A few questions for a new system build

[Link19]

A friend of mine is building a new computer. He says he wants it to be as state of the art as possible. His budget is around $1800. He already has a new case and power supply he got for his birthday a few days ago. He intends to use many of the same parts from his older PC in the new one he's building such as the CD/DVD drives and hard drives, although he plans to buy one extra HDD to add on to the HDDs he already has. He's been asking me for some help on what he should get. He wants the best PC possible for gaming.

I've been looking at the Athlon 64 FX-55 CPU and ATI Radeon X800 XT video cards to recommend to him. Now a question I have is if it would be worth it for him to go with a NFORCE 4 motherboard with PCI-E and a PCI-E Radeon X800 XT video card, or just an NFORCE 3 motherboard with 8X AGP and no PCI-E? Another words, do you think PCI-E is worth buying at this time because PCI-E video cards are going to become mainstream for the latest state of the art cards from NVIDIA and ATI in the next 8-12 months? Or will it take a least a couple of years for video cads to become advanced enough for them to take advanatge of the PCI-E X16 bus, which of when a whole new system would be the next upgrade anyway?

And in terms of small overclocking to achievethe state of the art results with the 2nd best Athlon 64 CPU and ATI video card. Would an Athlon 64 FX-53 CPU at stock speed of 2.4GHz easily overclock to 2.6GHz which is the speed of the FX-55 Athlon 64? And is the internal clock speed being 2.4GHz and 2.6GHz the only difference between the Athlon 64 FX-53 and Athlon 64 FX-55 CPUs? As for the video card, would a Radeon X800 XT PCI-E video card at 500MHz easily overclock to the speeds of a Radeon X800 XT Platinum video card at 520MHz? And is the clock speed the only difference between the Radeon X800 XT non-Platinum and Platinum verions of the PCI-E X16 video card?

If the CPU and video card can easily be slightly overclocked to achieve the speeds of the absolute latest ones out, then I think I have come up with the best possible combination of what he can buy that fits his budget. If he would have to buy the absaolute latest and greatest being the Athlon 64 FX-55 and the Platinum version of the Radeon, he probbaly doesn't have quite enough. But if he can buy the 2nd best CPU and video card and overclock them slightly to make them exactly the same performance as the absolute best ones you can buy right now, then I think I can find ones that will fit within his budget.

I have a found a few places that offer good deals on some of these things and have calculated, so don't come out saying that it's no way possible to even get an Athlon 64 FX-53 and PCI-E Radeon X800 XT non-Platinum video card for around that budget. The most important part of my questions are the overclocking capabilities and if they do indeed turn the CPU and video card into the same exact thing as the absolute latest and greatest Athlon 64 FX-55 and ATI X800 XT Platinum PCI-E video card respetively. Also, the question I had about PCI-E being worth it for video cards is the next most important question.

Suggestions greatly appreciated.

 

[ts3433]

If you want to build PCIe, take a look at Chaintech's VNF4/Ultra at $120 if SLI isn't needed (which I'd assume since you're looking at an X800XT). I'd just take the X800XT (a damn fast card as it is!) and try to OC 20MHz for that extra frame or two you need to stay competitive or whatever. Though PCIe does not offer any immediate benefit over AGP8x, some cardmakers (like ATI) have basically dumped the platform already, and with the mobo only $120 you may as well buy into it for future's sake.

If overclocking's a possibility, get a 3200+ and OC it to 2.6-2.7 GHz. That's a fairly easy target, and even with a milder overclock you would not notice the difference between that and the FX-55. (Expensive RAM wouldn't be necessary for this; run a divider and you'll have basically the same performance as with running 1:1--see Zebo's memory roundup in CPU/OC for details.)

 

[Link19]

Originally posted by: ts3433
If you want to build PCIe, take a look at Chaintech's VNF4/Ultra at $120 if SLI isn't needed (which I'd assume since you're looking at an X800XT). I'd just take the X800XT (a damn fast card as it is!) and try to OC 20MHz for that extra frame or two you need to stay competitive or whatever. Though PCIe does not offer any immediate benefit over AGP8x, some cardmakers (like ATI) have basically dumped the platform already, and with the mobo only $120 you may as well buy into it for future's sake.

