Opinions please on computer build

[Mongoo]

This is what I'm thinking.

AMD Athlon 64 3500 90nm
MSI NeoPlatinum 4 Mother board
Antec Sonata Case
Cosair Value select Ram 1 Gig
Hardrive SATA2 (segate? with or without NCQ?) - Quite with storage compacity is most important.
NEC 3500A (Already own)
Leadtek PCIe Nforce 6600 GT
XP home OME
Antivirus software (Which one?)

Overall this computer will be used pro video, audio, and picture editing, with some gaming on the side. A quite system would be nice.

What is the best Monitor for picture and video editing within resonable price.

What are the steps you need to take to get it funcitioning once it is build and turned on for the first time? I'm new to this. Any settings I need to set?

Thanks.

I hope to purchase tomarrow so any help would be great. Also if anyone knows of online cupons or of any great deals let me know.

 

[ribbon13]

A lot of people are going to tell you the 3500 is too much.

If you get an nForce4 based board definately go for the Seagates with NCQ. The 7200.8 seris is nice. SATAII controller and drives

 

[ribbon13]

As for monitors, NEC\Mitsubishi are the best made. Is $200 for a nice 19" ok?
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=24-002-248&depa=0

 

[Plumcuda1]

I like THIS COMBO

 

[Pr0d1gy]

Yep, get a 3000+ and spend that money on a better video card.

 

[Mongoo]

ribbon13, thanks for the link. I was actually looking at an NEC CRT monitor but don't remember the model number. It was listed as the best pick of anandtech's mid range guide around $250 I think.


Do all of these parts look compatible? I also need to get a modem for my dial up connection, what do you recommend?

And do you mean the AMD 3500 is too much money or too much power? I was told not to skimp on a processor before and it is the most resonably priced higher end processor. Sure a little more then the next step down, but alot lest then the next step up, you know.


Also, what do I do once the machine is put together? Like I power it up for the first time and then what happens? What needs to happen?


And will this be a quite computer? How quiet? Thanks.

 

[ribbon13]

If all is well, you'll need to go into the bios and make sure an Optical is somewhere in the boot order. Then you stick your windows CD in it and boot from it. Then you install windows!

The 3500 is overpriced compared to a Winchester 3000 or 3200 overclocked.

 

[Mongoo]

But wouldn't an out of box 3500 beat an out of box 3000 or 3200 and and overclocked 3500 beat an overclocked 3000 or 3200?

 

[ribbon13]

#1 yes
#2 not always

 

[Mongoo]

Well why would they sell them for more if the cheaper chips were faster overclocked? Why would people buy the 3500 at all?


Over clocking is interesting, but I doubt I will do it at first becuase I have little understanding of the safety issues and just plain won't know how.

 

[ptortore]

You can overclock most 3000's pretty easily, and they're a lot cheaper than the 3500. Seagate and Samsung seem to be the best value per meg, and quietest in my experience (just bought my 11th Barracuda today, never had an issue with one of them!) and being the owner of a 6600G myself, I can say I'm very happy with the performance, especially in comparison to what they cost compared to the next model up.

For keeping it cool, investing a better cooling solution for the CPU may assist you there, the HDDs aren't that loud to begin with, but if the motherboard has fan control software it's of great benefit. The best MB for fan control software in my opinion at present is Aopen. Asus also have some decent software to slow the speeds when not required, but it's been a couple years since my last MSI MB and I can't recall what it shipped with (may be diff. now anyway)

Put simply, if you're willing to to invest a few dollars in some after market items for cooling afterwards, you can greatly reduce most system's noise output. I replaced my GPU cooler, CPU cooler, and chipset cooler. They're all much quiter now and run cooler- and new system I build I factor these costs in as for some reason most OEM's are still happy to make excellent hardware coupled with crap cooling.

I've always been surprised how easy it is to set up machines, plug everything in and turn it on (cross your fingers too). One big hint I could offer: Ensure you have a firewall and virus S/ware BEFORE attaching to the net, it takes me around 5 minutes to get a new install infected without them- the web is filthy these days.

in terms of installing al your drivers for different componenets, if somthing asks you if you want to reboot after the install now or later, always choose now. Install one thing at a time and try reboot in between has resulted in the most robust installs for me.

One final thing I usually do is get an image of the machine once it has the OS installed and basic apps (virus scanner, firewall, drivers, codecs etc) as with a completely new system I often find myself re-installing it a few times to start with for some reason or another and it's HEAPS quicker to re-image the drive rather than wait for windows and drivers every time.

Just curious, you going for the SLI version (I noticed your 6600 is GT- ie. SLI capable)

Hopefully some of this has been helpful.

 

[ribbon13]

Overclocking technically voids the warranty and a lot of people need speed but are afraid of tweaking thier system. For some people the cost is worth it.

 

[Mongoo]

I won't be getting sli, its too expensive and I figure it will never be mainstream. I want to game a bit once I build it, but I just can't justify the extra cost of sli.

