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Hows this setup??

F

fst02ls1

Member
Hey Everyone....

Im kinda new to the pc building realm... but i have been reading up and this is what im planning on getting


ASUS P5AD2 motherboard
Intel P4 550 processor
COrsair XMS2 DDR2 667 mhz 1GB memory
Thermaltake VS3000 Tsunami Case
Samsung SyncMaster 17" LCD Monitor

Things I need are a video card and power supply and hard drives...

This motherboard is capable of ide drives and sata drives... I wanted to get a high rpm drive for the OS and do a sata raid for the data... any recommendations??

Also i have no idea what kind of power supply to get... can someone help me out with that??

And any good video carD???

any suggestions on dvd burners? dual layer?


If i forgot anything let me know... thanks guys
Thanks in advance... i cant wait to get this system
 
You might want to post this in General Hardware instead of this forum. Anywho...

Hard drive: You're probably thinking of the Western Digital Raptors, which are speedy drives, but many people don't think they're worth the money. They're faster for sure, but it depends on how much you want to spend. I'd recommend a big (100GB+) drive for storage and in you want a Raptor or two.

Power supply: Antec, Enermax, Fortron, Sparkle, OCZ, and Thermaltake are the most often recommended brands. I'd go for at least a 350W unit, anything over that is overkill unless you're going to throw a GeForce 6800 in there. If you are, then 420W+ should be more than enough.

Video card: How much are you willing to spend? Are you actually going to play 3D games or will you be doing mostly 2D work? You're severly limited by having a PCI Express board right now. Your best bet is probably a Radeon X600, or a GeForce PCX5900 if you're a gamer (unless you can find a GeForce 6800 or Radeon X800 in PCI Express form and are willing to pay for it), and basically anything you can get your hands on otherwise.
 
Raptors are definitely the way to go for HDs. You'll also need a solid 350-400/500W PS, definitely can't be cheap there unfortunately. PCIe slot does kind of break you right now, but I would advise buying a basic 2D/3D card right now, and then throwing down the cash when the good ones finally hit the net.
 
Originally posted by: fst02ls1
thanks for the replies guys!!

keep em coming please... i can use all the opinions i can get
Click to expand...
What's your budget and what is the system for?
 
to be honest im willing to throw down a decent penny for it... i want to get a kick A$$ system.

im going to be using it for a decent amount of media stuff... such as ripping and what not...

also play several games every now and then.. like bf1942... desert combat... farcry... doom3

also i will be using it for programming. I do a decent amount of freelance work.

So pretty much it needs to be a pretty good all around machine... i would like the best of the best if i could.... i figured the stuff i put together was pretty highend... maybe not?

In another forum they are putting me towards the AMD64 what do you guys think?
 
Wow, whatever you get, it will be a nice system.

May I ask you how this PC has to do anything on a SFF/Notebook thread?

If you are getting that system, you put and want a very fast hard drive, don't get a raptor, get the Maxtor Maxline III series(I think that's what they were called in the review sites, Maxtor sites says its Diamond Max 10 series, just check it out), they are fast or faster than the raptor and you can have more space for cheaper per gigabyte. Well the Maxtor site state 250GB and over you can have the newest drive with 16MB buffer, lower capacity you'll have the traditional 8MB buffer version. The buffer helps the hard drive enough to equal/beat the raptor even with 7200RPM. It may be hard to find, but you can get it. I don't know how to recommend the rest.
 
The Maxtor drivers are worth a look. The way you are going, I might recommend a 74GB Raptor as primary for the extra speed and a ~100+ GB secondary drive for data; can't go wrong there. With PCI-E, I would maybe get an X600 now (Dunno price on those), but definitely upgrade when the other PCI-E cards are available (6800/6600 or whatever is ATI equivalent). The previous DVDRW drive recommendations seem on par, but check the latest AT recommendations as well. Definitely don't go cheap on the PSU, a 430+ is a must today from a reputable brand (See aforementioned).

As far as P4 vs A64, I am a bit of an A64 fan myself. To me, Intel gives you marginal performance increases for a not so marginal cost increase. A64's actually have better performance in a lot of applications, esp games, only really falling back in audio/video encoding stuff. And if you were to go with a Socket 939 A64 (3800+ or FX series for top performance), that performance will be a very small difference. While you would not have PCI-E, at this point in time its of little benefit. That doesn't mean that it wouldn't be a big benefit for the future. On the other hand, 64-bit computing would also be a benefit. Look at your needs and make a decision from there. Personally, I like AMD. But that's my opinion.
 
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