My first post: upgrading PC and kindly asking for advice

[darXoul]

Hi everyone!

It's my first post here but I've been lurking around for a while so I'm pretty sure I'll get some good advice on the board 🙂 Please, take your time to read my post and reply to my questions.

Well, I want to upgrade my PC. My current system is still quite decent (Athlon XP 2000+, 512 MB RAM 333 MHz, GF4 Ti4400, 80 + 160 GB IDE HDDs) but it's slowly getting rusty and I want to play my games in top quality settings (high res, AA/AF) and also be prepared for HL2, Doom3 and other demanding games in close future. I know I could wait for some new standards but from my own experience I know that waiting is usually pointless because if we always wanted to be 100% up to date, we would probably wait forever or upgrade our comps every 3 months. Still, the dilemma remains, wait or buy now... Here are my thoughts concerning particular components:

1. CPU

I want to get an Athlon 64 3000+ since from what I've seen, it offers great performance for a very reasonable price. 3200+ is quite a bit more expensive around here and 2-5% faster benchmarks are barely a reason to spend like 200 bucks more (in my country). What do you think, guys? Should I grab the new Athlon or maybe wait for socket 939 processors?

2. Memory

2 x 512 GB Kingston Hyper-X DDR 400 (KHX3200A) - timings (IIRC): 2-3-2-6-1. That's my plan. There's also KHX3200 memory, with slightly better timings: 2-2-2-6-1. It would cost me about 40 bucks more, however. Is it worth it? Or maybe DDR 433 (PC3500) memory which is insignificantly more expensive than the 2-2 version of DDR 400? BTW, I'm not a big time overclocker.

3. Video card

Initially, I wanted to grab a GF FX 5700 U but it doesn't perform too great in DX9 and HQ settings. Then I noticed the price decrease of FX 5900 nU cards and I was pretty fixed on an MSI board BUT then I saw Sapphire Radeon 9800 Pro for a price exactly equal to MSI 5900 nU. Sounds like a good deal to me, around 200 bucks cheaper than 9800 XT. Another thought is that maybe I should wait for a next gen card like R420 or NV40 with PCI Express interface... What do you think? Should I grab the R9800P or do something else?

4. Mainboard

I thought I'd buy an MSI K8T Neo-FIS2R. It performs very well in pretty much all tests and comparisons and seems to be a good board on the whole. What I'm a bit concerned about is that I've heard several complaints it caused trouble with SB Audigy (1) cards. I don't feel the need to replace my Audigy. Anyone with that mobo-sound combination and experience? Besides, my CPU question appears here again - socket 754 board now or socket 939 (BTX/PCI Express?) board later this year, along with a new case? What do you recommend?

5. HDDs

I've recently added an IDE 160 GB disk to my (not too) old 80 GB one. Now, possibly getting a board with SATA, my question is: should I get rid of the older disk and grab a SATA 120-160 GB HDD as my system/program disk while making the "obsolete" IDE 160 GB PATA HDD my storage device or should I simply forget SATA (since it's not really faster than PATA right now)? Also, which brand would you recommend? I like Seagate because they seem to be quite fast and are damn quiet but I'm open to suggestions.

6. PSU & case

My current PSU is a generic 350W device in a Green midi tower case. No problems with my current system but due to switching to some of the new components, I might need a new PSU. Do I really need one? If I do, I guess I'll grab a good Antec case, e.g. the 1080 model with 430W TruePower PSU. Thoughts?

Thanks in advance for your help 🙂

BTW, I don't really have to skimp on anything but I'm a relatively aware customer so I don't want to throw away a pile of money for extremely expensive "top notch" equipment that is only marginally more powerful than the second or third best option and will become obsolete soon just like everything else. In other words, I want high-end but not for an indecent price, especially considering how much more expensive PC hardware is in Europe compared to your NewEgg, etc.

 

[Pistolero]

1.)No one really knows how the 939 sockets are gonna perform. I doubt there will be a big performance difference between 939 chips and 754 chips because comparisons with the FX(dual channel) and the 3400+(single channel) look pretty similar in most cases, even the 512KB bs 1024KB cache doesn't seem to make a big difference in A64 processors on 32 bit apps. the 3000+ is definitely the most bang for the buck.
2.) Memory looks good, but I would recommend getting the 3500 speed just so you could possibly overclock 5-10%.
3.) Go for the 9800 Pro, performance should be top notch for a while. Seeing as 9800s perform up to 50% faster than 9600s. I think they are worth the cost.
4.) Don't know about conflicts...but it sounds like a good board to use.
5.) Your PATAs should work fine, assuming your happy with their performance.
6.) Never hesitate to upgrade to a good, high quality power supply. This often solves a lot of instability.

 

[MrChad]

and also be prepared for HL2, Doom3 and other demanding games in close future.

If you are looking for better performance in those games in particular, you should probably wait until they are released. It is impossible to know how today's hardware will perform with games that have not yet been released.

 

[Jeff7]

Just a passing comment:
Wow, first post? It's nicely organized, spelling and grammar look good...amayzinnng. Wee hav longue tym members hu don't du that. 🙂

Based on this:

Well, I want to upgrade my PC. My current system is still quite decent (Athlon XP 2000+, 512 MB RAM 333 MHz, GF4 Ti4400, 80 + 160 GB IDE HDDs) but it's slowly getting rusty and I want to play my games in top quality settings (high res, AA/AF) and also be prepared for HL2, Doom3 and other demanding games in close future. I know I could wait for some new standards but from my own experience I know that waiting is usually pointless because if we always wanted to be 100% up to date, we would probably wait forever or upgrade our comps every 3 months. Still, the dilemma remains, wait or buy now... Here are my thoughts concerning particular components:

'

Get yourself a 9700/9800 Pro. They're probably 2x better than the videocard you've got now.