 

[Ike0069]

When OC'ing the Winchester's are the best, but they still have thermal limits. The basic idea is that a 3000 will OC to 2.4-2.6 GHz, and a 3500 likely won't go much, if any past 2.6 GHz due to heat. That is the reason to go with the cheaper CPU when OC'ing. I would get the 3200 though, just to get the 10X multiplier.

 

[nick1985]

Originally posted by: Pr0d1gy
Yep, get a 3000+ and spend that money on a better video card.

 

[sigpop]

at the risk of being outcast from at formums, wouldnt an intel platform be better performance wise for his main purpose?

 

[WPFossil]

I agree that you should go with a 3000+ system.

When I've overclocked my 3000+ (from 2.0 to 2.2), there was almost no difference in benchmarks. Overclocking the video card improved performance significantly.

Spend the money you'd save on the CPU to get a FX6800

 

[Ike0069]

Originally posted by: WPFossil
Spend the money you'd save on the CPU to get a FX6800

Don't know anything about that card.

 

[VickDude]

go with Windows XP PRO

Antivirus - www.kaspersky.com

 

[WPFossil]

Originally posted by: Ike0069

Originally posted by: WPFossil
Spend the money you'd save on the CPU to get a FX6800

Don't know anything about that card.

Yeah, forgot they dropped the FX

How 'bout GeForce 6800

 

[ptortore]

Originally posted by: sigpop
at the risk of being outcast from at formums, wouldnt an intel platform be better performance wise for his main purpose?

When I was looking at a new machine recently, I felt the same way- Intel was still better for encoding. Trouble was that AMD now seems to hold the cards in almost EVERY other area, and the nForce4 chipset looked seemed SO much more feature-filled.
My compromise was to get a cheap(ish) AMD64 cpu in a good system, overclock the heck out of it now, and then get a new one when the SSE3 instructions are included early 2005 in their new chips (which should then ensure AMD wins in the encoding arean as well). As it turns out, I can overclock a lot more than I thought, AND I just read my MB is already dual core compatible!!

When all's said and done, it's been a while since my last AMD (and I have as much loyalty to Intel and AMD as they have for me, ie. bubkas) but I'm one happy camper with the decisision to switch.

Alslo, I just installed WinXP-64, I can't do that on any of my intel rigs!!

 

[40Hands]

I went with the NEC/Mitisu Diamondtron 930sb and never looked back. A little higher price but I LOVE this thing

 

[sigpop]

Originally posted by: ptortore

Originally posted by: sigpop
at the risk of being outcast from at formums, wouldnt an intel platform be better performance wise for his main purpose?

When I was looking at a new machine recently, I felt the same way- Intel was still better for encoding. Trouble was that AMD now seems to hold the cards in almost EVERY other area, and the nForce4 chipset looked seemed SO much more feature-filled.
My compromise was to get a cheap(ish) AMD64 cpu in a good system, overclock the heck out of it now, and then get a new one when the SSE3 instructions are included early 2005 in their new chips (which should then ensure AMD wins in the encoding arean as well). As it turns out, I can overclock a lot more than I thought, AND I just read my MB is already dual core compatible!!

When all's said and done, it's been a while since my last AMD (and I have as much loyalty to Intel and AMD as they have for me, ie. bubkas) but I'm one happy camper with the decisision to switch.

Alslo, I just installed WinXP-64, I can't do that on any of my intel rigs!!

i looked for some recent comparison between cpu/chipsets that compared some of the more 'common' stuff (i.e. amd winchester 3500 vs intel p4 540, not FX chips and EE chips). i was looking for photo editing, code compiliation, db services, vid editing/rendering. i play a few games on the side, but that other stuff takes priority.

i'm considering the s939 nv4ultra mobos and amd because of the price diff. the 925xe mobos were ridiculously priced, altho most had a few more features than the amd ones. if 939 will support the dual core then it will be a nice path.

 

[ptortore]

Apparently AMD state 939 will support dual core with a BIOS upgrade, in fact my 939 board (A8N-SLI) is the board they're currently using to show off their dual core unit at the moment. I also understand that even if the Intel 775 socket is utilised for dual cores, the chipset will be incompatible, so for pentiums a new MB will be required.
In any case, I had little difficulty getting my 3000 up past the stock speeds of the 4000 and so I think it should still beat a stock (or slightly overclocked) P4 3.5 in encoding- even taking the P4s supremacy in that area into account.

 

[dev0lution]

I think in both cases you're better served waiting it out a bit. Intel you'll have to upgrade the mobo and processor to get 64 bit at the minimum, but with AMD you'll be left out once DDR2 and some of the other newer technologies take off since they did their best to make them backward compatible.

I wouldn't mind running on AMD about now, but the signature set-up only cost about $700 total through some channel promos. Unfortunately, Intel being the 200lb gorilla (and making their own mobo's) can push the market to adapt new chipsets, standards, etc a lot faster than AMD. Having to rely on third party chipsets/boards can take a bit longer to get everything working together flawlessly with all the new-fangled tech. But who knows, AMD's basically the uncrowned king right now for chips so hopefully my next build will be around AMD ...gotta love rooting for the corporate underdog!