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Overwhelmed with the search for a new custom pc

I

imported_Theos

Junior Member
I have not been following hardware over the past 18 months, so now I am rather overwhelmed with all the options when it comes to building a rig; AMD alone has what, three different sockets for their high end CPUS?
I have been reading articles very heavily in the past few days attempting to play catch up, but I would like hear the experiences/tips you folks may offer.
The system is going to be for gaming, and I have around $1500 to spend. I?m concentrating on getting the core of my system down before I add the less important parts (the ones that don?t effect FPS as much 🙂). Here is what I have in my head so far:

Cpu: AMD Athlon 64 (clock ??? socket 939 or 940)
I see all sorts of reviews about, and system guides using the 940, but what is the point of the 939 in the end? Are there many 939 boards out?

Board/Ram: ^Not a clue, depends on above^

Video: ATI Radeon 9800 Pro or x800
Another point of confusion, what is the difference between a x800 and a 9800? Is 256mb versions even worth the price above the 128 (xpt in those rediculous high res max AA cases)? Are there any vanilla versions that offer the same performance with as few ?extras? as possible?

PSU: I have never paid much attention to my power supply, but I believe it is to blame for the sharp decease in stability of my old system, so I?m going go with the Antech Truepower 480.

The greatest thing I fear about reading the ?guides? or ?how tos? and using them to build my system is the possibilities for certain hardware just not mixing well, as i do not believe these people acutally build them before they write the article.

For the CPU and Video, where do you think the sweet spot between value and performance is located, assuming that performance is moderately favored?

Any info is much appreciated. I?d like to hear what works, and doesn?t work, for people using the AMD/ATI combo. I apologize in advance for my noobish and vague questions 🙂
 
Honestly, I'd just go follow the Anandtech guides. If you go to http://www.anandtech.com/, they pick out the best components for the money. Just look for the buyers guide that fits your budget. They explain why they picked the hardware that they did.
 
Get something like an AMD64 3400+ or thereabouts 939.
939 is the next socket, that will be supported for the future, and allow both mormal AMD 64 procs and the FX series (more cache, unlocked multipliers).
AMD are moving away from 754 and 940.
There are not many (any?) 939 boards or procs out yet, so you may have to wait.
Get a at least PC3200 RAM (higher if oyu want to overclock) and go with Corsair/Crucial or similar (check Anandtech for advice, the actual article section, they have had a couple of memory reviews).
You might want a Raptor for your OS and something else for backup, given your budget, as you can affor to splash out a bit.
An X800Pro/XT would do nicely, they look to be coming in at $450 for the XT and $350~$400 for the Pro.
XT is better, but they won't be available widely for a while either.
Neither will the 6800 for all the nVidia fanboys 😛 (wide availability at decent prices)

A 3200/3400 and X800Pro/XT will probably be sweet spot, since you can't get it for a few weeks anyway.
The 3000+ won't be too bad if your budget struggles.

Anandtech guides might be a place to look too.
 
Video: ATI Radeon 9800 Pro or x800
Another point of confusion, what is the difference between a x800 and a 9800? Is 256mb versions even worth the price above the 128 (xpt in those rediculous high res max AA cases)? Are there any vanilla versions that offer the same performance with as few ?extras? as possible?
Click to expand...
Read the X800 review on the main AT website the X800's are the new generation, even the X800 Pro is much faster than a 9800 XT.

For $200 the 9800 Pro is a great choice. You'd have to find an X800 Pro for $300 to get anywhere near the same price/performance. On the other hand I'd buy a $400+ X800 before I'd buy an A64 3700+, since it would make much more of a difference in games. (3200+ & X800) beats (3700+ & 9800 Pro) for most games, though upgrading graphics cards is often easier than upgrading CPUs.
 
I'll write in simple terms and try to help you out as best I can.

The 754 and 940 socket motherboards came out at the same time a while back, AMD will phase out the 940 line, so don't buy that one. AMD will still support and make 754 pin processors, so you may want to buy that one.

The 939 motherboards are the new ones, but they're not out yet and neither are the processors. So you will have to wait a bit.

I don't know if you overclock or not, but assuming that you don't, I recommend 1gig of Corsair XMS RAM. It's more expensive than some other ram but very high quality. If you do overclock, then get 3500 RAM ... Geil, OCZ and Mushkin make fine RAM also.

