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building my first gaming rig

I

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Junior Member
hi all,

I m building my first gaming rig and could do with some advice. I ve got a good budget so am lookin at a fairly high end machine. This is what i ve considered getting so far:

Lian-li pc-v1000 case
amd 64 4000+
abit fatal 1ty an8 mbrd
asus ati radeon x850xt pci-e platinum
corsair 1gb xms xpert
western dig 300gb caviar 7200rpm
dvd r (any recommendations?)
also a good value flat screen 19"

Does anyone have any suggestions? is any of this just not worth the cash? do i need some cooling for this? a lot of people seem to go for a couple of smaller faster hd's. also is this case, cool and quiet as it is, just to expensive for what it is? i m very sketchy about ram too. finally, if i m gonna spend the money on a nice card should i go with the gefrce 6800 ultra or even wait for the geforce 7000 gtx later in the year? thanks for your time and any help you can give.

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I'd probably drop the CPU down a notch...

I have an NEC 3520A and it's been working out great.

Retail CPUs will come with their own HS/F so no need for one of those. Cases vary on whether they come with fans. Looks like that one's all set.

Do you have any idea on powersupply?
 
i think ur right about the cpu. the next model down is 100 cheaper and the differene in performance is nt really that much.
 
get the 3700 sandy instead and the 6800 gt. save some of that bank for the x2 if you want, if not the 3700 clocks like mad anyway. as for the vga, you won't see any huge difference in the 6800gt either so save again for the g70 or r520s that are a few months away.

get a very good psu like the ocz 600 powerstream. check with abit on the ram compatability. just keeep in mind alot of people throw out vx and bh-5 or utt ram but it requires alot of volts meaining more heat. i prefer tccd.

l90d+ lcd is a good gaming monitor at a decent price,~360. the nec-3520 is a popular and good dvd burner. plextor and pioneer too, but i'm happy with the nec for ~50

the hdd is up to you. i have a raptor 74gb for os and games and a 250gb for storage. raiding a couple 80's might be a better option if you're inclined.
 
Read this thread. Buying high end memory really doesn't pay off. If you really want to spend money on RAM, you might be better off buying 2gb of value memory instead.

Antec smartpower is supposed to be a really good value for a good PSU. If you want something quieter you can look into the Antec truepower or Seasonic S12 series.
 
get ram that OCs well though unless you plan on not touching that in which case try the Corsair gb of ram thats in the HD forum
 
Originally posted by: ads
un unexpected tax rebate so id rather spend the money on something useful than just beer.
Click to expand...

spend $1000-$1500 and put the rest in the bank 🙂

unless you are o/c, you don't need the really expensive ram.

the nec dvd-r/w are nice and cheap 🙂

any reason you are going with that board? ~$185 is really high for a non-sli board and unless you o/c you would be fine with a much cheaper nf4ultra board.

also the cpu - man that is a ton of $$ to spend on a cpu. in all reality with the graphics card you have and you would probably be fine with a 3000-3200 and then go x2 when they come out.

remember for gaming, at this point in cpu speed/efficiency i would say the order of importance is:
1 - graphics card
2 - cpu/ram

you are spending ~$600 which imo only is too expensive for just cpu/mobo. in all reality you only need 70-80fps in the most intense scenes of a game, anything over that and it is overkill. you vision can not tell the differences between 70-80fps and 300. if you really want to spend a lot on the cpu, wait and get a x2.

personally i would get a cheaper cpu, like a 3200 and o/c if you want, a nice nf4ultra board, a 74GB raptor and 250-300GB sataII secondary drive, a nec burner and since you are a hardcore gamer a kick@$$ video card.

by going with a raptor, the machine will "feel" faster as the faster seek times do make a difference.

spending $$$ on a case and p/s is one thing because they will serve you for years.

again, this is just my opinion and i like to spend the $$$ in parts that won't be 1/2 the price in 9mos.
 
thanks for all the advice guys. i m intrigued about the hd options. having a rig that runs smoothly when just wandering around my o/s is qite important so i may have a look at a faster albeit smaller HD, and buy a second for storage. i may well take the cpu down a notch and save the cash for upgrades later. thanks again all.
 
if anyone reads this, what s the difference between the different makes of graph cards - saphire, asus, etc. are some more stable than others?
 
Get a small HD for your OS and stuff and a 250gb or something for file storage. Let me tell you, it's so nice to just have a Windows drive and just be able to reformat that if something goes haywire and not to have to back anything up past My Documents.
 
I would really just spend less on parts. The parts you chose do not really offer a significant enough performance increase to justify the much higher cost. I would just get an X800XL.
 
Originally posted by: ads
yer i see your point kooldrew. but i m trying to keep one eye on the future. I d like it to be fairly future proof.
Click to expand...

you will never be future proof. the best current defense is a nf4 board since that supports dual core cpus. soon amd will offer a new socket so you can never be future proof. i would get a much cheaper cpu as i stated earlier and get a dual core when they are reasonably priced and pci-e is the way things are going. spending $400 on a cpu imo is a bad idea.
 
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