My Build...yay...nay?

[Wardog2121]

ok here goes again im gonna use for gaming (want to be as future proof as possible without going over budget)and im on a tight $1000 dollar budget or less. Heres the parts, and all from newegg. If you have any suggestion for better parts please tell me so or if a part is not compatible and what not.

Case W/PSU http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16811129127
Mobo http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813130491
CPU http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819103535
RAM http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820145440
Hard Drive http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822144102
Vid Card http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814142050 or http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814161132 (i want the HIS one but i do not know if i would have space in the mobo, and please suggest something else if those cards are not good)
DVDRW http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16827129161
PSU Adapter http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16812183045


i wanted to get a nvidia GeForce 6800 GT but people havve been telling me the ATI cards are running BF@ faster then the nvidia cards so thats why i was gonna go with ATI

 

[biostud]

we prefer not to click on all your links, just post the parts

 

[rise]

Originally posted by: biostud
we prefer not to click on all your links, just post the parts

no kidding.

 

[overst33r]

im guessing you dont need a monitor/speakers/keyboard/mouse. are you Overclocking? if not those parts are ok.

 

[kleinwl]

I don't know if you really need the 24-20 pin adapter. If the powersupply is 24 pin, and the motherboard is only 20pin, you can connect them and let the 4 "extra" pins dangle. But, you need to check it out... the 24-20 pin adapters are a good way to accidently fry your board.

Either the ATI or the Nvidia card are good.

The only thing I would change is the hard-drive... for $10 more you can get a SATA drive (nicer cables) with 8MB cache (a little faster loads). IMO it's worth it. Similarly, if you have some more to spare, go with a larger drive... a 160MB is not that much more expensive.

Aside from that, it all looks good. Are you planning on OC?

 

[Some1ne]

Looks okay in general, although it seems like you are pairing a fairly high-end graphics card with mostly budget parts (like slow RAM and a diminutive HDD), which generally isn't a great idea. You could build a more well-rounded system is you settled for a mode middle-end graphics card (like the 6600 GT) and used the extra cash to get higher-end components to go with it. Anyways, comments:

1. You can save about $50 by going with a 3000+ instead of the 3200+. Assuming you are willing to overclock, both should overclock the same.

2. You can take the $50 you save and apply it to the mainboard and get a Neo4 Platinum (well, it's a little more than $50 extra) instead of the budget Neo4-F. Having a higher-end mainboard will help the system be a bit more future-proof.

3. I'd go with CL2 rated RAM if you can afford it. The decreased latency will help a bit with games, and you can just go for the cheapest name-brand CL2 RAM you can find.

4. A higher-end HDD will help performance quite a bit. The nforce4 chipset supports NCQ, so at the very least consider getting a HDD that can take advantage of this. This can also have a big impact on gaming performance.


...like I said, it really seems like the video card is outshining the rest of the system, but if its sole purpose is going to be gaming, then maybe that's okay.

EDIT: as kleinwl, you do not need the PSU adapter, at least with the MSI board(s). Also, the comments on newegg indicate that your case is shipping with a 24-pin PSU now anyways.

 

[mwmorph]

Originally posted by: Some1ne
Looks okay in general, although it seems like you are pairing a fairly high-end graphics card with mostly budget parts (like slow RAM and a diminutive HDD), which generally isn't a great idea. You could build a more well-rounded system is you settled for a mode middle-end graphics card (like the 6600 GT) and used the extra cash to get higher-end components to go with it. Anyways, comments:

1. You can save about $50 by going with a 3000+ instead of the 3200+. Assuming you are willing to overclock, both should overclock the same.

2. You can take the $50 you save and apply it to the mainboard and get a Neo4 Platinum (well, it's a little more than $50 extra) instead of the budget Neo4-F. Having a higher-end mainboard will help the system be a bit more future-proof.

3. I'd go with CL2 rated RAM if you can afford it. The decreased latency will help a bit with games, and you can just go for the cheapest name-brand CL2 RAM you can find.

4. A higher-end HDD will help performance quite a bit. The nforce4 chipset supports NCQ, so at the very least consider getting a HDD that can take advantage of this. This can also have a big impact on gaming performance.


...like I said, it really seems like the video card is outshining the rest of the system, but if its sole purpose is going to be gaming, then maybe that's okay.

EDIT: as kleinwl, you do not need the PSU adapter, at least with the MSI board(s). Also, the comments on newegg indicate that your case is shipping with a 24-pin PSU now anyways.