I would get X800 if I were you, its newer and faster than the Radeon 9800 XT 256MB.

The power supply you mentioned is nice. I'm going to get the Antec TrueBlue 480 watt for my system ... when I have the money to build it. heh.
 
Thanks guys very much for the input.
While it may be more expensive, and alittle bit of wait, going with the 939 and a x800 seems like the best option to me.
Is there any ETA on the x800s and 939 cpu/boards?

One last question:
Whats the jazz with this PCI-E stuff? Is it just a standard change with no real performance increase?
The only thing that could use all the BW PCI-E has would be a video card, and if one was to buy 256mb on board video ram, what would be the point of having a faster bus?
 
PCI-Express probably won't offer any massive performance gains for what you are mostly interested in (FPS) until it becomes a more common standard and its really mainstream, I would bet over a year from now.

If you are planning on building your PC within the next 3 months, PCI-Express shouldn't be out, so I would not worry about it.

I am planning on building a PC in about the same pricerange...maybe a little less. Heres what I have so far, I've been looking for the best price/performance, at good performance

Processor: A64 3000+ Retail, $220 (If you have the money, you might want to upgrade to the 3400+, 3200+ is very close in performance to the 3000+ though, if you want to save a few bucks stick with the 3000+)

Motherboard: Chaintech VNF-250 $69
If you get those two with the bundle at mwave.com right now you also get Farcry for free, yay

I'm going with the older 754 socket because the 939 socket offers very minimal performance gains for a very high price, and they don't have any lower cost processors (like the 3000+ and 3200+). The main pitch for 939 is upgradeability, but if you are buying now, you'll most likely want to buy a whole new motherboard next time you upgrade your processor so that you will have PCI-Express, DDR2 Ram, and maybe BTX form.

The Chaintech is an incredible value, its comparable to the best 2nd generation motherboards for 754 socket, the only difference between it and the ones that are $140+ is that it lacks firewire, on-chip lan, and gigabit ethernet. If those are not important to you, I would highly recommend the Chaintech, if they are, grab one of the more expensive ones.

The Antec TruePower 480W should serve you very well.

RAM I'm not too certain with what I'm getting. If you're not overclocking get 3200 of a good brand.

For your video card get one of the new generation cards, be it an X800 or 6800, both will give great performance and can be in your price range. This is one of the biggest considerations towards FPS, so you shouldn't skimp on it with the money you have.

Harddrive: Should probably get a Western Digital, Seagate, or Samsung with 3 year warranty, its up to you though. I think this Samsung HD is nice...

The Mid-Range and Highend guides from Anandtech.com are also good starting points to get an idea of some of the components we have left out.
 
1. What's your budget?
2. When are you buying?
3. Are you going to be overclocking?
I'll be assuming whatever comes out as the total, now, and yes, respectively.

Anyways. About the various sockets:

Socket 754: Single channel unbuffered memory, processors either have double the cache or +200MHz compared to their 939 counterparts (which are rated 100+ higher, for example 3400+ vs. 3500+, both are 2.2GHz, former has 1MB cache, latter has 512K and dual channel memory). It's slightly slower in the case of double cache, and faster with the +200MHz (which becomes irrelevant if you overclock). This is going to becomes AMD's value line later on, and supposedly won't get any processors faster than 3700+.

Socket 940: This is AMD's Opteron socket. Whoever said it'll be phased out was wrong, it'll be around for quite a while (for one thing it is supposed to be drop-in compatible with dual cores, which won't be released until god knows when). It has dual channel memory but needs registered DIMMs, which are more expensive. Performance is about equal with s754, slightly higher in a few select cases, slightly lower in others. Prices vary as AMD doesn't do price drops at the same time they do it for other sockets, currently the Opteron 1xxs are priced very competetively with the s754 A64s. However, motherboards and memory are, as stated, generally more expensive (and they don't have the newer chipsets available yet, either).

