Bulding new rig, help

clockworks27

Junior Member
Aug 23, 2004
3
0
0
Hello
I am building a new rig for myself and I require the people of the forum to assist me in this set-up. My current set-up is for some casual gaming, some 3D redering, A/V editing (no major), and High School related work.

Case:
Guardian NZXT ($70)

DVD-Burner:
NEC 8X DL 2510A ($74)

CPU:
Athlon 64 2800+ ($150) (I plan to upgrade it later to the 3700+ when the price justifies it; it just needs to hold me off until Dual Core becomes a sure thing).

Hard Drive:
Seagate 160 SATA II with NCQ ($115)
or
Seagate 160 SATA ($107) (any major difference in performance and/or stability?)

RAM:
OCZ EL 512 PC-3200 Platinum Edition ($123)

Mobo:
MSI K8N Neo Platinum with nForce3 250 chipset($128) (The Mobo MUST have onboard sound and gigabit ethernet (future-proofing a bit) along with a firewire connection, I do some video editing).

Video Card:
Powercolor ATI Radeon 9800SE 128MB DDR, 256-bit

Thanks to all those who help
 

jpeyton

Moderator in SFF, Notebooks, Pre-Built/Barebones
Moderator
Aug 23, 2003
25,375
142
116
check the thread in my sig out. it has a system setup link near the top
 

clockworks27

Junior Member
Aug 23, 2004
3
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0
BTW, my budget is no more than $800

I should've mentioned that I have read almost all of AT's system guides, reviews, and people's forum's guides. I thank the reply but I need opinions on the selected parts not another guide

I appologize if I sounded blunt :p
 

Fern

Elite Member
Sep 30, 2003
26,907
173
106
Looks fine to me, with one exception. Powercolor vid card - I just hear too many bad things about that manufacturer. Also the "SE" edition is not supposed to be a very good one. If I was you, I would ask about that over at the vid card forum.
 

clockworks27

Junior Member
Aug 23, 2004
3
0
0
I decided to get the RAIDMax Blue Case along with the Antec True Power 430. As for the Video Card wise, I don't know if I should use my TNT2 Ultra until prices come down or if I should just buy a better card (bear in mind that my budget for the card is no greater than $150).

Thanks again
 

Fern

Elite Member
Sep 30, 2003
26,907
173
106
Well if you can wait a bit, that might be best. $150 is what everyone seem to expect the 9800pro to drop to. I thought it would be at that price by now, but there seems to be problems getting enough inventory of the new cards on the shelf. Perhaps when the supply arrives, and the new lines like the 6600's arrives, we'll see the 9800pro @ $150. I'm expecting this to happen fairly soon. But thats just my guess.
 

thirdlegstump

Banned
Feb 12, 2001
8,713
0
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That case is so ugly that your machine won't boot up. Just kidding of course. Everything looks good to me if you don't need bleeding edge 3d gaming performance. For realtime 3d previews in Max etc, I'd recommend Nvidia over ATI.
 

Fuhglee

Junior Member
Aug 24, 2004
14
0
0
A minor warning: if the A/V editing is important to you, you might be unhappy with the quality of the onboard sound. Is budget your only reason for *requiring* onboard sound?
 

mrwxyz

Senior member
Feb 7, 2004
334
0
71
I think you are better off buying ur dvdrw and hdd in store....they great prices all the time with rebates. For example, the 160 segate for $107 is $60 at compusa rite now, although the drive is ultra ata100 instead of sata. But that doesnt matter, it doesnt make a diff which way u go unless u plan on having a lot of drives running together.

With that money, u could upgrade the $150 budget for the vid card to $190 and get a real 9800pro.

And i beleive the ocz EB series does more for the a64 than the EL, but u could also go with value ram....wont be a big deal unless u benchmark and u'll save another $30 for elsewhere

good luck