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How's this for a gaming comp? (on a budget)

Last I heard the nforce4 mobos would be around $200. If they are gonna be $120 I might as well get one.

Skimming through your list though I noticed you chose the newcastle for the 3500+. Get the Winchester 90nm version isntead. And if you are really on a budget just get 1 hard drive unless you really need another. Then you could get a better video card.
 
Get a better power supply. 18A on the 12v rail isn't enough. Get a 3000+ or 3200+ Winchester cored chip, which overclocks to the same level as the 3500+ (higher than the 3500+ 130nm chips), and honestly I'd just buy the normal version of HL2, unless you really really want a T-shirt...or if you really really love DoD.

Just buy 1 HD unless you plan on hording tons of music and movies on your HD. With the money you save by buying the 3200+ and normal HL2, make a jump to a 6800 GT.

You really don't need a $156 case if you're on a budget. I'd buy this power supply (It's actually pretty high quality. I believe it's made by the same company that makes Aspire, or some other well known company)

Just my thoughts
 
A lot of people have told me that I shouildnt get the Newcastle core. How come? The Winchester is nearly $300, and thats too much. I was also thinking about downgrading to a 3200+.
 
Originally posted by: kabob983
I'd buy this power supply (It's actually pretty high quality. I believe it's made by the same company that makes Aspire, or some other well known company)

Just my thoughts
Click to expand...

Yuck power supply. Aspire itself is crap. Get a Antec/Enermax/Fortron/Sparkle.
 
You want something along the lines of this:

Nforce 4 Board
Athlon 64 3200+ Winchester Core- IIRC $128
1gig Corsair Value Select- $140
2x Seagate 120Gig SATA HDD or 1x 200Gig Seagate SATA Drive
OCZ Powerstream 420/ Seasonic SUper Tornado 400Watt

Seagate is arguably the best HDD manf (along with WD). Maxtor and Samsung though they are decent are found to be unstable and stuff. Just personal preference but i would get a Seagate. (WD Still has yet to move to fluid bearings). I would also advise to invest in a Seagate Barracuda 7200.8 as it supports SATA-II NCQ and has 16mb cache IIRC.

As for the memory 1 gig corsair Value select is 15 dollars cheaper and is higher quality RAM

The processor will OC farther than the 3500+ and is cheaper

As for the PSU it is no contest. That Thermaltake SUCKS. THe 18Amps on the 12V is pathetic and it is going to be very NOISY. Get an Antec Enermax OCZ Seasonic etc.

Im about to fall over from exhaustion (long day at school lol 😛 ) but i will find the prices and post them and compoare them to your current system in the morning. Sry cant do it now but HW calls 😛

-Kevin

 
CPU - Definately want to get 90nm Winchester for that 3500+. And I got a 3500+ 90nm Winchester for 252 bucks from monarch, dunno where you're getting your prices.

PSU - For the PSU, get a better one!! Can't stress this enough. A good PSU makes a healthy computer.

HDD - Totally agreed, Seagate makes the best hard drives. And only one 160 - 200gb SATA drive is enough, you really don't need more than one hard drive.

Video Card - For gaming, you oughta up your graphics card to a 6800GT, which performs a little over twice as well as the 6600GT does.

RAM - Haven't heard much about Patriot memory. You'd probably want to stick with OCZ or Corsair or Crucial to be safe.

Motherboard - nForce4? Looks like at least 150 for a single GPU one, at least 200 for an SLI version. Better stick with nForce3, less buggy and NF4 really doesn't have a great advantage over the NF3 if you aren't going to use SLI.

-Me
 
Someone explain why the power supply I picked is so bad. It is the second highest rated power supply on newegg....
The main reason I'm pushing for nForce 4 is because of PCI-E. I can get a pci-e 6600GT for $200. Also, isnt AGP just about to go out of "style"? I want two drives because I dont want one to die and me be stuck
 
AGP is not "out of style" and it won't be for a few years...mostly because 95% of computer owners currently have AGP systems. Not like they're going to stop supporting them...