Socket 939: This is AMD's future mainstream/desktop socket, currently it's just hideously expensive. It has dual channel unbuffered memory, and is slightly faster than s754 at equivalent clock speeds, as has been stated. It'll be around and be recieving faster processors for a while. However, currently the entry level processor is the 3500+ for $500. Thus, this advantage is completely negated, as the money you save on the processor by going with 754 will more than cover the motherboard you'll have to buy once you decide to upgrade later on. The only reason to buy this is for bragging rights if you want the absolutely fastest thing out there, in which case get the FX 53. AMD may or may not release affordable processors when Intel comes out with Socket T and a 3.6GHz Prescott, so if you want s939 no matter what, then wait for that.

Otherwise, get socket 754. Here's what I'd get:

Processor: A64 3000+ s754 OEM for $210-20

Cooling: Zalman CNPS7000A-Cu or Thermalright SLK948U + fan

Motherboard: MSI K8N Neo Platinum or Chaintech VNF250, the former is pretty much the best you can buy, the latter is likely the best value. $140 vs $70, seems like a lot but compared to the price of the whole rig it isn't, and paying extra for motherboard quality probably isn't a bad idea.

Memory: One or two sticks of ADATA Vitesta PC4000 512MB. It costs around the same as other reputed manufacturers' PC3200 value line 🙂 (Corsair, OCZ, Mushkin, GeIL which isn't reputed, etc.), and people have generally had positive experiences with it (look around at ocforums.com if you want to read about it).

Video: Currently, Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB for $210 or 256MB for $270 or refurb for $230. An X800 Pro 256MB will get you 50-100% (somewhere in between, don't know how much exactly, certainly less than 100%) extra performance for around $450. If you wait, then prices will drop, the X800XT PE will come out for MSRP $500 for more than double the performance of the 9800 Pro, and /hopefully/ the 6800, 6800GT, and 6800 Ultra will come out on the nVidia front, for MSRP $300, $400, and $500 respectively.

Here's a nifty chart of specs:
X800XT PE: 520/560MHz, 16 pipes. $500
X800 Pro: 475/475MHz, 12 pipes. $400
6800 Ultra: 400/550MHz, 16 pipes. $500
6800 GT: 350/500MHz, 16 pipes. $400
6800: 325/350MHz, 12 pipes. $300
9800 Pro: 380/340Mhz, 8 pipes. $210 (street, the others are MSRP)

GeForces support SM 3.0, while X800s support SM 2.0. SM 3.0 is supposed to be faster, by how much, no one knows, nor when games will come that use it. (nVidia says soon, ATi says not.)
Per clock performance with current drivers is somewhat faster with nVidia, but not by very much. Newer drivers and games making use of SM 3.0 will probably make it more, but there's no guarantee it'll be any time soon (nor that it won't). Also, nVidia is a lot faster at OpenGL - the 6800 GT beats the X800XT PE by a good margin.
Personally, if/when all of those are available, I'd get any of the them except the 6800 Ultra because the only difference is 50Mhz over the GT and it's rather slower than the X800XT, and except the X800 Pro because it's only 12 pipes while the 6800GT is 16.

Hopefully my reply was sufficiently exhaustive 🙂.
 
Wow, thanks a bunch! Lots of info.

Here is what i have gathered so far:

CPU Athlon 64 3000+ (2.0GHz/1600) 205
Mobo Chaintech VNF-250 70
Ram OCZ PC3200 EL 2x512-MB 253
Video 256MB X800 XT ?500?
Hard Drive Seagate 200GB IDE 8mb 133
PSU Antech480w 80
Case Err, not a clue 125ish?
Sound Sound Blaster Audigy 2 (6.1) 71
Cooling Thermalright SLK948U + some fan? 34

Maybe spending 500 on a video card is rediculous, but i have been living on a GTS for the last 4 years that i won, so i think im gonna spoil myself 😀

For the cooling fan, the stock on the slk is a delta(55dB), but i want something quieter. Someone suggested a Vantec Stealth 92mm, since its SUPER quiet (20some dB), but i dont think it would cool enough. Is there a nice middle ground? I really have no idea what to do with the case. The Coolermaster Praetorian looks good or the lian li pc61, not sure which to pick though.

Total comes to about 1500, however, it will still be a few weeks before i buy so maybe prices will drop a tad.

Thanks again guys, very very helpful.
 
Originally posted by: Theos
Wow, thanks a bunch! Lots of info.