If overclocking's a possibility, get a 3200+ and OC it to 2.6-2.7 GHz. That's a fairly easy target, and even with a milder overclock you would not notice the difference between that and the FX-55. (Expensive RAM wouldn't be necessary for this; run a divider and you'll have basically the same performance as with running 1:1--see Zebo's memory roundup in CPU/OC for details.)

What is SLI anyway? Is it needed for NVIDIA GeForce 6800 PCI-E video cards, but not ATI PCI-E video cards? Or is it for something else?

 

[Link19]

BUMP

 

[nick1985]

i dont want to be mean, i just dont want to read you huge post...


just tell me the following:

1) budget

2) uses for this computer

3) what you need (just the tower, or monitor/speakers/etc...)

 

[ts3433]

SLI allows two identical nV PCIe cards (with support for this; to my knowledge it's currently just the 6600GT, 6800GT, and 6800U) to run in conjunction with each other, but this is very expensive. The only combinations that would make sense are 2x6800 GTs or Ultras, and this is just insanely cost-prohibitive, unless you already have a really high-res display already (like 19xx by ????).

Depending on how long you can wait, ATI's going to release their X800 XL within a month or two, a PCIe-only card that, at $300, is supposed to provide performance near the level of the 6800 GT for less.

 

[SaberDicer]

Good Luck finding an X800 XT PCI-E, I bought mine yesterday after hours of looking, and paybe 585, as it was the cheapest I could find. so 585 + a grand for an FX-55, your almost 1600 with ram, motherboard, optical drives, another hard drive, a sound card and w/e else you need still missing. Even droping down to the FX-53 only saves you 200$, my advice, either look on ebay for the stuff or drop to a 3500+, they can easily be OC'd to FX-55 speeds and youd save 700$, which your friend can use to later upgrade his graphics card when fudo comes out or get more ram, HDs ect.

I orderd my system yesterday on around the same budget, and got a 3500+, the chaintech nforce4 board, a x800 xt, good OCZ ram, a nice HD and was very happy with my system.

 

[Link19]

What I'd like to know right now is if the Athlon 64 FX-53 can be easily overclokced from 2.4GHz to 2.6GHz by adjusting just the multiplier adn not the FSB? And can the Radeon X800 XT PCI-E be overclocked to Platinum Edition speeds with no problems. And is the clock speed the only difference between the Radeon X800 XT PCI-E non-platinum and platinum versions of the video card, and are they the exact same physical card capable of running at the same speed with the same stability? And the only difference being that the non-platinum is just clocked slightly lower at stock settings? And does the same apply to the Athlon 64 FX-53 and Athlon FX-55?

 

[ts3433]

X800XT to PE is just a speed bump. Same for FX-53 to FX-55. I think both CPU options are a waste of money (you pay $600 more for an FX-55 over a 3500+, and you gain about 5% in performance that could be achieved with an easy overclock), though, and if you can find a 6800GT cheaper than an X800, I'd go with that.

 

[Link19]

Originally posted by: ts3433
X800XT to PE is just a speed bump. Same for FX-53 to FX-55. I think both CPU options are a waste of money (you pay $600 more for an FX-55 over a 3500+, and you gain about 5% in performance that could be achieved with an easy overclock), though, and if you can find a 6800GT cheaper than an X800, I'd go with that.

How is that actually an easy overclock with the Athlon 64 3500 if the multipliers are locked on all the Athlon 64 CPUs except for the Athlon 64 FX where the multiplier is unlocked? Is overclocking the FSB that much to achieve much faster speeds really going to work without causing severe stability and over heating problems on an Athlon 64 with a locked multiplier?

 

[ts3433]

Why are you so damn worried about a very light FSB overclock? Winchester 3000s regularly hit 280FSB on air, some even get to 300. A 3200 could probably make the jump to 3500 speeds without an aftermarket cooler or increase in voltage.