New PC Advice

[quiescentTrance]

I'm building a new PC soon, and I'm about to order components. I haven't had any experience building a PC before, and I wanted to run the components I'm thinking of getting by some knowledgeable people to make sure I'm getting something reasonable and not getting ripped off.

If anyone could take a few minutes and look over the list and let me know if I'm going in the right direction, I would greatly appreciate it - thanks!

Motherboard

ASUS P4P800-E Deluxe Motherboard - 111$
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=13-131-492&depa=0

Power Supply

Antec 430W Power Supply - 70$
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=17-103-908&depa=0

Processor

INTEL Pentium 4 - 3.0C Ghz HT- 223$
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=19-116-156&depa=1


RAM

Corsair XMS 1GB (2x512 MB) DDR PC4000 RAM - 293$
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=20-145-454&depa=1


Video Card

XFX nVidia GeForce 6800 ? 283$
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=14-150-068&depa=1


Hard Drive

2 x Seagate 160GB 7200RPM SATA for RAID 0 - 107$ each - 214$
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=22-148-018&depa=1


CD / DVD Drives

Lite-On CD Burner / DVD Reader - 42$
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=27-106-932&depa=1

Lite-On Double Layer DVD Writer - 80$
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=27-106-947&depa=1

Case

Aspire X-SuperAlien Case - 93$
http://www.xoxide.com/xxalmib.html


Total: 1409$

Thanks again!

 

[Kenazo]

wow. nice system, I would change a few things though:
1. I would rather go w/ an nVidia 6800 of whatever price you'd want to spend on a video card, especially if you want to play Doom3. The 6800 owns at that game.
2. Perhaps go w/ Seagate 7200.7 120 gig hard drives. They have a 5 year warranty, I use them and love them.
3. Are you planning on doing any overclocking? Perhaps look at getting faster ram if you are. PC4000 would be good. The p4 loves high FSB's with the ram in 1:1 timings. pc3200 ram isn't going to be hitting those high speeds. otherwise, looks sweet.

I'm more of an AMD fan, (I'd recommend going A64-3200, for about the same price), but your set up is pretty sweet.

 

[quiescentTrance]

Is there a specific 6800 you would reccomend from NewEgg? I am bouncing back and forth between the two of them, not sure what to get really. Seems like the 6800 is a little more expensive but it may be worth it.

Also for the PC4000 Ram would I need a different motherboard? Seems like the only motherboards I was finding with the other options I wanted.. SATA RAID support, IEEE1394 etc, only suppot up to DDR400 RAM.

Thanks for the input though, I'll look into the Seagate harddrives as well.

 

[imported_Rusty]

My comments:

Motherboard:
Another option (budget pending) ASUS P4C800-E Deluxe

Hard drives:
Segates would be nice for the 5yr warranty
Last time I checked the 160GB drives were the best price point ($$/GB)

Optical drives:
Just get a DVD burner with a DVD-ROM drive. Would save about $20.

 

[piasabird]

It has been reported that Intel has problems with the Prescott P4 Processors due to heat related issues; I would not buy one. You may be better off not buying a Prescott CPU. It is up to you.

 

[quiescentTrance]

What am I getting with the upgraded Motherboard? Price is not that much of an issue, I'm trying to stay under 500 though, so I can get a 19" LCD monitor and top out around 2000$ for the whole system.

 

[quiescentTrance]

So would you reccomend going with a Northwood with less cache then? There's one for about 10$ more that's same Ghz but Northwood core and 512 L2 Cache instead of 1MB.

 

[Kenazo]

Originally posted by: quiescentTrance
Is there a specific 6800 you would reccomend from NewEgg? I am bouncing back and forth between the two of them, not sure what to get really. Seems like the 6800 is a little more expensive but it may be worth it.

Also for the PC4000 Ram would I need a different motherboard? Seems like the only motherboards I was finding with the other options I wanted.. SATA RAID support, IEEE1394 etc, only suppot up to DDR400 RAM.

Thanks for the input though, I'll look into the Seagate harddrives as well.

pc4000 ram is DDR500. it will run in any motherboard. the DDR400(pc3200) was just the last "Official" ram speed. It will run at pretty much any speed you want. there is also PC3500, 3700 and 4400 speeds of ram, depending on how crazy you want to get with the oc'ing.

as for the 6800 question... that one i'm basing just off of doing my own reading, I haven't run one yet. Read around the forums. read Anandtech's main page (i think they've done a few reviews already). You could also check out www.arstechnica.com or www.tomshardware.com for more opinions (I've spoken the forbidden names! AHH)

 

[imported_Rusty]

Originally posted by: quiescentTrance
What am I getting with the upgraded Motherboard?

