Anything glaringly wrong with this system config?

[mysticfm]

I'm close to ordering parts for the following machine, but it's been a LONG time since I configured a machine, so I'd really like some other eyes to look over the list first:

CPU: AMD Athlon64 3000+ (socket 754)
MB: MSI K8N Neo Platinum (socket 754, NForce 3-250Gb chipset)
Case: Antec Sonata (w/TruePower 380 PSU, if I understand correctly)
Video: ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 256MB DDR 8X AGP
HD: Samsung SP1614C 160GB, SATA, 8MB buffer, 7200rpm
DVD burner: Pioneer DVR-107BK 8x8 DVD-RW
RAM: Kingston 512MB DDR400 PC3200 KVR400X75C3A/512 (one stick for now)
FDD: Mitsumi 1.44MB
OS: MS Windows XP Pro w/SP1 (DSP/OEM)

The tasks that I expect of this machine are (sorted more or less in order of importance to me):

- Software Development (for Direct3D, Windows, and web)
- Games (flight sims being the most power hungry examples)
- 3D graphics rendering (in Bryce, trueSpace, etc)
- 2D graphics editing (in Paint Shop Pro)
- Multitrack digital audio recording and editing (Sonar, Wavelab)
- DVD viewing (using PowerDVD, probably)
- Video editing (only infrequently, performance here is not a major concern)

I know that there isn't much gain right now having a 256MB 9800 Pro compared to a 128MB, but the price difference is barely more than $30, so it seems silly not to get the additional RAM in case I ever can use it. I'd like to add a 2nd 512MB DIMM, but I'm already pushing the limits of my budget here. Finally, I can't wait for socket 939 boards ... I need an XP system within weeks, not months. My current machine is a P3-550 running WinME, for goodness sakes! And by the way, that's been my only machine for about four years now, so you can safely assume that the new machine will be expected to last me for quite a while as well.

Any and all comments will be welcomed with a wry grin.

 

[mitchafi]

Looks good. An extra 512 MB of ram would do wonders for gaming and other applications.

 

[AristoV300]

That system will do you good. Two things is that you want to 2 sticks of memory since it can run dual channel and you may want to get a better PSU.

 

[AmdEmAll]

Double the ram and don't buy a floppy made by mitsumi. I've had like 5 of them die. Alps is good.

 

[mysticfm]

One followup question: I thought the Socket 754 boards were all single-channel WRT memory? That's one of the reasons I thought I'd settle for a single stick right now. If I'm confused about this (which I probably am), please do tell!

 

[Budman]

Originally posted by: AristoV300
That system will do you good. Two things is that you want to 2 sticks of memory since it can run dual channel and you may want to get a better PSU.

That board doesnt have dual channel & that 380 watts Antec is MORE than capable for that system.

 

[MDE]

I'd dump the DVD burner for now and get the extra RAM and use a spare CD or DVD drive until you can get the DVD burner.
The 256MB card will help with rendering, I'd keep it or try to go for a Quadro or mod a 5800 Ultra into a Quadro like Duvie did.

 

[Mik3y]

dont listen to aristo, he doesnt know wut he's saying. i would ditch the 256mb video card and get the 128mb radeon 9800 pro. you wont find any performance difference between the two, unless you plan on overclocking it to radeon 9800xt speeds, which is very slimly better then the 9800 pro. wiht the money you'll save (assuming you're planning to pay retail) on the video card, get an extra stick of 512mb of ram. thats the most important thing you'll need in your system for running the apps you run. as for ram, socket 754 doesnt support dual channel ram. even if it does, you'll find a 1-2% increase in performance, whcih isnt worth the extra money you'll have to spend for dual channel memory. the 380W antec psu, like the wise budman said, is far more then capable for that system. i'm sure a quality 300W psu can support that system (as done before on the antec aria case w/ 300W psu). otherwise, it looks very good. in fact, it's nearly everything i would have gotten if i were to get a new system.

 

[mysticfm]

Thanks for all of the comments!

Regarding the videocard, like I said in the initial post, I'd only save a bit over $30 by going down to a 128MB card, and that savings would only cover about 40% of the cost of another 512MB stick of Kingston DDR. However, I was already teetering in the direction of maybe stretching my budget to get that 2nd stick, and you folks have all but pushed me over the edge on that decision. The only thing I was worried about is whether I'd have a loss of memory performance on the single channel board with two sticks (I don't really understand the technology involved), but if you folks see it as a gain, then I will feel more confident about doing so.

I've got an Antec TruePower 430 in my current P3 system, which certainly does not need as much power as the new one will. So if worst comes to worst I can always swap the supplies around. But I'm not expecting that ... I think the Antecs are excellent units, and seem to be more generous with the power than their specs would indicate.