2 x 512 GB Kingston Hyper-X DDR 400 (KHX3200A) - timings (IIRC): 2-3-2-6-1. That's my plan. There's also KHX3200 memory, with slightly better timings: 2-2-2-6-1. It would cost me about 40 bucks more, however. Is it worth it? Or maybe DDR 433 (PC3500) memory which is insignificantly more expensive than the 2-2 version of DDR 400? BTW, I'm not a big time overclocker.

In some systems (maybe it's only nForce2's, not sure), you can get more RAM speed with timings like 3-3-12; I think that's the RAS Active timing setting. If it's a good bit higher than the others, you might squeeze out another 100-200MB of RAM speed. Not much, but something.


HDD's - I think the max size you can get for a SATA HDD right now is 72GB, and they're expensive. Get a good 7200rpm 8MB cache PATA hard drive; they're about ready to breach the 50 cent/GB barrier soon.

PSU - Antec Truepowers are recommended here quite a bit; I've got one and it does a fine job. I try not to use generic PSU's anymore - I overloaded one, and instead of shutting down...well, ok, it did shut down. But how it did it was a problem - a resistor got too hot, and it popped; it also singed the circuit board below it. Luckily, it didn't kill any other components in the system, which some cheap PSU's will do when they die.

 

[jcwagers]

Max size for SATA HDD is 72GB? That sounds a bit off to me. If I recall correctly, Newegg and some other vendors carry 120gb and 160gb SATA drives and they are only a few dollars more expensive than the PATA drives. I'm not trying to be a smart-aleck Jeff, just throwing in my .02. 🙂

jc

 

[Markfw]

Originally posted by: Pistolero
1.)No one really knows how the 939 sockets are gonna perform. I doubt there will be a big performance difference between 939 chips and 754 chips because comparisons with the FX(dual channel) and the 3400+(single channel) look pretty similar in most cases, even the 512KB bs 1024KB cache doesn't seem to make a big difference in A64 processors on 32 bit apps. the 3000+ is definitely the most bang for the buck.
2.) Memory looks good, but I would recommend getting the 3500 speed just so you could possibly overclock 5-10%.
3.) Go for the 9800 Pro, performance should be top notch for a while. Seeing as 9800s perform up to 50% faster than 9600s. I think they are worth the cost.
4.) Don't know about conflicts...but it sounds like a good board to use.
5.) Your PATAs should work fine, assuming your happy with their performance.
6.) Never hesitate to upgrade to a good, high quality power supply. This often solves a lot of instability.

You just saved me a lot of typing. Ditto.... Or my motherboard. Definitely go with the 3500 just in case, and the 9800pro.

Edit I have a Maxtor 120 gig SATA. and they come as high as 250 gig. I have one of each (both 8 meg cache) and have run benchmarks on both with no real difference in the benchmark, so I would just keep you old ones.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Jeff was just confusing SATA with Raptor that's all 🙂 BTW, welcome to the forums and I agree with the good recommendations offered.

 

[Cerb]

1. CPU: Socket 754 offers little upgrade room, but who cares nowadays? Seriously. Socket 939 will offer the performance difference between the current A64 3400+ and AthlonFX...not enough to worry about.
2. RAM: Sounds good, and Kingston has good service if the mobo happens to not like it.
3. Video: R9800 Pro, FX 5900 or wait until you need a new one. Otherwise you're better off to wait for newer cards and/or big price cuts on current cards. 9700 Pro might be OK, but if you have enough $ to think about replacing your current HDs with SATA ones, you might want to go for the 9800 Pro (not XT...XT bad), as its bang/buck isn't much less, and could be somewhat better in pixel shader heavy games. If you don't want to spend at least $250 right now, I'd advise waiting.
4. Mobo: Dunno. I'll reserve any such comments until I make at least 1 Athlon64 PC.
5. The difference with SATA exists, but is minimal. If you are going to get new drives anyway, get SATA. But don't replace your current ones.
6. 1080, SLK3700, Sonata...all good choices and you'll be glad you got any one of them, and they should come w/ decent PSUs.

 

[darXoul]

Originally posted by: Jeff7
Just a passing comment:
Wow, first post? It's nicely organized, spelling and grammar look good...amayzinnng. Wee hav longue tym members hu don't du that. 🙂

Thanks. English is not my first language anyway (I'm Polish) so I guess I can afford a few mistakes here and there 😉

Thank you for the useful and prompt replies, folks. You pretty much confirmed my thoughts, maybe except for memory (I didn't really think I'd get PC3500 RAM). I'm not getting R9800 XT, that's for sure. Might be the fastest card around but the difference between the ATI flagship and R9800 PRO is hardly a dramatic one, on the contrary to the price gap.

I'm not a n00b concerning hardware, I've read tons of tests, benchmarks, comparisons, etc. - so I bet I can provide some fairly decent advice as well. However, I know that there certainly are more knowledgeable and experienced "PC freaks" around than myself, besides it's always good to see things from a different PoV and hear/read other people's opinions.

If anyone has more thoughts, comments or suggestions, I'll be glad to read them.