Building a new Rig, but having some doubts!

[Blammo300]

I have had my current rig for 2 ½ years now and it is really starting to fall behind in games. I currently run a 1.4 AMD Tbird with 512 PC-2100 Memory, 2x40gig 7200rpm Hard Drives, ATI Radeon 8500LE 128meg,. I plan to keep my current speakers(Klipsch 4.1) Monitor(NEC Multisync FE1250+ 22?), NEC DVD Burner and sound card(SoundBlaster Live! 5.1).

I plan to spend around $850 on a new Case + PS , CPU, Hard Drive, Video Card, and Memory.

The current plan is to buy:

COOLER MASTER Praetorian Black "PAC-T01-EK"
AMD Athlon 64 3000+
EPoX "EP-8KDA3J or SOLTEK "SL-K8AN2E-GR"
400+ Power Supply
SAPPHIRE ATI RADEON 9800 PRO
Western Digital Raptor 36.7GB 10,000RPM SATA Hard Drive
512 RAM(Not sure on the brand yet but I plan to Overclock)

The 64 3000+ outperforms the Athlon Xp 3200+ but so does the Athlon Barton 2500+ when overclocked which is a very respectable overclocking chip imo. The prices for the 2500+ hasn?t dropped in 6 months since I built my friend a computer with a Abit NF7-S, I wish I also would have upgraded then to take advantage of the technology. Now the Athlon 64 FX is out but that is too pricey for my tastes. The 3000+ meets my budget fairly well, but my main question is it really worth the extra $85 increase over the $90 barton when compared to the 64 3000+ for $175. I do plan to overclock the 64 3000+ which has reached Athlon 64 FX-51 speeds.

Should I purchase the 64 3000+ or maybe go cheaper with a 2500+ Barton, but would it be better to hold off until the technology improves on the 64?s so more?

 

[stevty2889]

I'd go with the A64 3000+, and rather than getting the 36gb raptor, I would upgrad the video card to a 6800 or a 6800GT. I have 2 raptors, and while they are a bit faster, I wouldn't say they are really worth the price.

 

[Wahsapa]

why dont you just get a A64 2800+ and overclock it that little bit to make it a 3000+. i think ZZF has them for like $145. and yes going from barton to A64 improves alot and is worth it.

also dont get a raptor, especially a 36gb, it wont offer noticable improvments, and the 36s are already old tech. check out the new seagate sata drives, an 80gig should do fine.

you should really try for a 6800GT or even a regular 6800 from bfg, evga or gainward.

512mb? if your gaming you should really get 1gig, and because A64s are so awsome you dont even need to get high speed ram, regular old 3200 should do fine.

 

[freeject]

If you plan on overclocking the video card, get an MSI 9800 pro. Its actually the XT hardware in disguise, and will come up as an XT in the device manager. Then all you have to do is raise the core and memory speeds and you've got instant XT\ (albeit with less memory, but that doesnt do much anyway).

 

[Blammo300]

Do you think that a 6800gt would really be worth the extra $200 when compared to a MSI Radeon 9800 Pro 128meg o'ced to XT?

Would the 64 3000+ even be able to use the 6800gt to its full capacity?

 

[BW86]

yes and yes

 

[Blammo300]

So it looks like a Nvidia 6800GT for me, would evga be the best brand?

I was also curious about what people had said about the WD Raptor which has a seek time of 5.2ms compared to Seagates 7200.7 8.5ms, the seek time is much better but is it a noticible difference?

 

[BW86]

the difference in speed is not worth the money, put it towards something better

 

[Feep]

for one thing dont get an A64 2800 or 3000, get at least the 3200 for the extra L2. there no point in buy low end 64 bit technology so if thats what your going to do you might as well save money and get a non 64. Also, if u most get the 9800 go for the 256 MB pro so you wount be completly skrewed in future games.

 

[Wahsapa]

being 3 millionths of a second faster is not worth an extra $100

uhhh, dont listen to feep. 2800's and 3000s are fine. the extra L2 cache is only on the older cores(and newer is better) and cost a $100 bucks more. its not "low end" 64bit tech, theres no such thing. only certain cores have the extra L2 cache, the older cores(clawhammer), and they cost 80 bucks more. and the extra cache only makes a %5 difference anyway, on die memory controllers take care of so many problems 1meg caches arnt needed anymore.

getting a 256mb 9800 makes no sense is future proofing a system, the preformance gains between a 128 and 256 9800 are minimal and not worth the money unless you were video editing, even then spending 250 bucks on a two year old card isnt a good idea in the first place, its already screwing you in 'future games'.

evga's are good, so are bfg's and gainwards. i would get a 6800 from any of thoes 3 companies, check out the hot deals forum :thumbsup:

 

[Feep]

The reason the clawhammer series is still more is that it is still better. Buy low end i mean that in a relative sense. And the 256 mb is only 50 bucks more and it can be flashed to a true xt to better handle games if the person needs the extra performance and is willing to risk it. Plus its not hard to get a 3400+ claw for 300 retail these days.

