what do you guys think about EVGA? Or is there something else that you would recommend. I like the ATI 800XT or whatever their 2nd best card is called, but I don't want to spend that much.

 

[TGS]

x800 XL for around the same performance of the GT for the ATI route.

Grab a 3000+ or 3200+ run a divider for memory, run the memory as close to 200 with the lowest latency as it's been shown 1:1 doesn't offer a huge performance gain, vice versa dividers don't impact A64s much at all.

Though I speak from the gamer perspective, as A64s are the better gaming route. Depending on the Apps you are running keeping Intel may be the better choice.

If you choose the A64 route for Overclocking, look more towards a 3700+ San Diego, as the results have been much more impressive than Winchester or Venice (2.3-26 vs SD 2.6-2.8 on good air).

My Winchester is only stable around 2.3 so I would look at a San Diego for my next upgrade, unless Dual-cores prices drop dramatically.

 

[ksuWildcat]

OK, that sounds good then. San Diego 3700+ and the DFI SLI board.

Still hung up on the vid card though. Either way, I can't afford a 2nd card now, but for a single card solution, I believe ATi has the advantage, no?

Oh, and with the improved memory controller of the Venice/San Diego, would it be worth it to get 4x512 MB sticks of OCZ VX? I can always use more mem, so long as I don't have to suffer from slower timings or cmd rates. This machine will also be running part time as a test server for some software I'm writing, so 2 GB of RAM might be helpful.

Thanks for the suggestions!

 

[rise]

lol, now you're on a 3700+

anyway, i have the evga 6800gt pci-e, i've had 2 actually, both clock easily to ultra speeds. but where are you seeing 300? i just got one for 359 i thought was good.

i'm telling you, if you're set on a dfi, go to dfi.street. they have dfi employees as mods, ocz reps, buffalo reps, great support. just make a thread with your proposed specs and they'll give you the deal. there is definitely a certain bias towards ocz, especially psu, but if you have a good 24 pin psu, preferably with 480w, they won't bite

edit--and the dfi mods are tech guys, they have boards set up and running, tweaking, oc'ing etc. at least one, Rgone, has a 3700+ up around 3 last i checked.

 

[TGS]

Well try shooting for some value ram. Supposedly you can run 4 double sided dimms at 1T opposed to running at 2T IIRC. Value ram for the divider reason, running dividers does not impact performance much at all. If you are trying to get the best rig for the cash you have, I would recommend any inexpensive ram that does 200 @ as close to 2-2-2-5. Zebo has a nice write-up on running dividers at tight timings for very good results.

As far as the x800 XL vs 6800GT pci-e versions, I was under the impression that the pci-e versions of GTs are a bit more expensive than their agp counter parts.

Other than the price, they are pretty much neck and neck for performance. Though some games run slightly better on each product. I recommend double check against the games you play to see which would fit you better.

SLI really doesn't come into play unless you run 1600x1200 4xAA 16xAF anyways. I'm running a 19" LCD that caps out at 1280x1024 so SLI is a no-go for me. As I wouldn't see any benefits for my setup.

Save up some of that VX memory money for a 19" 16MS LCD , with DVI of course.

 

[Gogar]

I'm a little concerned about recommending people to buy value ram when they plan to upgrade to the X2. The X2 will use a lot more memory bandwidth. I'd recommend getting some TCCD ram like the OCZ PC3200 rev2 Newegg has 1GB for $199 at the moment

edit: Correction! $189.99
http://www2.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820146890

 

[rise]

damn that ram keeps dropping. it was 232 a couple weeks ago. its great stuff, i'm at 275 right now.

i agree, i wouldn't get value ram, particularly on the dfi board, but thats imo.