Rate my gaming/programming system!

[FlyBono24]

I've finally decided on everything I want... does anyone have any recommendations?

My main two things are GAMING, and programming in Visual Studio.NET 2003/2005... and obviously internet and office tasks.


Here are my specs:

*CPU ? AMD Athlon San Diego 3700+ CPU ($325)
*CPU Heatsink ? Thermalright XP90C ($48)
*CPU Fan ? Panasonic Panaflo 92mm High-speed ($8)
*Motherboard ? Asus A8N-SLI Premium ($185)
*Hard Drive ? WD Raptor 74 GB 10,000 RPM SATA ($196)
*Case ? Cooler Master Praetorian black ($109)
*Power Supply ? Enermax EG565AX-VEFMA 2.0 SLI ($113)
*Memory ? 2x512MB OCZ Gold ($136)
*Video Card ? BFG 256MB GeForce 6800GT OC ($349)
*Drive Bay 1 ? NEC ND-3520A silver ($48)
*Monitor ? Viewsonic VP171B-2 17? LCD ($338)
*Speakers ? Logitech X-530 5-speaker system ($54)
*Keyboard ? Saitek Black Eclipse ($47)
*Mouse ? Logitech MX518 Gaming Mouse ($35)

Optional:
*Sound Card ? SoundBlaster Audigy 2 ZS ($84)
*Drive Bay 2 ? Sony DVD-ROM ($22)

 

[theMan]

i would get ocz plat rev 2 pc3200 instead.

 

[shoRunner]

i'd go with a cheaper board, anything thats on the SLI premium thats actually worth the $85 more than a normal board? (probably not). and are you really gonna get by with only 74gb of storage?

 

[FlyBono24]

*What's the difference between the Gold and Platinum OCZ memory? There isn't a large difference in the price, and the Gold has a better latency, right?

*My current computer is only about 30GB full... I don't expect to have a LOT more than that, maybe a few more gigs worth of music... but if I need more I'll just get an identical drive and stripe them.

 

[FlyBono24]

The Premium is the best one for OC'ing, from everything I've read... and it doesn't have an issue with the memory speed like the other ones.

 

[Acanthus]

Beautiful rig, although i personally dont trust Viewsonic LCDs.

 

[EQTitan]

I sent a PM asking where you found the MX518 for only $35, as I'm looking to get one atm...

 

[FlyBono24]

CompUSA with employee discount.

 

[EQTitan]

(nudge nudge) Can you pass along the savings?

 

[FlyBono24]

LOL.... go get hired for like 2 weeks and buy a bunch of sh1t, and then quit....

 

[EQTitan]

Unfortunatly I work 18hrs 6 days a week, so working for CompUSA = no go... thanks though. If you ever decide to help out the community i'm sure there are a few more like me out here that would be glad to reimburse ya...

 

[FlyBono24]

I wish I could but they keep track of everything you buy... if you buy 2 of anything they start asking questions... hell, people could be buying LCD's at cost and selling them for $50 markup on Ebay... quick way to make money, but you'd also lose your job pretty quick. And I NEED this job, at least until I get my degree.

 

[shoRunner]

Originally posted by: FlyBono24
The Premium is the best one for OC'ing, from everything I've read... and it doesn't have an issue with the memory speed like the other ones.

if your going for overclocking get a DFI then...save $50

 

[mechBgon]

Are you sure you want a high-speed 92mm? For an A64 with that heatsink, it might be noisier than necessary, unless you plan some ragged-edge overclocking.

I'd be thinking of one of these, but then again I already have the controller, cable and terminator. Isn't there quite a bit of intense disk I/O in your programming work?

 

[FlyBono24]

I live in SoCal, it can get pretty hot here... and my computer room gets pretty warm... I wanted to be on the safe side. I'll only be doing a minor OC, about 400MHz above stock. Do you think a medium-speed Panaflo would work for my configuration and location?

