OC/Gaming System - What do you think?

[manimoney]

Hey, I would like your advice on the following system. Most parts will be purchased from Newegg and Googlegear. Any advice will be useful


ATI RADEON 9500 PRO (FIC, Sapphire, Atlantis, or ATI)
Athlon XP 1700+ (Thoroughbred) (no particluar stepping code)
Thermaltake A1365 Volcano 9
512 MB PC2700 (Corsair CMX512-2700C2)
40GB Ultra ATA 133 Maxtor or 40Gb ATA 100 (how important is differences HDD anyways)
Epox 8RDA+ (is the Corsair XMS compatible with thie MOBO?)


Mani

 

[Corporate Thug]

looks good, corsair is indeed compatible with 8rda(+)

 

[amcdonald]

MB and Video are fine.
I'll assume you aren't into silence by your choices, so the HSF & HD should be fine. However I would get a WD WD400JB. But the WD800JB is only $19 more at newegg, so thats 40gigs for $19.
The 1700+ can be an excellent processor, but check on the boards and pick a good vendor. Don't get stuck with a tbred A.
As far as the ram goes I'm partial to hyperx 3000. Just MHO.

 

[kylebisme]

ya, 80gb hdd is a very good idea, especially at that price difference, i would also get faster ram for overclocking headroom as well as that does not cost much more either.

 

[screw3d]

If you are getting 1700+, you'll want to get a better stepping..try this or this

IMO the volcano is gonna give you quite some noise. I'll suggest getting a Thermalright SK-7 or AX-7 and a YStech adjustable 80mm fan from here

Do get bigger space for your harddrive and once you've caught the o/c bug, you might also wanna bump up the RAM to at least PC3200

 

[human2k]

This is what I would do:

1. Order my parts from excaliberpc (You'll save $12-$15 on discounts and they have cheap s/h)

2. Ditch that crappy TT volcano 9, and get a REAL HEATSINK like a ThermalRIGHT SK7/SLK800/900.

3. Get some high quality Kingston Hyper-X PC3000/3200 over 166MHZ ram, this way you can use a low multiplyer with high FSB. WHich translates into raw power.

4. Get a revision 2.0 guaranteed board (excaliber does this) so that you'll have 200MHZ barton support PLUS you can overclock past 200MHZ FSB with ease.



Just my 2 cents....

 

[Merethrond]

I thought only ATI made Radeons. So according to what you said above I am now thinking that other manufactures also make them, i.e. FIC, Sapphire, Atlantis and ATI. Is this true?

 

[screw3d]

ATI makes the core (the chip itself), although they also do put them on PCBs and sell them retails. Other manufacturer buy the core from ATI and paste them on their PCBs. I've also heard that Sapphire actually manufactures the board for ATI!

 

[Merethrond]

Thankyou for the explanation marvie. Which manufacturer is the best? I am reading on my box that mine is a MAYA. Is this a good manufacturer?

 

[screw3d]

Do you mean a Gigabyte MAYA? I'll say that's an excellent card!

There isn't a "best" manufacturer, but I do own a built by ATI R9700pro

 

[Merethrond]

Sorry marvie, yes it is the Gigabyte MAYA but it is not as good as yours because mine is only a 9000ProII 128MB DDR.

 

[tranceport]

Originally posted by: human2k
This is what I would do:

1. Order my parts from excaliberpc (You'll save $12-$15 on discounts and they have cheap s/h)

2. Ditch that crappy TT volcano 9, and get a REAL HEATSINK like a ThermalRIGHT SK7/SLK800/900.

3. Get some high quality Kingston Hyper-X PC3000/3200 over 166MHZ ram, this way you can use a low multiplyer with high FSB. WHich translates into raw power.

4. Get a revision 2.0 guaranteed board (excaliber does this) so that you'll have 200MHZ barton support PLUS you can overclock past 200MHZ FSB with ease.



Just my 2 cents....

Forgot one thing. Ditch the AMD and go p4 3.06 w/HT.

If you got cash to spend

SLK900U with tornado fan

 

[bgeh]

looks good
by what i see it seems that you're not into any overclocking, right?
and i agree, getting a 80GB hd is much better