Comment on my parts list

[yelo333]

EDIT: This post is obsolete. however, for your convenience, I'll quote my "newer" post(which should be my seventh post in this thread) here:

OK, how is this for an updated list?

I've decided to upgrade the mobo, since this computer is most likely going to stick around for awhile without getting upgraded, a board with more "features" might be a good idea, since nobody can tell what this computer will be used for in a couple years...

All my parts are at newegg.com(hey, farcry free if I buy both a64+mobo at newegg...)
anway, new list[quoted for visual separation]:

Case...SLK3700AMB
DVD-R...NEC ND-3520A w/ software
HD...WD 74GB raptor
RAM...2 sticks of corsair value select 512mb pc-3200 cas2.5
MOBO...DFI lanparty UT NF3 250Gb
CPU...A64 3000+
GPU...Sapphire r9600 128mb, 128bit, passive cooling(only b/c the rosewill is OOS)

Anyway, the grand total on this stuff is $842.62 - $25 rebate = $817.62, which I think is acceptable. If the rosewill gets back in stock, that will shave off $15 from the price, and if the case goes on sale(as it usually does every other day), that should shave another $10 or $15 off the price, bringing it down to my target $800.

Any comments now?

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The following is obsolete:
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Here goes!

Quotes in this message are used to more visibly denote new sections of text, and not actually quoting anybody.

Current parts list In no particular order:

A64 3000+ Retail $149 @ newegg.com
K8N(not -E) Retail $90 @ zipzoomfly.com
Raptor 74GB $160 AR @ newegg.com
Sapphire radeon 9600 128mb, 128-bit(reason I'm suggesting this one is b/c it's passive) $95.50 @ newegg.com
NEC 3520a blk w/ software $76 @ newegg.com
SLK3700AMB $78 @ newegg.com
2 sticks of crucial 512mb pc3200 about $150 total @ newegg.com

All this adds up to around $800, which is the price point he is looking for. However, if necessary, he has nothing against spending a bit more.

Now, a few notes:

Sound just needs to be decent, he doesn't use his computer to play music.
He is also not a gamer. The gfx card should be enough to run other things just fine, like 3d screensavers, or any other eyecandy he might try.

Also, once he buys this, he is not planning to do much upgrading. So, I believe 2 SATA ports should be fine. Another aspect of this is that the build will probably need to last for a few years.

There will definitely be no overclocking done on this box. Reliability > speed for this box. If you are going to talk about how overclocking is completely reliable, I agree with you 😉 - my box is overclocked. However, since this isn't my computer, I'd rather leave the warranty intact.

It's going to be in a bedroom, and also needs to be semi-quiet.

The $800 quoted does not include the OS. That's covered 😉

Things he will use it for:

General Internet
Possibly some development work/database stuff.
Possibly DVD encoding - would this mean firewire should be integrated into the board?
Word processing/spreadsheets/etc.

Some question's I have:

Did I leave out any important parts?

The reason I threw the raptor in there is because I believe the HD to be the single biggest bottleneck in regular windows usage. In many cases, wouldn't the raptor make the largest difference in such mundane things like app load times/windows startup?

Is the 350w antec PSU enough, if not, what would be enough? would upgrading the case to the sonata do it(since a 380w truepower PSU is bundled)?

I'm still going back+forth between the nforce3+K8T800. Should I pursue the K8V instead?

Compatibility between 9600+nforce3...I've heard of some problems here, but, it's possible they were all power supply related.

Is the difference between the 2800+ and the 3000+ really worth $20? $20 would make the difference between, say, the slk3700amb, and the sonata.

Should I even be pursuing the 9600 in the first place, or should he save $50, and get, say, a 9200 instead? 2D image quality is the most important part of the gfx card for this build.

Well, that's all I can think of right now. Any comments are welcome, especially those that answer my questions. 😉

 

[ts3433]

If you need the absolute best 2D you can get, you need to look into a Matrox card. Horrible 3D acceleration, though. The 9600 would be fine for that, but it's not going to make any difference in Windows versus a 9200 until Longhorn (DX9 interface; the 9200 is DX8.1).