Do you think I need to have a separate DVD reader in addition to the burner? The common logic used to be that one didn't want to wear out a burner by using it as a reader, but I'm not certain that's still the case. (It's hardly the end of the world if I do decide I need a separate reader, since they are going for $30 or so.)

Thanks again for the help, and I look forward to your responses to the DVD question!

 

[AmdEmAll]

2 sticks of ram in a single channel board will not slow it down, it just will not benefit from dual channel. Also a lot of stuff you will be doing will use more than 512mb ram.

And about the cd burner. I don't think using it for reading is a problem. I have 2 dvd drives and a burner and all 3 have a different game in them Besides they are so damn cheap!

 

[DerwenArtos12]

I would definatly say get the full gig of ram. teh 256 or ram may help a little in rendering and will flash more directly to a 9800xt if you wanted though that woudl give you roughly no increase in performance at all over just an overclocked card.

 

[gsellis]

Originally posted by: mysticfm
Do you think I need to have a separate DVD reader in addition to the burner? The common logic used to be that one didn't want to wear out a burner by using it as a reader, but I'm not certain that's still the case. (It's hardly the end of the world if I do decide I need a separate reader, since they are going for $30 or so.)

Thanks again for the help, and I look forward to your responses to the DVD question!

No, don't get a seperate DVD reader. By the time you get another drive, you have already paid about 1/3 to 1/2 the cost of a new burner. Burners have finally become cheap considering that the Pioneers is less than $95 now. If you start using the burner alot, you will end up wanting to possibly replace it in a year or more with a dual-layer when they finally start approaching reasonable prices for media.

 

[mysticfm]

Thank you, all! Your responses have been an enormous help to me. I will just get the one DVD burner for now, will get the 256MB Radeon (in order to facilitate potentially flashing it to an XT), and will definitely get a full gig of RAM. Sounds like I should be ready to finally join the 21st century of computing! (hehe)

 

[imported_Phil]

Looks like a good system so far, but I would avoid the Samsung drives. I know some people rave about them, but I've experienced nothing but failures and slow speeds at work when they're in customer's machines. Seagate or Maxtor are a much better brand, with Seagate being the leader in terms of quiet operation.

 

[Markfw]

Originally posted by: AristoV300
That system will do you good. Two things is that you want to 2 sticks of memory since it can run dual channel and you may want to get a better PSU.

Originally posted by: AmdEmAll
2 sticks of ram in a single channel board will not slow it down, it just will not benefit from dual channel. Also a lot of stuff you will be doing will use more than 512mb ram.

And about the cd burner. I don't think using it for reading is a problem. I have 2 dvd drives and a burner and all 3 have a different game in them Besides they are so damn cheap!

Socket 754 doesn;t have dual channel ! The Athlon64 has a single memory controller and ONE channel. Even socket 940 has dual memory controllers, but not dual channel the same way as P4 and nforce2.

 

[DerwenArtos12]

Originally posted by: Markfw900

Originally posted by: AristoV300
That system will do you good. Two things is that you want to 2 sticks of memory since it can run dual channel and you may want to get a better PSU.

Originally posted by: AmdEmAll
2 sticks of ram in a single channel board will not slow it down, it just will not benefit from dual channel. Also a lot of stuff you will be doing will use more than 512mb ram.

And about the cd burner. I don't think using it for reading is a problem. I have 2 dvd drives and a burner and all 3 have a different game in them Besides they are so damn cheap!

Socket 754 doesn;t have dual channel ! The Athlon64 has a single memory controller and ONE channel. Even socket 940 has dual memory controllers, but not dual channel the same way as P4 and nforce2.

I think he was saying that even though you will have two stcks in this board it won't benefit from the dual it just doesn't have.

 

[fLum0x]

dont get the pioneer dvd burner. save the extra like $80 and put it towards some more RAM. just settle for a lite-on dvd-r drive. that is what i have and it does the job really nice

 

[mysticfm]

Originally posted by: DopeFiend
Looks like a good system so far, but I would avoid the Samsung drives. I know some people rave about them, but I've experienced nothing but failures and slow speeds at work when they're in customer's machines. Seagate or Maxtor are a much better brand, with Seagate being the leader in terms of quiet operation.

Interestingly, I've heard almost nothing but negative things about the reliability of Maxtor drives, and I myself had enough poor performance and problems with Seagate drives in the past that I haven't seriously considered them for a long time. I have a 60GB WD drive that I like a lot, but seemingly there have been a lot of failures of those more recently as well. I basically came down to deciding between Samsung and Hitachi, and although the Hitachis probably perform a little better, I've been seeing reports of the recent ones having unusually bad vibration problems, which scared me off from them.

