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need PCIe mobo and S939 advice please

F

funkapimpalicious

Member
Hi All,
I am in the process of researching a new system and I am a little overwhelmed by all the new stuff available. Unfortunately, I have fallen behind on my tech news for a while, so I'm no longer on top of my game.

Basically, I want to build a very barebone system with only a CPU, mobo, RAM, and video and case/power supply. I have the Monitor, audio, HDs, DVD/RW drives, and Ethernet card already.

Here is what I have found and liked so far:

ASUS A8V-E DELUXE for the mobo
(ATX S939 VIA K8T890 DDR PCI-E16 2PCI-E 3PCI SATA SOUND WI-FI 1394)
-can I override the onboard LAN/audio?

either X800(XT\XL) 256MB or Nv6800 ultra 256MB video card (PCIe or course)
-whats the deal with PCIe 1x, 2x, and so forth. what should I look for compatibility with my mobo choice?

AMD (preferably 64) CPU S939 (of the cheap and moderately fast variety)

1024MB of Dual Channel RAM (just a kingston kit or something similar)

any case with Power Supply (of at least 450W) that is of decent quality and fair price

If you could offer any recommendations about certain products or types of products, I would greatly appreciate it. Thanks a lot! 😀
 
If you can handle overclocking, I'd recommend an athlon 64 3000+ Venice core, quick by itself, but can be overclocked easily to 2.4 and up to 2.8. If no OCing will be done, then maybe a 3500+ venice.
Not quite sure why you're deciding between an x800xl and a 6800 ultra, the x800 xl and 6800gt should be your choices, both are very good cards, its really up to you. Hope this helps.
 
If overclocking:

Athlon 64 3000+/3200+ VENICE

DFI LanParty NF4 Ultra-D

X800XL is a great card, 6800GT if you wanna spend the extra $$$$

Not overclocking:

Athlon 64 3500+ Venice would be fine. If you want to spend the $$$$ get a San Diego core A64 FX. Again, not too sure of your target budget.
 
You would almost say that onboard audio and lan are standard at the moment. Depending on the motherboard you can also get 10/100/1000 ethernet. I suppose the question is do you have an awesome ethernet card? You can also disable any of the components on the motherboard as you so choose.

nforce 4 is the premiere chipset for performance. When you compare the via and nvidia chips sidebyside the nforce 4 takes the cake on the benchmarks.
 
I am definitely leaning toward nforce 4 now...I did some more research and spoke witha couple more people...


I'm going to go with ASUS A8N-E nforce 4 for S939 and X800XL 256MB and AMD 3200+ Venice CPU


now the question is affordable RAM...
 
For case and PSU, get good name case (Antec, Lian-Li, Coolermaster, etc), whichever one you like, and get a good name PSU. It's imperative that you get a good PSU, a bad one can end up frying everything.

Good PSUs:

Enermax
Antec
OCZ
PCP&C
Sparkle/Fortron/Tagan whatever
XClio
 
Well, I think I've made up my mind on the system now:

1 x ANTEC SLK1650B BLACK MID-TOWER 3X5.25 5X3.5 ATX12V 350W

1 x AMD ATHLON 64 3200+ PROCESSOR S939 VENICE 2.0GHZ 512K L2 CACHE 90NM
RETAIL BOX

1 x ARCTIC COOLING SILENCER 64 TC S754/S939/S940 1200-2800RPM 14-6.2CFM 12- 23DBA TEMP. CONTROLLED

1 x ASUS A8N-E MOTHERBOARD ATX S939 NFORCE4 ULTRA DDR PCI-E16 PCI-E4 2PCI- E1 3PCI SATA RAID GBLAN SOUND

1 x CORSAIR VALUE SELECT DUAL CHANNEL 1024MB KIT PC3200 DDR CAS2.5 2X512MB

1 x 1.44MB BLACK 3.5IN FLOPPY DRIVE

1 x ASUS EXTREME AX800XL/2DTV RADEON X800 XL 256MB 256BIT DDR PCI-E DUAL DVI VIVO VIDEO CARD

1 x CREATIVE INSPIRE P5800 5.1 SPEAKERS SYSTEM 72W BLACK

Any glaring judgment errors or bad products?

One last question:

Has anyone ever had any issues with using a DVI-to-VGA adapter? Just asking because this video card is Dual-DVI and I will be primarily running it to my 19" flatscreen monitor. Thanks to everyone for your help. Much appreciated! 😀
 
That antec case has this power supply rated at only 16A on the 12v rail.

Edit: that's kinda weak...
 
do you really think I'll needa bigger one? I'll be running 2 DVD drives and 2 HDs and that monster video card...so maybe. What do you guys think? Thanks 🙂
 
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