dream gamin computer build

[pSychicrAlly]

hey guys, i've finally made up my mind about what my new gaming rigs going to be like, after months of research, a lot of it on this forum. however, as always, one can never overestimate the opinion of other knowledgeable folks when it comes to large chunk of hard earned cash... so here's my buid, please give meyour vote of confidence, or, please kindly point out any shortcomings or oversight, and how they might be remedied.


ANTEC P180 ATX ADVANCED MID TOWER ALUMINUM CASE

Enermax Noisetaker All In One 600W ATX12V V2.0 EPS BTX Power Supply W/ Active PFC & PCI-E SLI Ready

AMD Athlon 64 3700+ Processor S939 San Diego 2.2GHZ

ARCTIC SILVER 5 HIGH-DENSITY POLYSYNTHETIC SILVER THERMAL COMPOUND

DFI LANParty UT NF4 SLI-DR Motherboard

OCZ EL Platinum REV.2 PC3200 1GB 2X512MB DDR CL 2-2-2-5

SEAGATE BARRACUDA 7200.8 250GB SATA W/ NCQ 7200RPM 8MB

LG 16X BLACK DVD-ROM 48X CD-ROM IDE UDMA33 INT OEM

PLEXTOR PX-716A 16X8X16 DVD+-RW 4X DVD+R DUAL LAYER DRIVE

EVGA E-GEFORCE 7800 GTX PCI-E 256MB 256BIT GDDR3 Dual DVI-I HDTV VIVO SLI Video Card & Battlefield 2

SOUND BLASTER AUDIGY 2 ZS PLATINUM PCI W/ INTERNAL PANEL

ZALMAN ZM-RS6F 5.1 CHANNEL EQUIVALENT 6 SPEAKER REAL SURROUND HEADPHONES

Razer Diamondback Chameleon Green 1600DPI Optical Mouse USB

Func F-SERIES F10.S Smooth Mouse Surface 11X17IN Black

MICROSOFT WINDOWS XP HOME EDITION OEM



let me know you comments, suggestions, addendums, etc...

best

 

[ShadowBlade]

get a a64 x2 4400+ and xp pro x64

 

[mOeeOm]

Looks great, the only thing I will say is wait for ATI's new gen cards and also does your budget allow for a 4400+ X2?

 

[RichUK]

Originally posted by: ShadowBlade
get a a64 x2 4400+ and xp pro x64

why the hell would you wanna purchase that is that an educated suggestion or just a suggestion that you think will improve his PC's performance.

 

[Muscles]

I'm building a new system soon too and for the most part that looks very similar to my future build except this is what I would do different:

Things that matter
1. Your headphone choice sucks. I personally use Sennheiser HD580'sHD580's but you don't have to go that expensive. These Sennheiser HD497's work okay and so do these Grado SR60's

2. I would go with 2gb ram. Something like OCZ 2GB (2 x 1GB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM Unbuffered DDR 400 (PC 3200) Dual Channel Platinum System Memory

Nit picky things I would change

3. For a little more performance I'd get this harddrive Maxtor DiamondMax 10 6B250S0 250GB Serial ATA 7200RPM Hard Drive w/16MB Buffer

4. WinXP Pro instead of Home because I run a network at my house using domains.

 

[RichUK]

and i would definitely recommend a dual core to go with that rig, you can?t solely be buying a new PC just for gaming, otherwise you would wait for the xbox 360 (ohh and no replies/flames with regards to FPS games ), i would say that if you had the cash maybe the X2 4400+ :thumbsup: or the X2 3800+ if your a bit short on cash .. then after a while if you are interested you can venture into the OCing forum and inquire about OCing your 3800+, to say an average OC of around 2.6, which with the faster bus would be near dual FX55 standard, or like wise with the 4400+ ...

 

[mOeeOm]

2. I would go with 2gb ram. Something like OCZ 2GB (2 x 1GB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM Unbuffered DDR 400 (PC 3200) Dual Channel Platinum System Memory

I just put that ram in 30 minutes ago its great.

