Postmortem: New A64 setup

[Painman]

Welp, this is what my sister went ahead and ordered from Newegg for her new machine, based more or less on my recommendations. I would have done things slightly differently for myself, but this is what she got:

A64 3000+ CPU Retail
ABIT KV8 Mobo
2x 512 MB Corsair Value Select PC3200 2.5 CL
Gigabyte Radeon 9600XT AGP vid card
SB Audigy 2 Sound Card (OEM)
WD 160 GB 7200 RPM 8MB cache SATA HDD (OEM)
Antec SLK3700-BQE case w/350w PSU
Win XP Home OEM copy

She'll use legacy devices for the rest of the system.

For myself I would have gone with a Sapphire 9800 Pro and flashed it to 9800 XT specs, and gone with the 2800+ A64 and an overclock... as well as XP Pro... maybe faster RAM... but this machine will be run @ spec, sis is interested in some gaming (Thief3) but is more interested in the CPU horsepower for the rest of her needs.

This will be the 1st AMD rig I've put together for anyone, I've been lurking around in here for research on this box as well as my future Socket 939 A64 rig... this pile 'o parts that my sister bought came in at exactly 1 grand w/shipping. I think she's going to be getting a pretty kickass machine for the money overall, and since I'm running my current power-hungry rig off of an Antec 350w PSU I think she'll be alright with the case/PSU selected. I figured I'd present this setup to the "jury" here to see what y'all think.

 

[AnnoyedGrunt]

Looks very nice.


Since I prefer my power for games, I would also have gone with your changes (although probably run everything stock), but that is still a very nice system. Congrats to you and sis.

-D'oh!

 

[M16Grenadier]

9600XT will only yield decent performance.

I'd grab a good ol' 6800GT (supposed to be best bang for buck new generation card), if the 9600XT isn't running as good.

 

[Mloot]

Is your sister a gamer? My apologies if this seems like a silly question.

 

[Zebo]

I would get a shuttle MN31N with soundstorm audio and GF4mx graphics all for $81...and a mobile barton 2400 for $77 which will easily make a 3200+ at defaults (1.65 Vcore). I guarntee it.

 

[Degrador]

Originally posted by: Zebo
I would get a shuttle MN31N with soundstorm audio and GF4mx graphics all for $81...and a mobile barton 2400 for $77 which will easily make a 3200+ at defaults (1.65 Vcore). I guarntee it.

If you noticed, she plays thief 3, which a GF4mx would cringe at. And it's also likely to be a future proofing machine (to be kept for many a time considering 90% of the parts in the computer are new, with others from a "legacy" machine - suggesting a long time between upgrades). Therefore a 64-bit processor is a much wiser investment. Also not overclocking as much would make for a longer lasting machine.

Personally it sounds perfect, and is almost exactly what I just recommended to my sister's husband about 5 hours ago. Only thing I mentioned to him was with the ram (he also was thinking of getting corsair ram). The cost benefit with high quality ram is really low. Not sure about US, but here in Australia, corsair CL2.5 ram is 1.5 times the cost of kingston (or a similar brand), with very (I stress very) little benefit. The difference between the very best ram, and the very worst, will still only account for at most 5% at non OCed speeds. Even overclocked, the difference between running ram at a lower ratio will only amount to a difference of 10% (this is looking again at best ram to worst). I'd always recommend putting the extra money spent on ram into other parts of a system (cpu or even better, video card). That way you'll get more noticeability from your investment.

 

[ForsakenMaster]

With AMD's the trick to good performance is running the CPU and RAM @ 1:1 anything else has the potential of giving you performance issue.

Also you didn't mention the type of cooling she will be running.

People seem to over look the fact you need massive cooling with 64bit personal I would not run anything else but h2o, I am asuming she will upgrade to XP 64 when it is released with that is mind a active memory cooler would be a good idea too.

 

[MDE]

Originally posted by: ForsakenMaster
Also you didn't mention the type of cooling she will be running.

People seem to over look the fact you need massive cooling with 64bit personal I would not run anything else but h2o, I am asuming she will upgrade to XP 64 when it is released with that is mind a active memory cooler would be a good idea too.

Are you the guy at Best Buy that used the pitch of "that 64 bits will eat up your battery" to try to get me to bite on the extended warranty on my laptop? The stock coolers that come with the retail Athlon 64s like the OP is getting are very good, as long as you aren't running at full load 24/7 (will get kinda loud), overclocking (will get loud, may limit OCing slightly), or in a very hot environment (again, noise). Active memory cooling is ridiculous for DDR memory, especially only PC3200 at stock voltage. My HyperX running at 2.6V barely gets warm to the touch, let alone ValueRAM...

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Originally posted by: MDE

Originally posted by: ForsakenMaster
Also you didn't mention the type of cooling she will be running.

People seem to over look the fact you need massive cooling with 64bit personal I would not run anything else but h2o, I am asuming she will upgrade to XP 64 when it is released with that is mind a active memory cooler would be a good idea too.