Intel 875P Chipset
Intel Performace Acceleration Technology (PAT)

I seem to recall the 875P chipset being a little better suited for the Prescott processors.


Although I am very happy with my current Intel system, if I were building right now a 64bit AMD would probably be the processor with an ASUS motherboard.

 

[Codyz28]

I am configuring the exact same setup as you. Only I am probably going with the antec sonata case, (which is supposed to be good, I just think its ugly and dull), and the nec rewriter 2500A. I was told by folks in here to get the Intel Pentium 4 3.0 Northwood instead of the Prescot, with the 512 cache. The reviews on it are sweet too. I think its about the same price, and much better.

 

[mechBgon]

The Athlon64 3200+ is a little less than the Northwood P4 3.0 and might be worth a look too. Great 32-bit performance, especially for gaming, with the option to switch to 64-bit if it looks like it's worth it.

 

[quiescentTrance]

EDIT: Made some changes based on feedback and some more research. Went with the Northwood instead of the Prescott, got faster RAM (PC 4000), and went with the Seagate Harddrives and upgraded them to 160 GB over 120 GB. Based on reviews of the 875P motherboard vs the 865PE, seems like for what I'm getting the 865PE was the way to go.

Looked at some comparisons of 6800 to the 9800 Pro, and just felt like I should get a 9800 Pro instead of paying a bit more for the 6800.

Thanks again for the input - and I welcome any more thoughts!

 

[SuPrEIVIE]

that case in your OP is actually a good case for the price

 

[quiescentTrance]

I certainly thought so - seems to have good cooling and temperature monitor built in. Got good reviews on a couple places I saw.

 

[Runner20]

Originally posted by: Kenazo
wow. nice system, I would change a few things though:
1. I would rather go w/ an nVidia 6800 of whatever price you'd want to spend on a video card, especially if you want to play Doom3. The 6800 owns at that game.
2. Perhaps go w/ Seagate 7200.7 120 gig hard drives. They have a 5 year warranty, I use them and love them.
3. Are you planning on doing any overclocking? Perhaps look at getting faster ram if you are. PC4000 would be good. The p4 loves high FSB's with the ram in 1:1 timings. pc3200 ram isn't going to be hitting those high speeds. otherwise, looks sweet.

I'm more of an AMD fan, (I'd recommend going A64-3200, for about the same price), but your set up is pretty sweet.

You dont know for what purpose hes building his computer for, so for him, that vid card might be fine. Yes, we all know that Doom 3 was designed with the Geforce cards, so no wonder it performs well on them.

 

[quiescentTrance]

Stupid me, forgot to post what I'm doing with my PC. I attend DigiPen (not sure if any of you are familiar with it - gaming school near Seattle), so I do a whole lot of development and gaming. However, I couldn't care less about Doom3 (played it at E3 - not my cup of tea), but I will be doing high end gaming - Half-Life 2, etc

If that's what I'm doing should I really be looking into the 6800 Ultra even though it's quite a bit more expensive - or will the 9800 Pro preform awesome. I'm not looking for the BEST possible, but something quite good.

 

[Kenazo]

Originally posted by: Runner20

Originally posted by: Kenazo
wow. nice system, I would change a few things though:
1. I would rather go w/ an nVidia 6800 of whatever price you'd want to spend on a video card, especially if you want to play Doom3. The 6800 owns at that game.
2. Perhaps go w/ Seagate 7200.7 120 gig hard drives. They have a 5 year warranty, I use them and love them.
3. Are you planning on doing any overclocking? Perhaps look at getting faster ram if you are. PC4000 would be good. The p4 loves high FSB's with the ram in 1:1 timings. pc3200 ram isn't going to be hitting those high speeds. otherwise, looks sweet.

I'm more of an AMD fan, (I'd recommend going A64-3200, for about the same price), but your set up is pretty sweet.

You dont know for what purpose hes building his computer for, so for him, that vid card might be fine. Yes, we all know that Doom 3 was designed with the Geforce cards, so no wonder it performs well on them.

well then, it's the same price, (almost), might as well get it then.

 

[quiescentTrance]

Well I did some more digging, and seems like 6800 was the way to go at only like 20$ more. Wanted to spring for the GT but that adds at least another 100$ onto the price and I can't justify spending around 400$ on a video card. (I couldn't see spending 300$ on a video card but somehow I got close to that too - I guess that's just how it goes sometimes )