 

[jpthomas]

I agree with the rest. Don't spend the money on the raptor. Get 1gb pc3200 memory and a 6800gt. Regardless of if you go with the A64 2800 or 3000, the thing is going to be fast.

 

[Blammo300]

So the 6800GT is worth the $100 increase over a 6800?

 

[SleepWalkerX]

imho, definantly. the 6800gt has 16 pixel pipelines and can easily overclock to ultra speeds. some people are just very tight on money so in this case 6800 would still be very good.

but enough from me. decide for yourself. these benchmarks are just from the evga, but should basically give you a good idea.

http://www.anandtech.com/video...oc.aspx?i=2113&p=1

 

[n7]

I have a Raptor, & while i do not regret buying it, since you are on a budget, skip the Raptor; get a good 8MB cache HDD instead, & go for the better video card as everyone has said.
And 2x512 for RAM; 512 alone reallly doesn't run the newer games too well.

 

[footbal07]

sounds like a good setup, id def go wit the 2800, 6800gt, gig of ram, and a decent 80gig. for the money that is the about the best system u can get. oh btw feep if you didnt kno on die cache is very costly to manufacture which accounts for the cost difference between the two cores.

 

[Massada]

As far as the proc goes, it may be worth considering the 939 cores just to have that expandability later on... as far as the bang for the buck goes; a good 6800gt is where to put your money 9 times out of 10, but thats just my 2c.

 

[Wahsapa]

Originally posted by: Massada
As far as the proc goes, it may be worth considering the 939 cores just to have that expandability later on... as far as the bang for the buck goes; a good 6800gt is where to put your money 9 times out of 10, but thats just my 2c.

no way should he get 939, especially not when the cheapist 939 is 350 bucks, he wont have any money for anything else.

 

[BopTop]

Just built a system pretty close to your specs (my rig below, black box) - I opted out of the 939 socket since in a lot of applications, there's no difference between comparably clocked A64's on either socket. As for upgradability, the amount of money you save getting a 754 and an 3000+ (on the 939, you HAVE to buy at least an 3500+), you can put towards a new mobo when you feel the need to upgrade your cpu

The 6800GT is amazing, I ran it on maxed setting on DoomIII (high res), and it ran like butta!

 

[Sonic587]

Originally posted by: Blammo300
400+ Power Supply

Uh-oh! Watch out for this Whether or not you go with A64, This is the most important part of your PC. Don't pass it over like it's nothing. You don't want your PC blowing up, do you? Make sure you get a quality brand. I.E Fortron, Sparkle, Enermax, Antec, Seasonic, OCZ, and PC Power & Cooling.

 

[Feep]

Originally posted by: footbal07
sounds like a good setup, id def go wit the 2800, 6800gt, gig of ram, and a decent 80gig. for the money that is the about the best system u can get. oh btw feep if you didnt kno on die cache is very costly to manufacture which accounts for the cost difference between the two cores.

i never clamied that the should cost less, i said they cost more because they are a better cpu

 

[DotheDamnTHing]

Originally posted by: Wahsapa

Originally posted by: Massada
As far as the proc goes, it may be worth considering the 939 cores just to have that expandability later on... as far as the bang for the buck goes; a good 6800gt is where to put your money 9 times out of 10, but thats just my 2c.

no way should he get 939, especially not when the cheapist 939 is 350 bucks, he wont have any money for anything else.

but you know s754 is essentially dead

 

[Blammo300]

If I purchase a system now I would not upgrade later without buying both mb/cpu, so it seems to me the 754 has the best value/performance ratio.

Could anybody recommend some good ram that would be ok for medium overclocking?

 

[trexpesto]

Originally posted by: Blammo300
If I purchase a system now I would not upgrade later without buying both mb/cpu, so it seems to me the 754 has the best value/performance ratio.

You are smart. The new DFI 754 should be out pronto. There is a good chance it will rule all of the other boards.
SPECS
OOS at ZipZoomFly.

As for the RAM, what FSB are you shooting for? I think I read this board can do 275 FSB. People are liking the OCZ EB but it's steep.

A guy supposedly got to 425 FSB with it.
Press Release

I guess you can preorder from DFI.

 

[Blammo300]

I wont need to do any crazy overclocking. What FSB would you recommend so it doesnt strain my system and lower the life?