That SCSI is nice, but pretty expensive!! I don't have a controller or anything either, so that's out of the question.

 

[mechBgon]

The other thing you could do, is just power the Panaflo off of a modified 4-pin-to-3-pin adapter to give it 7 volts instead of 12V. You know the typical 4-pin-to-3-pin adapter, which has two 4-pin shells with red-black-black-yellow wires joining them. Take out the red one and the adjacent black one, then move the remaining black one over to where the red one was. That puts your fan's ground wire at +5V so the electrical potential is 12V - 5V = 7V.

Ghetto, but almost free and easily undone Anyway, I cool a 3000+ Winchester with an 18dB 18cfm 80mm fan on an Alpha heatsink and your fan has something like 3x-4x the airflow, so I'm thinking it could be more noise than is really necessary.

 

[mechBgon]

Oh, and I have to remark on this:

That SCSI is nice, but pretty expensive!! I don't have a controller or anything either, so that's out of the question.

If 36GB would work for you, then hey, it's only $4 more than the Raptor.

If you find this idea growing on you, Buck_Naked is selling his Tektram Ultra160 controller/cable/terminator kit for $50 shipped: For Sale & Trade thread Ultra160 is enough headroom for a single U320 drive, it tops out at "only" 98MB/sec peak sustained transfer rates.

Pretty sure I'm gonna get one of thems when payday comes...

 

[FlyBono24]

36GB is pretty small... but 74GB should suffice, and like I said, I would add another later if I need it... so I'm gonna stick with the SATA setup. You can go ahead and swoop that one up when payday comes.

 

[GuitarDaddy]

Like was said earlier, get the platinum rev2 not the Gold. The gold requires over 3.0v and this board won't give that much

 

[FlyBono24]

Coincidentally, I was just changing my Newegg wish list to include the Platinum R2 memory.... 2x512 MB.

 

[FlyBono24]

bump

 

[wmansfield]

People may disagree, but I'd get a 19" LCD instead. Get a A64 3500 instead of the 3700 (you won't know see any difference anyway) and use that to upgrade your display.

 

[HellRaven]

People may disagree, but I'd get a 19" LCD instead. Get a A64 3500 instead of the 3700 (you won't know see any difference anyway) and use that to upgrade your display.

I would agree. Your going to be spending an awful lot of time staring at your monitor, so I would get a larger one that is easier on the eyes. I personally have a Dell 2001FP LCD which is about 19" that I haven't regretted buying once. I don't know if I would feel the same way if it was only a 17" monitor.

I would aso agree with the recommendation to get a slower speed fan. There is some evidence I have read from other forums and one review that on the XP-90c there is not a huge difference in cooling efficiency between a low speed and high speed 92mm fan on this particular heatsink. I think I got that from the overclockers.com forum.

As far as the video card, the 6800GT is a good choice. I personally went with the Radeon x800xl as it performs fairly closely to the 6800GT and can be had for $250 currently at monarch computers (see hot deal forum if interested).

 

[FlyBono24]

In that case I may get a medium-speed fan... it's an awesome heatsink either way. As for the monitor, I'll consider it... I sit pretty close, but if I can get a 19" with a low response time (for gaming) then I'll get that one. Most likely the 19" version of that Viewsonic, the VP191-B.... if I remember correctly it also has an 8ms RT.

The cheapest I've seen the 6800GT OC card was $349 on Newegg... is Monarch a reputable dealer?

 

[The Pentium Guy]

What kind of programming do you do? (I do mostly game programming in VB.NET ).
Seriously, as MechBGon said - Programming is definately Disk/IO intensive. Your biggest bottleneck will be your harddrive. But then again, you're getting a raptor. If you're seriously a hardcore programmer, I'd get the SCSI drive (that's just me, I absolutely DETEST waiting a full 3 seconds for the 4000+ line program to compile - because I have a habit of compiling after ... (heh, don't laugh) every single change I make.)

-TPG