PC Build; Comments, Suggestions?

KillaKilla

Senior member
Oct 22, 2003
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After the death of my 2.0a, I'm in the market for a complete* new system.

Budget: $2000
I don't look to spend all of that, of course, but I currently am using my brother's (KillaKilla) machine. He's in Europe currently, but he's due back sat. morning, and I would like to at least have my system in the mail by then, or at least ordered...
Any extra money will probobly go back in the bank.

Link to specs...

Any comments, suggestions?

NOTE: Don't include the case, as I already have one, along with HardDrive.
I'm not shure which Power Supply, Monitor, or speakers to get, though...
 

Regs

Lifer
Aug 9, 2002
16,665
21
81
Are you strictly gaming w/basic 2D apps (a.k.a photoshop etc) or are you into media encoding and multimedia apps also?

The only thing i would rather you to choose on your wishlist is to get either a kingwin or coolermaster case. With a antec 300 watt PSU. Other than that, I couldn't pick anything better.
 

AyashiKaibutsu

Diamond Member
Jan 24, 2004
9,306
3
81
Your budgets 2000 but your only spending 900... I guess that's fine only thing is make sure your power supply is going to be good 45 dollars for a case and a 420 powersupply seems fishy. Antec sells good ps with their cases I think.
 

Rukkian

Member
Jan 16, 2004
135
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For a power supply, a good enermax or Antec 350 should be fine, you could go a little higher to have some room for extra componants and upgrades in the future. For speakers, if you want the spend the money, the logitech Z680's are some of the best, if you want to keep the price down some, I have the Z640's and for ~$60, they are incredible. All the stuff on your list looks fine, except, I would probably get a second stick of ram to run dual channel and get 1 gb total.
 

DerwenArtos12

Diamond Member
Apr 7, 2003
4,278
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My Suggestions:
Change the vid card from teh retail package to the bulk. the only thing you don't get are the free games.
Go up to the Athlon 64 3200+, well worth the money.
Go up from the MX300 to the MX310 - 2 extra buttons.
Go dual channel witht he ram. A LOT beter.
Go up from the Lite-on to the next samsung in line, it has double the cache and a 90ms seek time instead of the 120ms.
And a different Power Supply, a good 300W should be enough.

all-in-all this is a great set-up.
 

foofoo

Golden Member
Mar 5, 2001
1,344
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Go dual channel witht he ram. A LOT beter.
the a64/via k8t800 does not support dual channel memory.


Go up to the Athlon 64 3200+, well worth the money.
according to anand's benckmarking, the difference is a few percent at the most
link

the rig looks great, though (except you need a hsf for the a64 ) nice job.
 

DerwenArtos12

Diamond Member
Apr 7, 2003
4,278
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Originally posted by: foofoo
Go dual channel witht he ram. A LOT beter.
the a64/via k8t800 does not support dual channel memory.


Go up to the Athlon 64 3200+, well worth the money.
according to anand's benckmarking, the difference is a few percent at the most
link

the rig looks great, though (except you need a hsf for the a64 ) nice job.

You gto me on the dual channel I am not usre what or if I was thinking. And the difference between the 3000+ and 3200+ is there just not well enough exploited yet. Once we start seeing some 64-bit games I think the difference will be very clear.
 

MDE

Lifer
Jul 17, 2003
13,199
1
81
The Athlon64s are NOT dual channel capable, get one stick of RAM. Also I'd stick with the MX300, the MX310 has a very weird shape. I'd get either the Zalman CPNS7000A AlCu or Thermaltake SilentBoost, or just get the retail CPU so you get a heatsink and case sticker on top of a longer warranty.
 

Markfw

Moderator Emeritus, Elite Member
May 16, 2002
26,711
15,757
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Looks great to me. Another vote for a Silent Boost K8 ! (I am biased, I have one and love it). Also, yes, one stick of memory.
 

Boonesmi

Lifer
Feb 19, 2001
14,448
1
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that looks like a very nice setup...

but personally i would go with the aopen AK86-L motherboard... the anandtech mainpage had a review of it a few weeks back and it kicks butt :) link
 

Aikouka

Lifer
Nov 27, 2001
30,383
912
126
The CAS latency on that ram is ENORMOUS ... 3-4-4-8. Also, why are you buying PC3700 when Athlon 64s just do not overclock that well. It's really not worth the extra money you're spending when you could get some quality (and fast) DDR400.

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=20-146-889&depa=0

That costs a little bit more than what you have right now, but it's CAS latency is a lot better. If you want to get some better OCZ ram, you can pick up the Dual Channel 2x256 pair that has a CAS latency of 2-2-2-7 for $147

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=20-146-965&depa=0

Don't use that PSU inside of the case. First of all, the 3.3V is quite low at 85.8 watts and the overall rating on the PSU is a mere 401.8 watts ... which is less than the specified 420. I own a Thermaltake Butterfly 480W, that I mainly bought because I read good reviews for that PSU and other high-end thermaltake PSUs and the presleeving on the wires is awesome. Please check out some power supplies from people like Enermax, Antec or Thermaltake. As I've heard someone describe ... the CPU is like the brain and that makes the PSU the heart of the PC.

The Lite-On DVD drive is kind of slow, and I admit it, because I own the same model. My Lite-On CDRW always seems to be faster at reading data than the DVD drive so I tend not to use it.

Why not get SATA instead of IDE?

Any other detail questions, just send me a PM and I'll try to respond to you.