Another new builder needs some advice.

[ranpro]

So I think it's about time to upgrade from my 5 year old Dell P3 550 to something a little quicker. I've read through AnandTech's guides and I have a pretty good idea of what I'd like to put in my new system, but I'd appreciate any advice from someone with a little more knowledge. I'll probably use the computer for internet use and some gaming. I hope to not have to upgrade all that much in the near future, and I'd like to keep the price under $1000 if and as far as possible. Here's what I'm thinking so far...

AMD ATHLON 64 3200+ Retail ($272 from mwave.com)
MSI K8T NEO-FIS2R Motherboard ($118 from mwave.com minus $15 rebate)
WD Raptor 36.7GB HD ($116 from newegg.com)
1 GB Kingston (512MB x2) PC3200 ValueRAM ($83.99 each minus $15 each from shop.kingston.com)
ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB ($220 from CompUSA.com minus $20 rebate)
Sound Blaster Audigy ZS ($75 from Amazon.com)
Pacific Digital 4x2.4x12x Internal DVD+-R/RW Drive ($70 from Staples minus $20 rebate minus $20 Gift check)

So I'm missing a case and a power supply.. I really don't want to spend more than $50 for a case so I'm thinking about a PowMax - maybe the PowMax Demon or something. Any other ideas? If I get a PowMax that comes with a Power Supply, should I get a better quality one? What is an affordable brand and how many watts would I need?

So the total, without case and power supply is $934. I know the hard drive is a little small, but I'll probably buy a larger one down the road. If anyone has any comments about this system, please let me know. Especially cost saving info, whether it's lower prices elsewhere or different component suggestions. (ie: amd 64 3200+ vs. amd 64 3000+ or even a P4 processor). Also, I haven't really considered overclocking, so that's not a big issue. Any comments are welcome.. thanks!

 

[Markfw]

Welcome to the forums. Your system is OK, but don't skimp on the PSU, or the whole system is doomed. I like the Antec series of cases, and most any of them is fine.The Sonata is a great choice.

 

[mechBgon]

PowMax :Q run away! run away!

 

[Cerb]

Number 3 on the PSU...don't do it!
Fortron, yes.
Enhance, yes.
Enermax, yes.
Enlight, yes
Thermaltake, yes.
Antec, yes.
Powmax, NO.
Deer, NO (these were some of the few known to actually catch fire when over-drawn...they got better about that, but they are still absoluite crap).
L&C, NO.
Antec SLK3700-AMB, SLK3700-BQE or Sonata are good choices for cases (and PSUs). See if Staples has good prices on them in your area, else Newegg.

 

[DaveSimmons]

Spend $100 on the case and get an Antec Sonata with its included high-quality and quiet 380 watt Antec PS.

Aside from not going Pow! and frying your components, the Sonata will run much quieter when you aren't gaming since it has a built-in fan control for the rear exhaust fan as well as the power supply. It only runs the fans full-speed when it needs to, like after an hour of UT2K4.

 

[Chaotic42]

That looks like a pretty sweet system.

I'd drop down to a 3000+ and use the money that I saved to get a better power supply. I'd go with a PC Power and Cooling supply, but only because I've recently had a bad run in with an Antec powered system, whosever fault the actual problem may be.

 

[DaveSimmons]

> I'd drop down to a 3000+ and use the money that I saved to get a better power supply

Good idea, a 3000+ should be enough for the next couple of years if you don't insist on running games at 1600x1200.

I've had good luck with Antec myself, but PC P&C has been making great supplies for over a decade so it's another good (though expensive) choice.

 

[wilki24]

Good idea, a 3000+ should be enough for the next couple of years if you don't insist on running games at 1600x1200.

What does CPU power have to do with resolution?

 

[ranpro]

Alright, so forget PowMax. I'm thinking Antec now, and I'm looking at the Antec SLK3700-BQE ($85 shipped at newegg). It comes with a 350W SmartPower PSU. That should be enough to keep everything I want running, right?
And about the 3000+ vs. the 3200+, is the 60 extra bucks worth it? I know someone mentioned I could save some money by using the 3000+, but if the extra power is worth it, I'd rather have the 3200+. I looked at the info on the CPUs on Anandtech, but I'm not really too familiar with benchmarking. Once again, any info is appreciated. Thanks to those who have already given me valuable help.

 

[Gusty987]

Are you gonna buy an operating system?

 

[ranpro]

Are you gonna buy an operating system?