You can save a little money on the board without sacrificing quality by going with a Chaintech VNF3-250 or Soltek SL-K8AN2E-GR. At stock speeds, though, there would be no difference between either chipset. You can also shave $10 or $20 off RAM costs (again, with no loss in quality) by going with Corsair or Mushkin.

A lot of money can be saved on the hard drive by going with a normal 7200RPM drive instead of the Raptor, which is probably overkill. Windows is plenty fast for me with my WD 7200RPM, but I guess to some the faster drive makes a difference in how snappy their OS feels.

That Antec SL350 should handle that since you don't have a high-end videocard. You could probably stick even more on there and be fine.

 

[yelo333]

Originally posted by: ts3433
If you need the absolute best 2D you can get, you need to look into a Matrox card. Horrible 3D acceleration, though. The 9600 would be fine for that, but it's not going to make any difference in Windows versus a 9200 until Longhorn (DX9 interface; the 9200 is DX8.1).

You can save a little money on the board without sacrificing quality by going with a Chaintech VNF3-250 or Soltek SL-K8AN2E-GR. At stock speeds, though, there would be no difference between either chipset. You can also shave $10 or $20 off RAM costs (again, with no loss in quality) by going with Corsair or Mushkin.

A lot of money can be saved on the hard drive by going with a normal 7200RPM drive instead of the Raptor, which is probably overkill. Windows is plenty fast for me with my WD 7200RPM, but I guess to some the faster drive makes a difference in how snappy their OS feels.

That Antec SL350 should handle that since you don't have a high-end videocard. You could probably stick even more on there and be fine.

@ts3433: OK, I looked at your rig, and noted you had that rosewill 9600. I can shave about $10 or $15 off the price by going with the rosewill, rather than the sapphire. Have you had good success with that card?

When I said I wanted good 2D, I just meant I'd prefer to not get a GF4MX, as I've heard those visibly lose when placed head-to-head to, say, a 9200. I didn't mean matrox-style quality 😉 .

I'll also consider the corsair value ram, instead of the crucial...however, it's only about another $10 to go with crucial, and, as I'm shooting for 100% reliability, I think it's worth it.

@Everyone:

As I was looking through ZZF's stock of mobo's, I noted abit has an nforce3 motherboard. This puts my mind at ease about the nf3(remembering back to the rumor about abit being dissatisfied with the nf3's reliability)...It's also just $92.50, and comes with all the fixin's.

Abit's page on it

As far as I can tell, it's instock at ZZF

Hmm, with the exception of just 2 ram slots, which is all the nf3 can handle well anyway, it looks like it's a great board...Any comments on this? Another great plus is it's passively cooled, unlike 99% of the other abit boards...Would this be the board to get? Remember, I'm looking for 5-star quality+reliability, not that extra percentage point of speed...

 

[ts3433]

I've had no problems with this Rosewill.

The Abit board would probably also be a good buy (no better than the others I suggested, most likely), but I'd be a bit hesitant to buy from Abit due to potential support issues resulting from some financial trouble they're in.

 

[coejus]

The Raptor will make a lot of difference in load times, boot time, and anything where the hard disk is accessed.

350 watts will be plenty.

I'm running a 9600 XT on an nForce3 Ultra board with 0 problems.

The extra $20 would be better spent on the processor. The SLK3700AMB is a fine case, and for your friend, the Sonata is probably not worth the extra cash.

Like ts3433 said, you might want to look at Matrox if 2D quality is extremely important. Used would be fine.

 

[yelo333]

Originally posted by: ts3433
I've had no problems with this Rosewill.

The Abit board would probably also be a good buy (no better than the others I suggested, most likely), but I'd be a bit hesitant to buy from Abit due to potential support issues resulting from some financial trouble they're in.

oops, sorry, just edited my previous message...apologies for not just appending my corrections. I realise people dislike having that happen to them.

As far as abit goes, though, am I going to get any better support from chaintec, soltec, or asus? I have 2 abit boards(NF7+AI7) humming away here, and they are both nothing short of perfect - I really, really like their boards.

 

[ts3433]

Looking at your edit...
Crucial's no more or less reliable than Corsair or Mushkin, so you may as well pocket the $10.

The Chaintech is very widely recommended as a S754 budget board, so you shouldn't have many problems with it. I'd imagine support is equal for the most part.