Most of the music studio folks seem to swear up and down by the Samsung, and since I'm hoping to have a somewhat less noisy computer this time around for the sake of my musical work, that sounded like a good idea to me.

I appreciate the input and will consider it. If anyone else have first-hand experience with the Samsung P80 drives (the SP1614C in particular), I definitely would like to hear about their experiences as well.

 

[Budman]

Originally posted by: fLum0x
dont get the pioneer dvd burner. save the extra like $80 and put it towards some more RAM. just settle for a lite-on dvd-r drive. that is what i have and it does the job really nice

Bad advice there, Lite-on made great cdrw drives but their DVD-rw drives are crap,I know from experience.:disgust:

Keep the pioneer,they are great drives and will burn anything & more importantly they do quality burns.

 

[mysticfm]

Originally posted by: Budman

Originally posted by: fLum0x
dont get the pioneer dvd burner. save the extra like $80 and put it towards some more RAM. just settle for a lite-on dvd-r drive. that is what i have and it does the job really nice

Bad advice there, Lite-on made great cdrw drives but their DVD-rw drives are crap,I know from experience.:disgust:

Perhaps he merely meant that as a way to help me tweak my budget enough to allow for the extra RAM, in which there seems to be a strong consensus that I will need more than 512MB. As I said in one of my followups, I've since managed to stretch my budget a little more so that it can accomodate a full gig of RAM without sacrificing anything.

 

[Bovinicus]

Excellent looking system. If you can afford another 512MB of memory, then go for it. Otherwise, single-channel performance will be 95-100% of what dual-channel performance would be. Plus, you have more room for upgradability down the line if you go with one 512MB stick right now. I think you are making the right choice. As well, I understand going with the 256MB version of the Radeon 9800 Pro if the difference is only $30. That card will last you quite a while.

 

[Budman]

Originally posted by: Bovinicus
Excellent looking system. If you can afford another 512MB of memory, then go for it. Otherwise, single-channel performance will be 95-100% of what dual-channel performance would be. Plus, you have more room for upgradability down the line if you go with one 512MB stick right now. I think you are making the right choice. As well, I understand going with the 256MB version of the Radeon 9800 Pro if the difference is only $30. That card will last you quite a while.

How many time will we have to say it, this board DOES NOT SUPPORT dual channel so it's not even a consideration.

 

[Budman]

Originally posted by: mysticfm

Originally posted by: Budman

Originally posted by: fLum0x
dont get the pioneer dvd burner. save the extra like $80 and put it towards some more RAM. just settle for a lite-on dvd-r drive. that is what i have and it does the job really nice

Bad advice there, Lite-on made great cdrw drives but their DVD-rw drives are crap,I know from experience.:disgust:

Perhaps he merely meant that as a way to help me tweak my budget enough to allow for the extra RAM, in which there seems to be a strong consensus that I will need more than 512MB. As I said in one of my followups, I've since managed to stretch my budget a little more so that it can accomodate a full gig of RAM without sacrificing anything.

Yeah I missread,I tought he was saying swap out a Pioneer DVD-RW for a Lite-On DVD-RW,he said DVD-R . :frown:

 

[AmdEmAll]

Originally posted by: AmdEmAll
2 sticks of ram in a single channel board will not slow it down, it just will not benefit from dual channel. Also a lot of stuff you will be doing will use more than 512mb ram.

And about the cd burner. I don't think using it for reading is a problem. I have 2 dvd drives and a burner and all 3 have a different game in them Besides they are so damn cheap!

Socket 754 doesn;t have dual channel ! The Athlon64 has a single memory controller and ONE channel. Even socket 940 has dual memory controllers, but not dual channel the same way as P4 and nforce2.[/quote]

I think he was saying that even though you will have two stcks in this board it won't benefit from the dual it just doesn't have.[/quote]

Yeah thats what I was saying...

 

[Vee]

Originally posted by: Mik3y
... I would ditch the 256mb video card and get the 128mb radeon 9800 pro. you wont find any performance difference between the two,...

I'm somewhat surprised at the quoted $30 price difference, because the difference between equal cards are actually more like $70-$100 for 256MB. So that's a good reason for sticking to 128MB. Particularly since newer X800, FX6800 cards demonstrate 1.5 - 2.5 times the speed.
However, there is a performance gap between 128MB and 256MB, that normally kicks in at about 1600X1200, when you turn on stuff like AA. But that depends some, on the game. Far Cry for instance, feature so many vertices and texture maps at "very high" levels that it bogs down already at 1280X1024.