I'm running Windows 2000 prof. on my old computer, but I don't have a disk. The copy I do have is Windows 98 Second edition. Do you suggest I buy XP home, 2000 pro, or should I just use Windows 98 Second edition? I mean, is alright for games or is it limited?

 

[Cerb]

XP Pro ($150 OEM) or XP Home ($95 OEM). Pro can join domains and ADs, has more user/security options, and can use two real CPUs. Home will use a HT-enabled CPU only for multiprocessing.
XP Home would be far better than Win98.
OTOH, I hated Win98, as it was not alright for games, IMO; and used WinNT4 instead. The real task manager and months of uptime were worth it.
The way things are shaping up, Win2k is basically dead. I'm using it, and will an app (probably a game) I want won't run on it ($100 academic for XP Pro), or if XP SP2 is as good as everyone's saying it will be.

 

[psuc41]

Go for the Thermaltake V5000a, iit's a fantastic case.

 

[OCedHrt]

You can try getting more of the parts from mwave, such as the audigy ($69 for oem, non zs, not sure whats the diff. with zs) and the vid card ($199 for oem as well).

 

[wkwong]

Originally posted by: ranpro
Internal DVD+-R/RW Drive ($70 from Staples minus $20 rebate minus $20 Gift check)

So I'm missing a case and a power supply.. I really don't want to spend more than $50 for a case so I'm thinking about a PowMax - maybe the PowMax Demon or something. Any other ideas? If I get a PowMax that comes with a Power Supply, should I get a better quality one? What is an affordable brand and how many watts would I need?

I think you should definitely get a better PSU. I think that's one of the most overlooked things for a beginner builder. The ones I've built in the past with those generic PSU's have always had problems. I almost bought my kid brother a new hard drive cause it sounded like it was failing. Then, all I did use was a different molex connector and it worked. Haha. Several other computers started to fail because of the power supplies. I haven't been making systems recently, but I still get a bunch of calls from my friends about the computer crashing all the time, and it usually turned out to be the PSU.

HTH, GL.

 

[jhurst]

What about storage....that 36GB will go quick (literally and figuratively). Might want to throw in an extra 80-120GB SATA HD. Also....spend a few more bucks and get the Kingston HyperX PC4000 at Best Buy for $99 per 512 stick (124-25 rebate). Go ahead and get two of those :beer:. I prefer Enermax over Antec....stronger 12V rail.....might be more important for P4 systems..not sure about AMD. Also, don't get an Audigy. I had one.....couldn't tell the difference over onboard 6 channel. You are paying for pretty good audio in the motherboard, might as well use it.

 

[ranpro]

I think you should definitely get a better PSU.

Yeah, I'm happy that I came here first before I started ordering components for my computer. The PSU issue alone probably saved me a lot of trouble. I've decided on the SLK3700-BQE with the 350W SmartPower PSU. I know it's not the top of the line, but from what I've seen, it's at the very least reliable and should be sufficient to power everything I'm getting.

I'd drop down to a 3000+ and use the money that I saved to get a better power supply.

Good idea. I've now decided on the 3000+ over the 3200+. The effect of the smaller cache is apparently negligible. 3 or so frames won't affect me too much.

Also, don't get an Audigy. I had one.....couldn't tell the difference over onboard 6 channel. You are paying for pretty good audio in the motherboard, might as well use it.

Another good idea. Thanks!

What about storage....that 36GB will go quick (literally and figuratively). Might want to throw in an extra 80-120GB SATA HD. Also....spend a few more bucks and get the Kingston HyperX PC4000 at Best Buy for $99 per 512 stick (124-25 rebate). Go ahead and get two of those .

I'm still at a loss as far as what I'm going to use for storage. I'm thinking twice about buying the Raptor:/ I was considering using it for a while and then getting a Seagate 7200.7 (200GB is now $100 at outpost.com after rebates) for storage when I start running out of space. Or should I just get the Seagate in the first place and scratch the Raptor? It's much larger and I don't think there will be that much of a performance hit. Like I said, the system will be primarily for gaming and general use. Any suggestions?

As far as the RAM, is it worth 62 dollars to upgrade my RAM from Kingston ValueRAM PC3200 to Kingston HyperX PC4000? I know that's a pretty awesome price for the HyperX, too. BTW, I'm slightly considering eventually OCing sometime down the road if the mood strikes me. Not water-cooled OCing, but OCing-lite stuff.