That PSU might be fine, but it's WEAK. Your CPU and video card will both pull power off of the 12v rail. You really want as many amps as possible on the 12v rail. I'd go with at LEAST 24 amps on the 12v rail. Closer to 30 amps is even better.
 
Yeah, I really wish people would stop telling every single new builder to go nForce 4. There is not much of a reason to do that now. Sure if you plan to keep the same motherboard for 4-5 years, and/or plan to upgrade to a new video card on the same motherboard in a year or so. Then maybe. But if you want to build a system now that will last a few(3) years without an upgrade. Then there is no reason to pay more for the NF4 since it offers almost no performance benefit over the NF3.
 
NF4 is going to cost you more than a NForce3 or VIA K8T800Pro board, and the video card is probably going to cost you more as well.

I am really impressed with the new Soltek s939 board myself. This baby is ROCK solid, and actually runs faster than the NForce 4 reference board on alot of programs/games (check AAT's review of the board). My only gripe is the 250MHz HTT block, but they are working to fix that right now.

NF3 is, as always, a good bet as well. It just seems that the s939 NF4 boards aren't as reliable as their s754 counterparts (mostly cause so few companies make them...)

I wish DFI would make a NF3 Lanparty for s939, but I think they're going to go straight to NF4. So sad 🙁
 
Well, Im sure you noticed that I switched from the NF4 setup to the 939. In reality, I believe it will be slightly cheaper. I also decided that I want to get a new case as well. Any suggestion? (50% looks, 50% Reliability) Nothing too expensive please.
 
Originally posted by: KoolDrew
Last I heard the nforce4 mobos would be around $200. If they are gonna be $120 I might as well get one.
Click to expand...

i don't think anyone has replied to this remark, but i'm pretty sure only the high end SLI boards will be $200, their will be more affordable NF4 boards for <$150.
 
You switched from NF4 to s939?? You're talking about two completely unrelated things...

You probably switched from s754 to s939. And NF4 is not going to be slightly cheaper. While it's true that you'll probably be able to get an extremely low quality NF4 board (Gigabye/MSI anyone??...they've had a hard enough time with s939 NF3, I don't even want to imagine what kind of problems their NF4 boards are going to have at launch!) for a decent price, it'll take a while for a decently high quality board for a decent price.

For the case, I like the Thermaltake Xaser V. It's a tad bit expensive, but very nice. Whatever you do, do NOT buy a case online unless you find really cheap shipping, because shipping a case can cost alot of money.

My thoughts...
 
Is there any reason you are getiing a DVD burner and DVD-ROM? Get rid of the DVD-ROM. Also save some money and only buy one hard drive. YOu could just get a larger one if you really need the space. Seagate is the best fo0r hard drives. As for memory I have not heard much about Patriot memory but Corsair Value Select is good. Also why the hell did you choose that mobo? Get a MSI K8n neo2. There is also no reason to ge the collectors edition of Half Life. Also up to a 6800GT.
 
MSI s939 boards suck, as do all their mobo's. At least that's from my past experience. Stay as far away as possible from MSI junk. Of course, they'll be one of the two first NF4 makers (I think Asus is making the other, which could be a good thing. If it's Gigabyte though, then NF4 is SCREWED for a few months ag least) so you'll have no choice I guess if you really want NF4.

Patriot is alright, but don't try overclocking it. I've heard that people are getting terrible overclocks with the stuff.

I agree though, go with the 6800 GT though, but you'll need a better power supply.

I would seriously consider going with a NF3 or VIA Pro chipset over NF4, as I am willing to bet that NF4 is going to be chock full of problems with the initial launch...
 
Originally posted by: kabob983
You switched from NF4 to s939?? You're talking about two completely unrelated things...
Click to expand...

I mean, I was waiting for nForce 4, but decided to switch to NF3 939. sorry 'bout that.


btw: I picked out a nice case, and switched PSUs. I removed the HL2 Collectors and am browing norm HL2 combos
 
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