Thinking About Building This Computer System. AO what ya think? -echo

[devildog]

and dont knock the pentiums..., if u look at the benchmarks comparing a athlon 64 and its equivilant p4 they are really evenly matched..., so do ur research before you post that all intel stuff sucks, after all, they did invent the thing...

nobody ever denied that, but remember that athlons costs waaay less for the same performance, thats why its better.

[ICOM]

looks good to me but i just plike athlon better.

[ottomobile]

If you want to do any serious gaming (why else would you build a computer) go AMD. Here's the thing. AMD chips advertise slower clock speeds than Intel, but raw speed isn't everything. What you care about it data throughput and calculation speed on the math-coprocessor (that crucial for gaming. Nothing does more math calcs per second than a 3D game.) Intel chips are like a 1 lane road with 100MPH speed limit. Lots of raw speed, but no depth. One car at a time. AMD chips are like the New Jersey turnpike. It may look slower but with a whole lot more lanes to get a lot more data through in the same amount of time. AMD has more data channels than intel for more paralell processing. Their math core is also a lot more advanced. AMD tends to cater to the gamers anyway. They are very conservative on their chip ratings so you can also overclock the heck out of them. (I knew I guy who liquid cooled his system in a nitrogen bath and had a 25 MHz chip overclocked to 500Mhz. True story, no lie!)

So bottom line. Buy an AMD chip with as much lvl1 and lvl2 cache as you can afford and really look at the multi threading. Also check out its benchmark numbers and make sure they jive with the apps you'll be running. High FSB speeds are good too.

Also I'd take the amount of RAM you think you need and double it. Well in your case 2 GB is fine. But go with 1GB sticks. It costs more but the fewer sticks you use the faster the acess times are. The more of your game you can load into memory the better. Plus some Radeon Video cards can share system memory so in theory you could have a video card with 1GB of RAM. Whatever video card you go with use the latest AGP standard and compare the benchmark stats. Some cards are great at polygons but suck at lighting, physics, or 2D.

For sound go with the latest Audigy card from Sound Blaster. Couple that with either Logitech or Klipsh 7.1 speaker.

Go with Maxtor or Western Digital for your hard disks. Seagate baracudas have had a lot of hardware issues in the last few years. I had about 1/2 a dozen of them die on me last year with less then 500 hours on the drives.

One last think. With your setup cooling is going to be a problem. Unless you want your setup to sound like a leaf blower I'd look into liquid cooling. That will get you down to one or two radiator fans and the rest will be silent. Its about $200 clams for a basic setup but with what you are spending thats no biggy. But liquid cooling should get your decibels down to around 9.

Hope this helps.

[ottomobile]

u know squid, u might have considered someone might possibly be serious about something...

and whoever things btx is cool should maybe be shot,

like everyone is going to just drop all their atx stuff and goto btx...,
it will be years before its a standard

and dont knock the pentiums..., if u look at the benchmarks comparing a athlon 64 and its equivilant p4 they are really evenly matched..., so do ur research before you post that all intel stuff sucks, after all, they did invent the thing...

Intel chips don't suck. They are designed for a different purpose. Intel was founded in 1968 and AMD in 1969. Neither one invented CPU's. IMB actually used AMD cpu's until the late 1990's. AMD has always been cheaper because they don't advirtise like Intel does. In the 1990's gamers became a major market niche and the discovered that AMD CPUs offer more opportunities for tinkering than intel did. Since then AMD has catered almost exclusively to gamers. In fact, Hewlett Packade equips their gaming laptops with AMD processors.
Motorola chips (Apple) are awesome for graphics work.
AMD is the best for gaming.
Intel is the best all around business and personal use chip.

So there you have. Intel only sucks if you're a gamer. Besides, AMD isn't as main-stream so it gives us geeks a chance to feel like rebels going against the flow!

[Timmee]

instead of the thermaltake psu, pick up an antec 420, way more stable, and accurate on the voltage, plus they are modular. i also recomend switching to amd and a geforce system.

The only modular power supply that Anctec carries is the Neo-Power 480w (it's what my roommate's putting in his system). I've got a Fortron 530w PSU in mine.

Echo, any reason you'r going with the All-In-Wonder, instead of the regular X800? The performance isn't the same.

