NEED HELP Building a Gaming Computer

[vaporize]

I am trying to build a gaming computer.

So far I bought:
-Asylum GeForce4 ti4200 128 mb ddr
-80 GB Western Digital 7200 rpm 8 mb buffer
-512 pc3200 ddr ram
-Fudin ATX case 350 W
-----------------------
$320, i can return these & get something else if someone knows anything better


1. If price does not matter what would processor would you guys choose, P4 2.4 GHz or AMD Athlon XP2400+?

2. Why does the clock rates for the AMD cards keep going up and down?
(XP2400+ @ 2.0 GHz; XP2500+ @ 1.83 GHz; XP2600 @ 2.08)
so would the XP2400+ processor be faster that XP2500+ since it has the higher clock rate

3. what board is the best for graphics, ABIT, ASUS, EPOX?
(Does it matter if it has nForce2, KT333, KT400), what should I look for on the board?

-Thanks

 

[Tavoc]

What you have so far seems like a good start, although you dont specify what brand of RAM you purchased or whether its in two sticks or not. Other than that the only reason to return any that stuff would be if you wanted to upgrade to a 9500/9600 Pro.

For CPU/Motherboard I would recommend:

Epox 8RDA+
AMD Athlon 2500+ 'Barton' Retail


You can get both at newegg for really cheap

 

[Zrom999]

Try this setup, its from someone who just uses the computer to play games and nothing else:

P4 2.4Ghz
Asus P4T533-C
2x 265MBs 1066Mhz RAMBUS
120GB HDD
Ti4600 128MB
Audigy Gamer
Creative Inspire Speakers
MS cordless keyboard and Optical Mouse

 

[poMONKey]

Originally posted by: vaporize
I am trying to build a gaming computer.

So far I bought:
-Asylum GeForce4 ti4200 128 mb ddr...

stop right there... a real gaming computer would have a real video card in it ... at least a ti4600 if not a 9700 pro

and, if price didnt matter ~ i'd ( and did ) get a p4 3.06... in fact just take a look @ my sig below... i pretty much do nothing but game and render ... i built a pretty sweet system for under 2 grand... it takes everything i throw at it and more!!!

 

[Dufrane]

The reason for differing clock speeds is this:

xp 2400 is the t-bred rev b with a fsb of 266 and 256 of cache

the xp 2500 is the newer Barton which has a 333 fsb and 512 of cache

The reason that the clock speed for the 2500 is lower than the 2400 is because the processor makes up for the lower clock speed with double the cache. Hope that makes some sense.