 

[Stangs55]

Looks like a great build

My 2 changes though:
1. I would DEFINATLY get a Soundblaster X-Fi card over any other card. I went from an Audigy2 ZS Platinum to an X-Fi and the difference in BF2 is nothing short of astounding.
2. If you are not planning on doing some serious OC'ing on your RAM, then get 2Gb's instead. I have a buddy with an identical system to me except that I have 2GB of RAM and he has 1GB (yes, the exact same ram). However I load BF2 levels about 2x as fast as he does. It seems to be the trend that in future games, 2Gb will finally be > 1 Gb.

Good luck and keep us posted on how it goes.

(oh, and welcome to the forums )

 

[The Boston Dangler]

Originally posted by: pSychicrAlly
hey guys, i've finally made up my mind about what my new gaming rigs going to be like, after months of research, a lot of it on this forum. however, as always, one can never overestimate the opinion of other knowledgeable folks when it comes to large chunk of hard earned cash... so here's my buid, please give meyour vote of confidence, or, please kindly point out any shortcomings or oversight, and how they might be remedied.


ANTEC P180 ATX ADVANCED MID TOWER ALUMINUM CASE

Enermax Noisetaker All In One 600W ATX12V V2.0 EPS BTX Power Supply W/ Active PFC & PCI-E SLI Ready

AMD Athlon 64 3700+ Processor S939 San Diego 2.2GHZ

ARCTIC SILVER 5 HIGH-DENSITY POLYSYNTHETIC SILVER THERMAL COMPOUND

DFI LANParty UT NF4 SLI-DR Motherboard

OCZ EL Platinum REV.2 PC3200 1GB 2X512MB DDR CL 2-2-2-5

SEAGATE BARRACUDA 7200.8 250GB SATA W/ NCQ 7200RPM 8MB

LG 16X BLACK DVD-ROM 48X CD-ROM IDE UDMA33 INT OEM

PLEXTOR PX-716A 16X8X16 DVD+-RW 4X DVD+R DUAL LAYER DRIVE

EVGA E-GEFORCE 7800 GTX PCI-E 256MB 256BIT GDDR3 Dual DVI-I HDTV VIVO SLI Video Card & Battlefield 2

SOUND BLASTER AUDIGY 2 ZS PLATINUM PCI W/ INTERNAL PANEL

ZALMAN ZM-RS6F 5.1 CHANNEL EQUIVALENT 6 SPEAKER REAL SURROUND HEADPHONES

Razer Diamondback Chameleon Green 1600DPI Optical Mouse USB

Func F-SERIES F10.S Smooth Mouse Surface 11X17IN Black

MICROSOFT WINDOWS XP HOME EDITION OEM



let me know you comments, suggestions, addendums, etc...

best

Obviously, you've done some homework. Your choices are far from terrible, but I'd like to suggest a couple alternatives:

Power Supply
Take a look at the SPCR Power Supply Fundamentals & Recommendations Seasonic PS's are usually among the best, a very solid investment. Caution: Seasonic power cables are too short for the P180. A 24 pin extension is available here, you might find it for less.

RAM
If you're not OC'ing, that RAM is overkill. Take a look at Value RAM Roundup: Computing On a Budget. You can get 2GB of decent RAM for the price.
If you are OC'ing, that RAM should be good to go, consider a second GB later on.
Always check the mobo compatibility charts.

HDD
The Seagate drives are very good, 2 would be better. Using 2 physical drives is much faster when doing something that performs simultaneous read/writes. Example: Crunching large media files- Read the original files from 1 drive, write final files on the other. Even if you rarely or never do this, more storage is never bad.

DVD
Do you really need 2 optical drives? I prefer extracting the files to HDD, then burning. The Plextor is a great choice, but I would take the PX-716SA, SATA version. The board uses the NF4 chipset, so it supports SATA natively. Go for it.