Here is what i have gathered so far:

CPU Athlon 64 3000+ (2.0GHz/1600) 205
Mobo Chaintech VNF-250 70
Ram OCZ PC3200 EL 2x512-MB 253
Video 256MB X800 XT ?500?
Hard Drive Seagate 200GB IDE 8mb 133
PSU Antech480w 80
Case Err, not a clue 125ish?
Sound Sound Blaster Audigy 2 (6.1) 71
Cooling Thermalright SLK948U + some fan? 34

Maybe spending 500 on a video card is rediculous, but i have been living on a GTS for the last 4 years that i won, so i think im gonna spoil myself 😀

For the cooling fan, the stock on the slk is a delta(55dB), but i want something quieter. Someone suggested a Vantec Stealth 92mm, since its SUPER quiet (20some dB), but i dont think it would cool enough. Is there a nice middle ground? I really have no idea what to do with the case. The Coolermaster Praetorian looks good or the lian li pc61, not sure which to pick though.

Total comes to about 1500, however, it will still be a few weeks before i buy so maybe prices will drop a tad.

Thanks again guys, very very helpful.
Click to expand...
OCZ and the Athlon64 don't work together well. Get some Mushkin level1 PC3500 or some Kingston Hyperx PC3500. I have some OCZ PC4200 EL, and wouldn't run any better than CAS 2.5-6-6-16 and only at 200 mhz ! (I sent it right back)

And if you can;t get the X800 XT, get an X800pro. They are pretty close in performance. And a 92mm Panaflo for the HSF, OR a Themaltake Silent Boost K8. Case ? Antec Sonata all the way !
 
May i ask why you choose pc3500 ddr?
The muskin 2x512mb pc3500 L1 is 260 on newegg, looks pretty good.

Also, is there any compadibility issues between the nForce and ATI cards?
Or any misc nightmare stories reguarding these specific peices of hardware 🙂
 
(1) If you overclock, then getting faster memory is ideal so you can run the FSB and memory in sync. (This is why I suggested the PC4000 ADATAs.)
(2) No, there aren't.
 
Wow THEOS, you got a killa rig here. I'm jealous!

The only recommendation I have is to look @ the Via based Mobo's with the K8T800 Pro chipset. Boards like the Abit KV8-Pro here @ newegg is what I'm talking about.

Also read the reviews as many find the Via chipset very competitive.

Good luck.
 
Originally posted by: thatsright

The only recommendation I have is to look @ the Via based Mobo's with the K8T800 Pro chipset. Boards like the Abit KV8-Pro here @ newegg is what I'm talking about.

Also read the reviews as many find the Via chipset very competitive.

Good luck.
Click to expand...

Just a quote from the Anandtech article

you won't have to worry much that Ivan down the street has a faster K8T800 PRO motherboard or nForce3-250 motherboard than you do
Click to expand...

I would personally be more concerned with the features and the price of the motherboard, than the chipset you get.
 
Originally posted by: ath50
Originally posted by: thatsright

The only recommendation I have is to look @ the Via based Mobo's with the K8T800 Pro chipset. Boards like the Abit KV8-Pro here @ newegg is what I'm talking about.

Also read the reviews as many find the Via chipset very competitive.

Good luck.
Click to expand...

Just a quote from the Anandtech article

you won't have to worry much that Ivan down the street has a faster K8T800 PRO motherboard or nForce3-250 motherboard than you do
Click to expand...

I would personally be more concerned with the features and the price of the motherboard, than the chipset you get.
Click to expand...

Yes ath50, a good point. THEOS, just go with what you can afford and try to get 4 SATA ports if you can. gl
 
Originally posted by: Illissius
(1) If you overclock, then getting faster memory is ideal so you can run the FSB and memory in sync. (This is why I suggested the PC4000 ADATAs.)
(2) No, there aren't.
Click to expand...
There is no FSB on an Athlon64. Just a HTT speed. And the way you are setup on the a64 platform (the ones I have seen) you allways run sync. But Yes, the faster memory allows for a good overclock. When I only had one stick, I could run 218 HTT 2-3-3-6 timings. The Athlon64 likes tight timings.
 
I'm building a similar system. For the Athlon 64, I don't use registered memory, right? Additonally, I do not need pairs correct?
 
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