Questions about building a new rig

[haze111]

Now that Athlon 64 chips are out with new cores, I'd like to build a new machine. Here are the specs of what I plan to build, followed by some questions I'd like advice on:

Athlon 64 3500+ (or higher)
MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum
1GB DDR400 Ram x 2 (probably from Crucial and may expand to 4GB total down the road)
Radeon X800 XL PCI-E
Western Digital Raptor 74GB 10,000 RPM SATA
Antec SLK3000B w/out power supply
WinXP Pro (32-bit, don't want to cut my teeth on the 64-bit version)

I do NOT plan to OC the above config.

My Questions:

1. Disregarding price, should I go Venice (L2 512k cache) or San Diego core (L2 1MB cache)?
2. Will the motherboard support a Venice or San Diego core out of the box? If not, how will I be able to update the bios without a processor installed?
3. How powerful of a power supply do I need? I've looked and looked and can't find a good answer on this one. Is 350w enough because I can get that case with one installed already. Again, I don't plan to OC or anything.

Thanks for any answer to my somewhat n00bish questions.

-Haze

 

[imported_Kensai]

The San Diego's and Venice are same but for the extra cache. Go SD if you've got the extra money.
If you buy a board with the newer BIOS revisions, it should offer instant support for Venice and SD.
I suggest that you get an Antec Neo Power 480W. Any 450W and higher should be fine. (I like the NeoPower. )

 

[SVT Cobra]

welcome to AT m8!

1. I would go with the venice (disregarding price) because of the SSE3 instruction sets, even though it doesnt mean anything now, if you are someone who wants to be furtureproof. But if it is cheaper you will be fine with a winchester core and buy that, if they are the same price go wiht the newer core basically wherever you shop.

2. You will need to upload the BIOS flash onto a floppy disk from another computer to be able to update the BIOS.

3. I would reccomend the OCZ Modstream. Its solid and stable and you'll have enough juice for upgrades ect to last for a long time with the 450w version. Plus it looks great.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817104154

hope i could help

 

[haze111]

Thanks for the quick replies.

I thought both San Diego and Venice had SSE/SSE2/SSE3 instructions? I do indeed want to be futureproof. I managed to make my current rig last 3.5 years without upgrades, but it has seen it's limits now when it comes to games.

I'll download the latest bios ahead of time and put it on a floppy. I was thinking I would still need a processor installed to do this, just never tried it before.

I've read good things about OCZ. I'll take a look at that power supply.

-Haze

 

[SVT Cobra]

yes san diego and venice both support SSE3.

One question, you might want to go with better RAM at a lesser density, i doubt you will ever need 4gb in the next 3 yrs...unless you do a lot of rendering or w/e...

 

[haze111]

I'm open to suggestions on ram. Most of what I'll be doing is gaming.

 

[RichUK]

SD 3700+ any day .. the venice chips ent OCing that well at the mo ... that is if you intend to Oc .. but anyway the extra 512 cache has actually given a performance increase of upto 5% on some games

 

[haze111]

I think I will go with the 3700+ SD, they are in stock over at Monarch.

I'm unsure what to do ram wise though. Specs on the motherboard ram config can be seen here: http://www.msicomputer.com/product/p_spec.asp?model=K8N_Neo4_Platinum&class=mb

Suggestions on ram? I was going to just buy 2 1GB DDR400 dimms from Crucial, but now I am not so sure...

 

[Mesix]

You should get as many 512s as you think you'll need, which is most likely two.

 

[haze111]

Only 2? Right now, 1 gig total might be ok but I guess I am thinking down the road. I guess that would work for the time being, then later I could add 2 more for a total of 2GB.

However, it looks like I would either have to get single side DDR400 dimms or double side DDR333 if I ever plan to use all 4 slots on the mobo. Any thoughts on which direction to go on that? All the PC3200/DDR400 dimms I see through Crucial are CL=3. I know little about the importantance of regular ram vs high performance ram and how much impact it has.

 

[flatblastard]

I agree with Son of a N00b, you probably wont need more than 1GB of RAM, even for gaming. You chose an excellent video card, which would probably negate any performance gains you would see from 2GB ram. Although, if you don't wanna have to add more RAM down the road, then go ahead and spring for the extra Gig.

Since you don't plan on overclocking, and I'm assuming that you want high-performance RAM, then I would suggest this memory from corsair:

1 GB (2 pcs 512) DDR (400) PC-3200 Corsair (TWINX1024-3200XL) $188.00 + FREE SHIPPING

Buy two of them if you want 2GB total. Or you can get some 1GB dual channel kits from OCZ for a lower price with same performance. My money goes to Corsair/Crucial though, as I have no experience with OCZ, so can't really verify that. This is the lowest latency RAM you can get from corsair, I believe. It's not cheap, but worth it if you want high-performance RAM out of the package, no BIOS tweaking required.

 

[haze111]

One last question (I think)...

Anyone know if the Corsair memory flatbastard mentioned is single-side or double-side? I looked both on monarch and corsair and couldn't find the info. If they are double, I don't believe I will have an upgrade path down the road if I decide I want to add more ram, unless a bios update comes out that changes the ram configuration details.

 

[Reapsy00]

You can run 4x512MB double sided dimms on the new venice core cpu's as amd have beefed up the memory controller on them.

 

[qbek]

Originally posted by: haze111
One last question (I think)...

Anyone know if the Corsair memory flatbastard mentioned is single-side or double-side? I looked both on monarch and corsair and couldn't find the info. If they are double, I don't believe I will have an upgrade path down the road if I decide I want to add more ram, unless a bios update comes out that changes the ram configuration details.

If you decide to go with 2x1Gb sticks seriously consider those Patriot sticks.