Sound Card
Unless you want/need the Live Drive, save yourself the $100 and get an HDA Digital X-Mystique 7.1 Gold.

Mouse
If possible, head over to Best Buy/ Comp USA/ et cetera and play around with the mice they have on display. Better to find out you don't like it before you buy it.


Good luck!

 

[love2skate824]

dude, save yourself some case and get a benq 1640. pretty much a rebadged plextor. go 2x1gb ram, the maxtor 250gb drive is great. definetly go for the 3800 dual core, and maybe check out a lian-li mid tower. for a great budget psu get the antec samrt power, 500 watts, dual 12v rails with like 17a on eeach, and modular cables, antec branded, only $70.

 

[Aznguy1872]

Whats your total cost for a set up like that?

 

[Bona Fide]

1. Get an X2 4400+
2. Get 2x1GB of RAM
3. Get a better PSU (Antec, Seasonic, Fortron, PCP&C)
4. See if you can get an X-Fi instead of that Audigy

 

[t3h l337 n3wb]

Audigy 2's are getting phased out as the X-Fi's are introduced.
2GB of Value RAM would be much better than 2x512MB of premium RAM
The eVGA 7800GTX comes with a free SLI motherboard. Go with that.

 

[lordsaytor]

Originally posted by: Muscles
I'm building a new system soon too and for the most part that looks very similar to my future build except this is what I would do different:

Things that matter
1. Your headphone choice sucks. I personally use Sennheiser HD580'sHD580's but you don't have to go that expensive. These Sennheiser HD497's work okay and so do these Grado SR60's

2. I would go with 2gb ram. Something like OCZ 2GB (2 x 1GB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM Unbuffered DDR 400 (PC 3200) Dual Channel Platinum System Memory

Nit picky things I would change

3. For a little more performance I'd get this harddrive Maxtor DiamondMax 10 6B250S0 250GB Serial ATA 7200RPM Hard Drive w/16MB Buffer

4. WinXP Pro instead of Home because I run a network at my house using domains.

Yes please listen to him. Get Sennheiser headphones, either the HD 580 or HD 590 or HD 595. And if you ever consider buying Sony's, slap yourself in the face.

As for the mouse, I have never seen or heard of that mouse. But if you're a gamer I'd suggest you stick with something like the Logitech MX1000 that I've enjoyed using for almost a year.

 

[The Boston Dangler]

I use Sennheiser HD 280 pro's, they sound great but they get heavy and hot after a while. $99.

 

[fuzzymitx]

Originally posted by: lordsaytor

As for the mouse, I have never seen or heard of that mouse. But if you're a gamer I'd suggest you stick with something like the Logitech MX1000 that I've enjoyed using for almost a year.

The razor is a great mouse. I prefer the logitech Mx5xx gaming mouse though, I really like the on the fly mouse sensitivity adjustments. (Both have the same DPI ratings).

Cheers.

 

[chrisrod01]

Originally posted by: pSychicrAlly
hey guys, i've finally made up my mind about what my new gaming rigs going to be like, after months of research, a lot of it on this forum. however, as always, one can never overestimate the opinion of other knowledgeable folks when it comes to large chunk of hard earned cash... so here's my buid, please give meyour vote of confidence, or, please kindly point out any shortcomings or oversight, and how they might be remedied.