 

[yelo333]

Originally posted by: coejus
The Raptor will make a lot of difference in load times, boot time, and anything where the hard disk is accessed.

precicely. Do you have any first-hand experience with this?

350 watts will be plenty.

thx for letting me know...

I'm running a 9600 XT on an nForce3 Ultra board with 0 problems.

One of my major questions answered...thanks!

The extra $20 would be better spent on the processor. The SLK3700AMB is a fine case, and for your friend, the Sonata is probably not worth the extra cash.

What I was thinking, however, didn't want to come up short on the PSU and wind up spending another $70 to replace it 😉

Like ts3433 said, you might want to look at Matrox if 2D quality is extremely important. Used would be fine.

Nah, I think I overemphasized that 2D thing. My point was that I didn't want to sacrifice 2D for 3D performance. I've got both a radeon 9200 and a 9600 humming along here, both are fine in the 2D department.

 

[coejus]

Originally posted by: yelo333
precicely. Do you have any first-hand experience with this?

Not first hand experience, but I've read benchmarks that showed the Raptors actually outperformed some SCSI disks with 15k spindle speeds. Maybe that article was at Tom's Hardware, I can't remember... I've also read some glowing reviews on various forums by Raptor owners.

 

[yelo333]

Originally posted by: ts3433
Looking at your edit...
Crucial's no more or less reliable than Corsair or Mushkin, so you may as well pocket the $10.

OK, I'll swap out corsair for crucial.

The Chaintech is very widely recommended as a S754 budget board, so you shouldn't have many problems with it. I'd imagine support is equal for the most part.

I was really hoping to get firewire on the mobo, if it wasn't too expensive, just in case he ever got some external firewire gadget. I still have a hard time not thinking "second-rate" when I think chaintech. Maybe I'd just better let him decide on this one...

 

[yelo333]

Originally posted by: coejus

Originally posted by: yelo333
precicely. Do you have any first-hand experience with this?

Not first hand experience, but I've read benchmarks that showed the Raptors actually outperformed some SCSI disks with 15k spindle speeds. Maybe that article was at Tom's Hardware, I can't remember... I've also read some glowing reviews on various forums by Raptor owners.

OK, so, then, you would agree with me when I say that the $80 extra would be justified?


Edit: and, wow, just wanted to say thanks to both you and ts3433 for these lightning fast replys...

 

[coejus]

It's justified if he doesn't need more than the 74 GB of space. Otherwise, you might be better off just spending the money on a slower 200 GB SATA drive.

Fast replies are a sign of boredom. 🙂

 

[DragonFire]

Looks good. Tho I would stick with Corsair memory but thats me, then again your building almost a whole computer for a cheaper price then what my cpu alone costs....

 

[yelo333]

OK, how is this for an updated list?

I've decided to upgrade the mobo, since this computer is most likely going to stick around for awhile without getting upgraded, a board with more "features" might be a good idea, since nobody can tell what this computer will be used for in a couple years...

All my parts are at newegg.com(hey, farcry free if I buy both a64+mobo at newegg...)
anway, new list[quoted for visual separation]:

Case...SLK3700AMB
DVD-R...NEC ND-3520A w/ software
HD...WD 74GB raptor
RAM...2 sticks of corsair value select 512mb pc-3200 cas2.5
MOBO...DFI lanparty UT NF3 250Gb
CPU...A64 3000+
GPU...Sapphire r9600 128mb, 128bit, passive cooling(only b/c the rosewill is OOS)

Anyway, the grand total on this stuff is $842.62 - $25 rebate = $817.62, which I think is acceptable. If the rosewill gets back in stock, that will shave off $15 from the price, and if the case goes on sale(as it usually does every other day), that should shave another $10 or $15 off the price, bringing it down to my target $800.

Any comments now?

 

[coejus]

That sounds good to me. Are you going to throw a floppy in there?

 

[yelo333]

Originally posted by: coejus
That sounds good to me. Are you going to throw a floppy in there?

Hmm, didn't really think of that...If he wants one, I've got a boxful of FDD's 😉

 

[yelo333]

Last call!

Chances are, the second list I made is the one I'm going to usewhen we go to order, with the possibility of getting the rosewill 9600(128mb,128bit) instead of the sapphire, depending on which one is instock.

Any last comments?