So now my system looks like this:
-Antec SLK3700-BQE case ($85 shipped from newegg.com)
-AMD ATHLON 64 3000+ Retail ($213 from mwave.com)
-MSI K8T NEO-FIS2R Motherboard ($103 from mwave.com incl. $15 rebate)
(should I buy these bundled or separate?)
-WD Raptor 36.7GB HD ($116 OEM from newegg.com) if I buy it OEM, what else will I need for it?
-1 GB Kingston (512MB x2) PC3200 ValueRAM ($138 incl. rebate from shop.kingston.com)/OR
1 GB Kingston PC4000 HyperX RAM ($200 including rebates from bestbuy.com)
-ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB ($200 from somewhere, probably including a rebate)
-Pacific Digital 4x2.4x12x Internal DVD+-R/RW Drive ($70 from Staples minus $20 rebate minus $20 Gift check)

So now my total, including applicable rebates will be around (depending on the HD(s) I choose) $947 with the HyperX RAM OR $885 with the ValueRAM(not including any taxes, WinXP [home or pro] or a monitor). BTW, I have an alright set of 4.1 speakers I'm going to use for a while.

Also, I'm a little up in the air about the MSI K8T NEO-FIS2R mobo due to some negative comments I've seen throughout the forums. These comments are generally about MSI itself, not this particular motherboard. The Anandtech review and other tech website reviews have been pretty positive. Any ideas?

Thanks again to everyone who has responded to this topic, you've all really helped me out a lot.

 

[cjdomer04]

I would definitely scrap the Raptor in favor of a 7200 RPM, 8MB Cache, Fluid Dynamic Bearing (FDB) HDD, either a 80GB or 120GB. Either one should be enough space. Hitachi makes good ones for $72 and $88 respectively at newegg. I dont think the decrease in spin rate will make too much of a difference for gaming and general purpose, but the size and cost will.

I think either that board or the AK86-L would be good.

The PC4000 RAM will definitely have benefits outside of just OC'ing ability, but I dont know how noticeable they will be with no OC. If you have any intention of OC'ing, I'd go with the PC4000. Otherwise, it depends on budget. How important is the $60?

 

[ranpro]

I just found this on MSI's website-
<<Due to the High Performance Memory design, motherboards or system configurations may or may not operate smoothly at the JEDEC (Joint Electron Device Engineering Council) standard settings (BIOS Default on the motherboard) such as DDR voltage, memory speeds and memory timing. Please confirm and adjust your memory setting in the BIOS accordingly for better system stability.
Example: Kingston HyperX DDR500 PC4000 operates at 2.65V, 3-4-4-8, CL=3. >>

This is greek to me. Any input?

I've also noticed that the HyperX DDR500 PC4000 RAM isn't on the "K8T Neo-FIS2R DDR400 Memory Modules Qualified Vender List" and neither is the PC3200 ValueRAM.

 

[jhurst]

Well any top motherboard maker (like MSI) has to make their board compatible with Kingston memory. Kingston is one of the largest manufacturers of RAM in the world, and it would be stupid for them not to do so. I couldn't imagine the two not being compatible, I'm sure someone else has a NEO-FIS board with some Kingston memory somewhere in this world you could ask.

Thats gonna be a rockin system!

 

[OCedHrt]

There shouldn't be any problems with valueram but I don't have an a64 board nor do I have an nforce chipset ( i think its nforce *blink*) so hard to say there. I think mwave has the seagate 200 for $100 no rebates as well. And don't forget to account for tax. The Kingston online store charges me tax brining those value ram to $153 after rebates. But then again, there's also tax on the BB HyperX.

 

[bluey]

I would like to know what is good fast ram to run on that board too. Right now I have picked out Kingmax 184 Pin 512MB DDR PC-3200 - OEM just because they have it at newegg and its on their list of aproved.

 

[Markfw]

I personally don;t like MSI motherboards, but several people have them and seem happy. I would recommend Mushkin Level1 PC3500 or (if you can find it) Kingston Hyperx PC3500. You can OC a hare with them, and even without, you can use 2-3 512 meg sticks and be very stable at tight timings.

 

[jhurst]

I would recommend whatever RAM you can find cheap these days. People are paying a real premium right now CorsairXMS and OCZ EB

 

[dudeman007]

Just to give you some help on oem stuff. If I were you, I would definitely buy your mobo retail. It will come with all the SATA, IDE, Floppy, etc. things you will need. When you buy an oem hdd, chances are it will come with a power cable, but not with the connector to the mobo, but you will get that with your mobo. Then with an oem drive, you would get that audio cable and power cable if needed, but not the connector. So all in all, buying oem products is a great idea, but personally I wouldn't recommend it for your mobo. Also since your're new to building comps, the manuals are nice to have in the book they come in instead of having to print them out. Hope that helps.