Are you the guy at Best Buy that used the pitch of "that 64 bits will eat up your battery" to try to get me to bite on the extended warranty on my laptop? The stock coolers that come with the retail Athlon 64s like the OP is getting are very good, as long as you aren't running at full load 24/7 (will get kinda loud), overclocking (will get loud, may limit OCing slightly), or in a very hot environment (again, noise). Active memory cooling is ridiculous for DDR memory, especially only PC3200 at stock voltage. My HyperX running at 2.6V barely gets warm to the touch, let alone ValueRAM...

Great post Monkey :beer: FUD needs to be dispelled as rapidly as possible, otherwise some neophyte lurking these threads will read and believe that nonsense if it's left unchallenged.

 

[imported_dawurz]

Looks great - she should be happy for some time.

Though the 9600 will struggle with Thief 3 - maybe she can up to your 9800 recommendation in the in the coming months when the price is less.

And by the way, its great to hear a lady is interested in Thief 3! All the women friends I have think yahoo backgammon is state-of-the-art.

 

[Painman]

Thank for the feedback, folks. Yep, my sis is a light gamer, she's mostly a Thief freak but is also interested in playing NOLF2, which this machine ought to handle easily. She's not really looking forward to playing anything but these 2 games out of the newer crop. The rest of the gaming will be done by her 2 young children, nothing strenuous, but more than her current P3 450 can handle.

No OCing or hotrodding of any kind for this box - yes, it needs to run reliably for a number of years above all else.

The 9600XT was actually a mistake on her part - I recommended the 9800 Pro since it was only ~$50 more but she boo-booed while ordering. She may yet RMA it and exchange it for the 9800 Pro, but I think she'll be OK playing Thief3 with the 9600XT - I"m playing it with a stock 9700 Pro at 1024x768 backed by a Northy 1.8A @ 2.7 and it performs decently. She'll be running it at 800x600 at the most (small junky monitor) for now so I don't foresee any serious performance issues if she sticks with the 9600XT.

BTW - If she does decide to swap - Does Newegg hit you with a restock if you return an unopened item for credit towards another item, or do they go easy on you in such a case?

 

[imported_michaelpatrick33]

Originally posted by: ForsakenMaster
With AMD's the trick to good performance is running the CPU and RAM @ 1:1 anything else has the potential of giving you performance issue.

Also you didn't mention the type of cooling she will be running.

People seem to over look the fact you need massive cooling with 64bit personal I would not run anything else but h2o , I am asuming she will upgrade to XP 64 when it is released with that is mind a active memory cooler would be a good idea too.

Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, Yeah right. I think perhaps (I sincerely hope) you are thinking of the Apple G5's at 2500 with exotic cooling. Her rig will be cool and quiet (sorry couldn't resist). Just compare the AMD 64's to the Prescott. Also what does 64bit have to due the coolness of the processor? The AMD's will have the same temps at 32bit or 64bit.

 

[imported_michaelpatrick33]

Also for fifty more bucks she would have doubled her graphical performance and stretch her video card needs for another six months. She MUST RMA that 9600xt for the 9800pro. LOL

 

[Painman]

Originally posted by: michaelpatrick33
Also for fifty more bucks she would have doubled her graphical performance and stretch her video card needs for another six months. She MUST RMA that 9600xt for the 9800pro. LOL

I agree, she oughta ditch it, but that's her choice ultimately. It'll probably come down to whether NewEgg slaps her with that 15% restock or not...

 

[imported_nitrus]

did your sister get the k8t800 or k8t800 pro chipset abit mb? they are only $10 apart(since i last checked), yet the pro chipset makes a world of difference.

 

[Painman]

Alrighty, here's the "real" postmortem on this build... it is good.

-The mobo is the standard KV8, non-pro chipset. Non-issue for this build. No overclocking, so no need for PCI/AGP lock. No RAID, so 533 mb/sec bandwidth between north and south is gonna be fine.

-Sis is sticking with the 9600XT. Among many reasons for her wanting a new machine is the fact that her main hdd has been dropping sectors for a little while, and in the last few days it really started to fail, so it became urgent that she get up and running with this new box, hence she asked me to go ahead and install the 9600XT.

It is NOT a shabby video card at all. I'd say that it's running right on the heels of my 9700 Pro in Thief 3... I'm running it on her box with the same settings I use on mine and graphically speaking, whatever performance hit there is between this card in her machine and the 9700 Pro in my 2.7 Northy rig isn't too easy to notice. Her machine loads the levels noticeably faster than mine due to her having 2x as much RAM and a superior HDD to either of mine. Being the rather light gamer that she is (no interest in the likes of HL2 or Doom3, etc), I think she'll get good mileage out of this card, and when the time comes that she needs more graphics HP, it'll be cheap, and this machine will be able to back it up.

Hell, I'm almost tempted to take my 9700 Pro, put it in this new machine, then give her my old machine plus a few hundred bux this rig is nice 'n snappy and quite a joy to use. I'm holding out for goodies like PCI-E and 9nm chips though. I can hold out, and the longer it takes for this stuff to come, the more $ I'll have to throw at my new rig anyway.