3. there is a g.skill 512mbx2 kit for around $99 at newegg. cas2 good quality ram. if that's not in stock cas2.5 or even cas3 dosent make that much of a difference(1%)

4. NCQ dosent help all that much if you cant find any for around the same price that supportsNCQ, just go with what you've got. btw PATA(the ide flat ribbon cable type), SATA and SATAII all offer just about the same performance.

 

[overst33r]

Originally posted by: Some1ne
Looks okay in general, although it seems like you are pairing a fairly high-end graphics card with mostly budget parts (like slow RAM and a diminutive HDD), which generally isn't a great idea. You could build a more well-rounded system is you settled for a mode middle-end graphics card (like the 6600 GT) and used the extra cash to get higher-end components to go with it. Anyways, comments:

1. You can save about $50 by going with a 3000+ instead of the 3200+. Assuming you are willing to overclock, both should overclock the same.

2. You can take the $50 you save and apply it to the mainboard and get a Neo4 Platinum (well, it's a little more than $50 extra) instead of the budget Neo4-F. Having a higher-end mainboard will help the system be a bit more future-proof.

3. I'd go with CL2 rated RAM if you can afford it. The decreased latency will help a bit with games, and you can just go for the cheapest name-brand CL2 RAM you can find.

4. A higher-end HDD will help performance quite a bit. The nforce4 chipset supports NCQ, so at the very least consider getting a HDD that can take advantage of this. This can also have a big impact on gaming performance.


...like I said, it really seems like the video card is outshining the rest of the system, but if its sole purpose is going to be gaming, then maybe that's okay.

EDIT: as kleinwl, you do not need the PSU adapter, at least with the MSI board(s). Also, the comments on newegg indicate that your case is shipping with a 24-pin PSU now anyways.

high-end ram is so not worth it, worst bang for the buck.

 

[Wardog2121]

the problem was that the Power Supply had a 20 pin connector(well i thought it did because i i havnt seen a 24 pin PSU yet) and the mother board has a 24(because its PCI express) will that fry it if i had a connector for that?

and i do plan to OC only the video card.

 

[shoRunner]

Originally posted by: Some1ne
Looks okay in general, although it seems like you are pairing a fairly high-end graphics card with mostly budget parts (like slow RAM and a diminutive HDD), which generally isn't a great idea. You could build a more well-rounded system is you settled for a mode middle-end graphics card (like the 6600 GT) and used the extra cash to get higher-end components to go with it. Anyways, comments:

1. You can save about $50 by going with a 3000+ instead of the 3200+. Assuming you are willing to overclock, both should overclock the same.

2. You can take the $50 you save and apply it to the mainboard and get a Neo4 Platinum (well, it's a little more than $50 extra) instead of the budget Neo4-F. Having a higher-end mainboard will help the system be a bit more future-proof.

3. I'd go with CL2 rated RAM if you can afford it. The decreased latency will help a bit with games, and you can just go for the cheapest name-brand CL2 RAM you can find.

4. A higher-end HDD will help performance quite a bit. The nforce4 chipset supports NCQ, so at the very least consider getting a HDD that can take advantage of this. This can also have a big impact on gaming performance.


...like I said, it really seems like the video card is outshining the rest of the system, but if its sole purpose is going to be gaming, then maybe that's okay.

EDIT: as kleinwl, you do not need the PSU adapter, at least with the MSI board(s). Also, the comments on newegg indicate that your case is shipping with a 24-pin PSU now anyways.

you can actually save about $80
AMD a64 3000+
and you can get a cheap heatsink for <$10 @ newegg.

if you were gonna change your mobo i'd go with the EPoX EP-9NPA+Ultra $105.99 its a good overclocker and solid board.

spending >$100 fast ram is pointless unless you have an outrageous budget. the difference for CL2 from CL2.5 is 1-3% nothing noticeble.

NCQ does absolutely nothing for hard drives. it is anywhere from alittle bit faster to slower than one with out NCQ, not worth it.

that PSU is native 24 pin so you won't need the adapter.

also you can save some more money on your video card by going with monarch x800xl $249 free shipping

and i wouldn't expect much of an overclock out of any x800xl, they just aren't good overclockers. i would overclock that CPU though, you could easily get a 200-400mhz jump by just raising the FSB(ok there technically is no FSB...) alittle

 

[overst33r]

Originally posted by: Wardog2121
....

and i do plan to OC only the video card.

in that case i would get the HiS x800xl, better cooling and it should only eat up one PCI slot.

