New comp for teh Pops

[Gast]

So, my dad asked me to build my brother a computer with a very low budget (~$400) that can still play games. I talked my Dad into living w/o his computer for 2-3weeks and letting me rip out the guts of his machine, rebuilding his computer, and making what's left into my brother's computer. Little does my dad know about what I'm planning on.

Here's the planned layout.

$300 - AMD Opteron 165
$110 - 4x512 Corsair TwinX 2-3-3-6 (CMX512-3200C2) <-- I already have 1 pair
$100 - DFI nF4 Ultra-Infinity
$320 - BFG 7800GT <-- Already Purchased
$150 - 74GB WD Raptor HD
$100 - Misc stuffs Fund (New media drive if needed, etc)

All of this is fitting into my dad's Lian-Li PC-602.

I chose the Opteron CPU because it's cheaper, as good at stock speeds, and when my Dad finds out that he's got a server CPU (and a dual core one at that) in his case, he's going to flip.

Now, those Opterons have a nice rep for being great overclockers, but my Dad likes his computer to be quiet despite how cool he thinks OCing is. He's never felt safe with the idea of water in his computer, and $150/gal for a toxic substance doesn't sit on his stomach very well either... but all of that seems to be solved by Fluid XP. Non-toxic, non-corrosive, anti-bacterial, and NON-CONDUCTIVE all for the low price of ~$35 a liter(+s/h). From the reviews I've seen, it performs almost as good (~90%) as water.

My goal is to build a water cooling system using the Fluid XP coolant. I'm not really looking for help with that. My question is on the computer itself. Should I change any of those components? Any ideas/comments/suggestions?

 

[Mik3y]

Ok, so where's my X-mas present now?

 

[Avalon]

Looks rockin to me. Your dad is going to love it.

 

[TecHNooB]

Nice job son, Ill take my computer now.

But seriously, thats a very nice thing to do. I know you're lookin forward to his reaction.

 

[Unkno]

wow.....that's not $400, hahaha....I have to say that adding another pair of 512MB isn't fairly good. Won't overclock as good, have to run at 2T.....makes it not worth it for just having 1gig more. Wait later and just get 2X1024MB. Also, i have to say that the raptor is a waste of money.....and also it's not very quiet either

 

[GuitarDaddy]

Does your dad game? Or will brother be gaming on dads machine?

 

[RichUK]

Make sure you OC that 165, try and get to 2.6Ghz, FX60 style

 

[Gast]

Originally posted by: Unkno
wow.....that's not $400, hahaha....I have to say that adding another pair of 512MB isn't fairly good. Won't overclock as good, have to run at 2T.....makes it not worth it for just having 1gig more. Wait later and just get 2X1024MB. Also, i have to say that the raptor is a waste of money.....and also it's not very quiet either

Ah, see this is what I was looking for. Does running on all four banks even if they are in dual channel mode make them run at 2T? If so, what should I be looking at to get for ram? I'm looking to spend no more than $200 and closer to $150 at a higher end. Will a $115 set of 2x1gb work for me? I'm not looking for a killer overclock here... I just don't want to needlessly kill my OC either.

I was already planning on upgrading his video card anywho, and he was still on AGP so this seemed the logical way to go. It's not that much more than I was planning on spending on my part. His system is good enough for my brother... for now. He's really just starting to get into gaming.

As for the raptor being a waste of money, I could spend an extra $100 on getting a better videocard. Maybe increase his FPS by 10-20%. Or I could spend that extra $$ on his HDD and decrease loading times by 10-20%. I think he would notice the loading times more. He doesn't download all that much, so his entire system will fit on that one drive for a while. How much is the performance difference, and how loud are the raptors?

 

[Unkno]

i'm pretty sure it won't be a 10-20% boost in loading times......getting a good seagate would be near the same. It would be much better if you just ditch the raptor and get a 2x1024MB. Didn't you say you already bought your 7800GT? Also, since you already have good ram, you have a choice of staying with 2x512mb or upgrading it to 2x1024 and trying to sell your current ones. You would probably notice a higher performance boost between 4x512mb-2x1024mb than buying a raptor. Your ram also doesn't have to be VERY good. You can just get some decent low-end ram (i find a little better than value ram to be good). Since with AMD, you won't notice much difference if your running your ram slower with a divider. Use the leftover money to buy some random stuff your dad might like (good keyboard/mouse, speakers, LEDs...). Also, I'm not sure what kind of monitor you have, but if it isn't a very good one, I'd say lower the cost of some parts of your computer and spend it on a good monitor (20"+ LCD Widescreen). Some parts you can lower cash is the hard drive, ram, and the water cooler (might not be necessary since a good air cooler is enough for most overclocks. water cooling is only for people who want their cpu at the highest it can go and not care about buying a new cpu in a year or two....and i'm guessing you need more than around 2 years)