[devildog]

The only modular power supply that Anctec carries is the Neo-Power 480w (it's what my roommate's putting in his system). I've got a Fortron 530w PSU in mine.

oops, i was thinking 480 but wrote 420.

also consider the western digital raptors for hdds, get two of them and put them in a raid. they are 10000 rpm, very fast.

[Echo419]

Alrite, i did swtich to a $90 Cool BLue 480w Antec Power Supply, and I added a DVD drive. Ordered a $40 thermaltake heat sink.

Also ordered a 19" Rosewill LCD Display

Total 1560 Shipped

[Miscue]

Seriously, AMD is where it's at. And get the SLI option on the mobo, and just get one 6800 Ultra now, and then later, when you see performance start to drop, buy another 6800 Ultra (Price will be down), and you're back in the game.

Hooray!

Horrible idea, for the same reason why it was a horrible idea the last time SLI was around.

[Miscue]

So there you have. Intel only sucks if you're a gamer. Besides, AMD isn't as main-stream so it gives us geeks a chance to feel like rebels going against the flow!

Bah. AMD is mainstream now. The rebels were the K5 users and such... around that time period. People would basically tell you that you were stupid if you had a K5... and have all sorts of excuses. Oh, it's slow. It's not completely compatible... blah blah blah. Even the dumbarse magazine ads seemed like they had something against it.

[Archangel Zer0]

Horrible idea, for the same reason why it was a horrible idea the last time SLI was around.

I was wondering if anyone would remember that. It won't work very well this time, either. NVidia is marketing it, so ATI will respond by releasing a dual core card that murders it. I have a 6600GT I was thinking about using like that, but decided against it. It's just not worth it.

[Miscue]

I was wondering if anyone would remember that. It won't work very well this time, either. NVidia is marketing it, so ATI will respond by releasing a dual core card that murders it. I have a 6600GT I was thinking about using like that, but decided against it. It's just not worth it.

Exactly. SLI gives you just a small increase in real performance... basically a complete waste of money unless you have that kind of disposable income. By the time the card comes down in price, there's a single card that kicks its arse... and you'll be jonesin' for that card instead.

To me... SLI means... "we can't quite do dual/quad GPU right now, so here's this ghetto way of doing it that costs a lot of money."

[Echo419]

Or, in my case im getting that proc for 110 from a friend, because i know in a year i'll wanna get an uber nice one... so i might as well not buy an awesome one now, and for what im doing its fine.

[Automaggot68]

Alrite Heres what i'm thinking about building. Click For Pictures and Details.
any comments or recomendations let me know

Processor - Intel Pentium 4 3.0E Prescott 800MHz FSB 1MB L2 Cache
Case - XClio Steel ATX Full Tower Case
Video - ATI All-In-Wonder X800 256mb 256bit
Motherboard - GIGABYTE GA-8IPE1000PRO-G
PSU - THERMALTAKE Silent PurePower 420W Power Supply
RAM - CORSAIR XMS 1GB (2x512mb) x2
Hard Drives - Seagate Barracuda 250GB 7200 RPM x2
Optical - NEC Black DVD Combo Drive
Extra - Vantec Multi-Function Fan Controller

note - thats 500gb harddrive, 2gb ram.
-Echo
www.attackingecho.com

What, no AMD?

/shame

[Miscue]

What, no AMD?

/shame

I buy whatever chip happens to be a deal at the time. Usually its AMD... and usually I'd say it's stupid to get Intel... but sometimes Intel is a better choice... it really varies.

All these chips are stupid fast now anyway... regardless of what you get. I am 3000x more picky about a motherboard than a CPU. I might get an Intel or AMD completely based on what mobo chipsets are currently available, and how they've been behaving.

You're better off investing in 10K RPM drives, better vid card, etc.

[Automaggot68]

I buy whatever chip happens to be a deal at the time. Usually its AMD... and usually I'd say it's stupid to get Intel... but sometimes Intel is a better choice... it really varies.

All these chips are stupid fast now anyway... regardless of what you get. I am 3000x more picky about a motherboard than a CPU. I might get an Intel or AMD completely based on what mobo chipsets are currently available, and how they've been behaving.

You're better off investing in 10K RPM drives, better vid card, etc.

Yeah.

Where a buddy works he hoooked me up with two 6600 geForce vid cards, and is working on getting me a killer deal on a FX-55. The enire time he's telling to me get two HD's instead of one giant one.