 

[DanDaMan315]

Yea the HIS comes installed with the ATI Silencer 5. You can pick up that Connect3D at Monarch for $35 less.

 

[Some1ne]

I think the latency on the RAM can make a bit of a difference, but it really depends on whether or not the system is going to be overclocked. The CL2 RAM should offer much more overclocking headroom than the CL2.5. And I wasn't suggesting that he get ultra-expensive RAM, just some name-brand CL2. Awhile back I upgraded from 2x512 @ 218 MHz, CL2-3-3-6 to 2x512 @ 272 MHz, CL3-4-4-8, and because of the lower latency of the faster RAM, it performed the same as my previous RAM in some cases, and slower in a couple of cases (and faster in 0 cases). I ended up settling on a setting of 264 MHz @ CL2.5-4-3-7 with the new RAM as selecting a lower CAS setting was the only way to keep it competitive with the older RAM, so even though the difference isn't huge, the latency settings do make a bit of a difference.

Also, the last I remember seeing about NCQ were reviews on both tomshardware and anandtech that said that it offered performance improvements in most cases...has this changed? It seemed to me that since he was only planning on the single HDD, and that since this will contain his OS, programs, and pagefile, it made sense to get a drive with good performance, and that NCQ would help quite a bit when the system decides to page things in/out while gaming.

 

[Hacp]

Anand said that NCQ was exciting because it offered a potential to perform better than regular hard drives in multithreaded environments, which is where AMD and Intel are leaning to. However, it will take some time before these enviroments exist on the PC, so it is generally not worth it. Also, I would at least get the OCZ value VX, just so I could get tight timings. 2-2-2-6 timings do help, and 20 dollars for a 1-4% increase is pretty good. Spending money on 512KB of extra cache from the Venice to the Sandy Ego generally gives that range of performance increase, and people pay 50 dollars for that. Also, get a seagate Barricuda at bestbuy for 56 dollars after rebates. It has 2x the space, and also has 4x the Cache.

Also, Newegg or Monarch has the NEC 3540A for sale. At 42 dollars and free shipping, its 10 dollars cheaper, and will perform almost or as well as the Pioneer. Also, I would go with a stronger PSU. You can cheap out on the case, but the PSU needs to be a little better. I would suggest this PSU http://www.mwave.com/mwave/viewspec.hmx?scriteria=BA21498 . Its 70 dollars after rebates, and you can get a cheap Case for 37 dollars because you do not need to spend anything on the PSU adaptor. It has 20+4 pins. I will give you a full list after some research.

 

[shoRunner]

http://anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=2094&p=11

game loading performace, actually took longer with NCQ

 

[Hacp]

Power supply
http://www.mwave.com/mwave/viewspec.hmx?scriteria=BA21498
Motherboard
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813152049
Processor
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819103535
Ram
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820227213+
Hard Drive
http://shop4.outpost.com/product/3885187?site=sr:SEARCH:MAIN_RSLT_PG
DVD Rewritable
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16827152047
Video Card
http://www.monarchcomputer.com/Merchant..._Code=190527&Category_Code=VC-C3D-PCIE

Comes to be 810 shipped. No case though. Add one and its 850 shipped. I am assuming that you do not live in an area where they will tax you.

This case isnt half bad. No sharp edges, and doesn't feel THAT cheap.
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=373002

 

[Some1ne]

I think his PSU should be fine, especially since Antec keeps updating the PSU that ships with the Sonata even though the updates are not reflected on most retailer websites. For example, I got my Sonata over a year ago and it came with the original Truepower 380W (True380), with 18A @ +12V as specced on most websites. About six months ago people started reporting that the PSU that came with the case was now rated at 24A @ +12V (and the Antec website confirms this, and calls this PSU the True380S). Now there are reports that the PSU shipped with the case is ATX2.0 compliant with a 24-pin connector. Even if these reports are not true, the True380S with 24A @ +12V is more than adequate for the proposed system, so I really don't think that a different PSU is necessary (plus the Sonata looks really, really cool).

 

[Hacp]

He wants futureproffness though. When he wants to add the next generation Video card in 2 years or so, he might want some headroom.

 

[Noobtastic]

Change ram and case.

Crucial and Thermaltank Tsunami.