First time building a computer: Prescott mobo/RAM/Proc...

[garetjax]

Looking to build my first computer gaming rig, and looking to get good, reliable, and performance savvy components that work and mesh with each other well. The mobo I am looking for needs to have RAID, SATA, 4x/8x AGP (no PCI-e) HT, and Firewire. The one that I was looking at is this one here:

http://www.newegg.com/app/view...=13-136-148&depa=0

Is this a good board? To be honest this is the first time building a computer, so I have no idea if DFI is good or not. I am more accustomed to seeing Abit and ASUS boards as being good ones to get. Does anyone have any suggestions for a different board perhaps that you would think would work better? And if so, what are they? Or will this DFI board fulfill all my expectations and more?

Also, if anyone would be willing to match some great RAM with this board or any other that is mentioned, that would be nice. Like I said, this is a gaming rig, so good, high quality, reliable and latency timing RAM is a must. Cost is no object, and looking for 1GB minimum to start. OCZ, Kingston, Crucial etc. etc. Would like to get the best possible that I can afford.

The proc I plan to use is this one here:

http://www.newegg.com/app/view...=19-116-182&depa=0

Of course, any opinions and/or criticism is welcome, and thank you kindly for helping me build my first rig!

I already have the PSU and videocard, just fleshing out the final details with the help of you guys. =)

 

[stevty2889]

DFI makes good boards, but if you building a gaming rig, why go with a Prescott, instead of an Athlon 64?

 

[garetjax]

Originally posted by: stevty2889
DFI makes good boards, but if you building a gaming rig, why go with a Prescott, instead of an Athlon 64?

LOL. To be honest? Because I know nothing of AMD, as all my previous computers have been Intel. Plus even though AMD may make the newest and best proc out there at the moment, theres no way I can drop 1k on it and look myself in the mirror in the morning. =)

 

[Ruckas]

Wow, I'm a rookie here at Anandtech. But that's a pretty stupid statement...

 

[ArneBjarne]

Originally posted by: garetjax27

Originally posted by: stevty2889
DFI makes good boards, but if you building a gaming rig, why go with a Prescott, instead of an Athlon 64?

LOL. To be honest? Because I know nothing of AMD, as all my previous computers have been Intel. Plus even though AMD may make the newest and best proc out there at the moment, theres no way I can drop 1k on it and look myself in the mirror in the morning. =)

How did you come up with 1k?

The Pentium 4 550 (3.4) that you link to 272$

Athlon 64 3500+ also at newegg 265$

 

[stevty2889]

Price to performance, Athlon 64's blow away prescotts. Less expensive for better performance.

 

[mmcdonalataocdotgov]

SharkyExtreme is recommending this very mobo as the core of its November High-End Gamer's rig, so I would buy with confidence.

 

[biostud]

Originally posted by: garetjax27

Originally posted by: stevty2889
DFI makes good boards, but if you building a gaming rig, why go with a Prescott, instead of an Athlon 64?

LOL. To be honest? Because I know nothing of AMD, as all my previous computers have been Intel. Plus even though AMD may make the newest and best proc out there at the moment, theres no way I can drop 1k on it and look myself in the mirror in the morning. =)

I couldn't look myself in the mirror in the morning if I bought an Intel setup for gaming

 

[wickedone]

Just wonder why you are asking this question on a Anandtech forum if you trust what they say at the SharkyExtreme more then Anandtech, he has took time to but together Computer's for low , mid to highend systems on the webpage. There is also somone at the top of this Forum that has taken a lot of time to do the same.

Just a Little thing to say with out going to far The 939 MB for AMD NF4 MB support duel Nvida PCI express cards, SATA II and a few other features that will give a much more Gaming power, not to mention that AMD CPU's have been faster than Intel and cooler bit for a long time now.

 

[n7]

Originally posted by: garetjax27

Originally posted by: stevty2889
DFI makes good boards, but if you building a gaming rig, why go with a Prescott, instead of an Athlon 64?

LOL. To be honest? Because I know nothing of AMD, as all my previous computers have been Intel. Plus even though AMD may make the newest and best proc out there at the moment, theres no way I can drop 1k on it and look myself in the mirror in the morning. =)

ROTFL :laugh:

I sense heavy bashing upcoming...seriously man, do a little learning :disgust:

 

[uOpt]

For most games the Athlon 64 will perform better for the money, as with some other applications like scripting languages.

Pentium-4s, and I can only speak for Northwoods here, are better, about the same price/performance for encoding (video, audio) and compilation if C and low-to moderately messy C++ code (if you totally blow up templates the AMD64 becomes better, appaarently the L1 cache on the P4 gets trashed).

The prescott has SSE3, a deeper pipleline and slower but bigger caches which would increase this tendency, it would get faster for the money on the high predictable programs.

The reason why I like my Intel is that the mainboard is so much nicer,a nd I found that hyperthreading is a huge advantage if you do 3D in the foreground and there is some CPU hog (VCR or similar) in the background. I found it to be mostly useless or even contraproductive otherwise.

 

[TJones2]

Pentiums for graphics work, Athlon's for gaming.

 

[garetjax]

When I said 1k, I was talking about the AMD 64 FX-55 proc, which is currently running close to that amount. As for my choice of proc for gaming, I have always used Intel. I dunno, I've never used anything else but Intel, and never had any problems or issues with them. Why change a horse mid-stride? I just happen to like them better than AMD, just like I prefer nVidia over ATI. Until either dissapoints me, I don't plan on changing my mind about what proc to get other than what Prescott to buy. That is not to say that AMD makes crappy proc's or mobo's, because they don't, just that there are some Chevy people in this world and there are some Ford people in this world. They stand behind what they beleive is better in their opinion, and usually dont chante their mind unless it fails on them.


With all that being said, could you guys help me out by answering the questions I posed in my initial post?

 

[Gurck]

Agreed, A64s are a good deal faster for games than their Intel equivalent, and less expensive as well. Pretty sure the era of Intel being better for encoding is over as well, the A64 and prescott are pretty close, AMD wins with some codecs and Intel with others, but not by as much as AMD wins for games, which is 10-15% better fps, iirc. This from someone whose main rig has an Intel chip... Live & learn.

 

[garetjax]

All right. For the sake of arguement, for $1,000 bucks, what kind of AMD build could I make? This build is only for the mobo, RAM and proc. Links would be nice, as well as an explanation why you chose that particular part would be nice as well.

 

[sdgserv]

Besides gaming do you have any other needs for the comp.? This may help in your decision.

 

[Andres3605]

*AMD 3800+ - 630 U$
http://www.newegg.com/app/View...=19-103-465&depa=0

MOBO
- MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum nForce3 150 U$
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/...Code=241143&ps=ho5
or
- ASUS "A8V Deluxe" 130 US
http://www.newegg.com/app/View...=13-131-510&depa=1

RAM
* Corsair XMS Extreme Memory Speed Series 1GB
http://www.newegg.com/app/view...=20-145-450&DEPA=1

 

[garetjax]

Originally posted by: sdgfish
Besides gaming do you have any other needs for the comp.? This may help in your decision.

Mostly gaming, a bit of school work, so MS Word and stuff. Maybe some Macromedia in the future and Adobe Photoshop.