ANTEC P180 ATX ADVANCED MID TOWER ALUMINUM CASE

Enermax Noisetaker All In One 600W ATX12V V2.0 EPS BTX Power Supply W/ Active PFC & PCI-E SLI Ready

AMD Athlon 64 3700+ Processor S939 San Diego 2.2GHZ

ARCTIC SILVER 5 HIGH-DENSITY POLYSYNTHETIC SILVER THERMAL COMPOUND

DFI LANParty UT NF4 SLI-DR Motherboard

OCZ EL Platinum REV.2 PC3200 1GB 2X512MB DDR CL 2-2-2-5

SEAGATE BARRACUDA 7200.8 250GB SATA W/ NCQ 7200RPM 8MB

LG 16X BLACK DVD-ROM 48X CD-ROM IDE UDMA33 INT OEM

PLEXTOR PX-716A 16X8X16 DVD+-RW 4X DVD+R DUAL LAYER DRIVE

EVGA E-GEFORCE 7800 GTX PCI-E 256MB 256BIT GDDR3 Dual DVI-I HDTV VIVO SLI Video Card & Battlefield 2

SOUND BLASTER AUDIGY 2 ZS PLATINUM PCI W/ INTERNAL PANEL

ZALMAN ZM-RS6F 5.1 CHANNEL EQUIVALENT 6 SPEAKER REAL SURROUND HEADPHONES

Razer Diamondback Chameleon Green 1600DPI Optical Mouse USB

Func F-SERIES F10.S Smooth Mouse Surface 11X17IN Black

MICROSOFT WINDOWS XP HOME EDITION OEM



let me know you comments, suggestions, addendums, etc...

best

Why off with the processor go with a amd 57 fx
Case-BlK version p180
RAM-2x1gig OCZ
2 7800gtx from xfx the one with like 1300 mhz core
Soundcard- X-FI
And ofcourse any dream build should have 1terabyte of hd

 

[pSychicrAlly]

 

[orangat]

I'm assuming you still have a reasonable budget although you want opinions on a dream ultimate rig. So my comments:

- A 3700+ is pretty good but why not the 3800+X2 for +$90. Its a little slower at 2.0Ghz but dual core. A 4200+X2 would be +$200

- 1Gb RAM is not dreamin. Its bog standard now. Get 3-4 Gb since it the max that most mb support. 4 1Gb matched sticks would set you back about +$440

- A 250Gb is also bog standard. Get a 400Gb drive. If you don't mind shelling out real big bucks say +2k get scsi drives or a scsi raid setup.

 

[jimbob200521]

pretty much the same opinion as everybody else: get 2gb of ram, go with the senheiser headphones, and if you can afford it, get a dual core proc instead, thats what the entire industry is shifting towards. as for the sound card, as long as its creative, i dont see how you can go wrong. as for 1tb of hard drive space, i dont know whether you are serious or for real, but i think it overkill.

 

[Muscles]

Getting a dual core now is questionable still in my mind. No doubt it will be very useful later on for gamers when games start supporting it but it may be wise to get the 3700+ now and then just sell it and get a dual core later when they're cheaper.

 

[AlucardX]

another vote on goin to the xfi soundcard and goin for 2gb ram.. forget about cas2, get some cas3 and go for 2x1gb sticks. you're gonna need it for BF2

 

[The Boston Dangler]

as for the sound card, as long as its creative, i dont see how you can go wrong.

Dude, tell me you're not serious....
The only thing "creative" about Creative Labs is the BS they hurl at customers.

 

[suicidalpigeon]

Originally posted by: The Boston Dangler

as for the sound card, as long as its creative, i dont see how you can go wrong.

Dude, tell me you're not serious....
The only thing "creative" about Creative Labs is the BS they hurl at customers.

creative drivers is teh sux.

 

[jimbob200521]

Originally posted by: wafflesandsyrup

Originally posted by: The Boston Dangler

as for the sound card, as long as its creative, i dont see how you can go wrong.

Dude, tell me you're not serious....
The only thing "creative" about Creative Labs is the BS they hurl at customers.

creative drivers is teh sux.

guys, whether you want to admint it or not, dispite their driver "problems", they do make damn nice sound cards. which, if your into high quality audio, matters. as far as i, and many others, are concerned, creatives sound is unrivaled. after all, there is a reason that they are on top.

i also suppose you would be the people to tell me that speaker cable doesnt make a differance. im not trying to be mean or anything, just make a point