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Questions About My Soon-to-be Built Computer

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Here are some things i think are worth at least considering:

CPU: P4's are big & beefy. If you look at how they work on a electrical engineering level, you'll find that Athlon's can preform as well, or better than the P4's.

Example 1:
For the same $170 , you can get an Athlon XP 3200+, clocking in at 2.2 Ghz. This is a very very easy chip to overclock, and will match YOUR 2.8 P4 in alot of benchmarks.

Example 2:
If you like the leading edge, for $170 you can also get a 2.8 Ghz 64-bit Athlon chip. If you get a mobo with the new nVidia gForce3 chipset, you'll have the same 800Mhz FSB as the P4 with the power of 64-bit. This might be the ONLY pc part that will GET FASTER as it gets older, and as more developers compile their software for 64-bit. (32-bit will also run on it of course)

Memory: I live for fast memory. My only suggestion would be to purchase from chip manufacturers only, not resellers. I think OCZ just labels other peoples memory. Kingston manufacturers their own chips. Not sure about Corsair. With these three companies you pay a hell of a lot more just for the name. With that said, I personally have 1 Gig (2x512) Mushkin DDR400 Level I memory.

Note: posted at 3:55 AM so excuse me if i fail to make sense. :roll:
 
One more thing...

-ATi AIW cards, in my experience, have a rather low resolution. I think you should go for a more professional-grade capture card if your really into the editing.

-If you like fancy peripherals, take a look at the Logitech MX700 or MX900 wireless desktops. I have used both and they are fantastic.

***WARNING***
DO NOT GET THE MS WIRELESS DESKTOP! i had the ms wireless pro. the keyboard got interference from anything around it, and key presses were lost. the mouse is ok, but is not ergonomic and has no rechargable base station. Keyboard was also a bit flimsy.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

-Finally, please please please dont buy hard drive coolers. Your drives should never be able to exceed their max operating temp (131F / 55C). I would invest in a full-size case/tower, instead. This would allow for greater spacing between drives, and in effect, greater heat dissipation space. (not to mention overall lower case temps, and room for growth)
 
Originally posted by: teutonicknight
Here are the links to Everything:

newegg.com - Kingwin 242 $81
newegg.com - CoolMax CX-400 $43.05
newegg.com - ABIT IS7 $93
ZipZoomFly - P4 2.8c $179
ZipZoomFly - Corsair 1GB $175
ZipZoomFly - WD 200GB $133
ZipZoomFly - WD 80GB $78
newegg.com - ATI AIW 9600 $171
- How about this for a faster Graphics Card?
newegg.com - SamsungDF CRT $215
newegg.com - Nec 8x ND-2500A $67.99
newegg.com - Sony CRX320 $42
newegg.com - Altec Lansing 221 $39.99
newegg.com - Koutech USB Card Reader $58.5

Edit: The rest.
Click to expand...

DO NOT GET CoolMax PSU's they are liars and suck.
DO NOT GET CoolMax PSU's they are liars and suck.
DO NOT GET CoolMax PSU's they are liars and suck.

I know the 120mm fan is attractive so do yourself a favor and look at the silverstone 460 or Fortons.

The rest looks great. I would get a AG monitor like the NEC diamondtrons because the picture is superior in every way.
 
Originally posted by: Zebo
Originally posted by: teutonicknight
Here are the links to Everything:

newegg.com - Kingwin 242 $81
newegg.com - CoolMax CX-400 $43.05
newegg.com - ABIT IS7 $93
ZipZoomFly - P4 2.8c $179
ZipZoomFly - Corsair 1GB $175
ZipZoomFly - WD 200GB $133
ZipZoomFly - WD 80GB $78
newegg.com - ATI AIW 9600 $171
- How about this for a faster Graphics Card?
newegg.com - SamsungDF CRT $215
newegg.com - Nec 8x ND-2500A $67.99
newegg.com - Sony CRX320 $42
newegg.com - Altec Lansing 221 $39.99
newegg.com - Koutech USB Card Reader $58.5

Edit: The rest.
Click to expand...

DO NOT GET CoolMax PSU's they are liars and suck.
DO NOT GET CoolMax PSU's they are liars and suck.
DO NOT GET CoolMax PSU's they are liars and suck.

I know the 120mm fan is attractive so do yourself a favor and look at the silverstone 460 or Fortons.

The rest looks great. I would get a AG monitor like the NEC diamondtrons because the picture is superior in every way.
Click to expand...

I already have a new Power Supply:
Fortron Aurora Series 350W, Model "FSP350-60PN" $43.00

_


-If you like fancy peripherals, take a look at the Logitech MX700 or MX900 wireless desktops. I have used both and they are fantastic.

***WARNING***
DO NOT GET THE MS WIRELESS DESKTOP! i had the ms wireless pro. the keyboard got interference from anything around it, and key presses were lost. the mouse is ok, but is not ergonomic and has no rechargable base station. Keyboard was also a bit flimsy.
Click to expand...

Thanks for that, I've decided to save money that I'm going to get a Wired Keyboard and Mouse (Microsoft Natural & Intelimouse)



_

-Finally, please please please dont buy hard drive coolers. Your drives should never be able to exceed their max operating temp (131F / 55C). I would invest in a full-size case/tower, instead. This would allow for greater spacing between drives, and in effect, greater heat dissipation space. (not to mention overall lower case temps, and room for growth)
Click to expand...

After looking at a picture of the case, I wasn't going to buy them after all. The hard drives are located directly infront of the intake fans, so HD coollers would just distrub the air flow.
 
Originally posted by: jhites
Take a look at this ram.
Specs are CAS Latencies: 2-2-3-6 with only 2.5 vdimm for $199.
I bought this same ram and it has outperformed even my Kingston HyperX.
It also has a Lifetime warranty and no restocking fee's.

Great choice on the Graphics Card and PS.
Click to expand...


has anybody else bought these and from that vendor? the price and "said"performance seems like the top choice if you want to spend 200$max on ram, i need ram and this looks good
 
Originally posted by: unlockthesource
Here are some things i think are worth at least considering:

CPU: P4's are big & beefy. If you look at how they work on a electrical engineering level, you'll find that Athlon's can preform as well, or better than the P4's.

Example 1:
For the same $170 , you can get an Athlon XP 3200+, clocking in at 2.2 Ghz. This is a very very easy chip to overclock, and will match YOUR 2.8 P4 in alot of benchmarks.

Example 2:
If you like the leading edge, for $170 you can also get a 2.8 Ghz 64-bit Athlon chip. If you get a mobo with the new nVidia gForce3 chipset, you'll have the same 800Mhz FSB as the P4 with the power of 64-bit. This might be the ONLY pc part that will GET FASTER as it gets older, and as more developers compile their software for 64-bit. (32-bit will also run on it of course)

Memory: I live for fast memory. My only suggestion would be to purchase from chip manufacturers only, not resellers. I think OCZ just labels other peoples memory. Kingston manufacturers their own chips. Not sure about Corsair. With these three companies you pay a hell of a lot more just for the name. With that said, I personally have 1 Gig (2x512) Mushkin DDR400 Level I memory.

Note: posted at 3:55 AM so excuse me if i fail to make sense. :roll:
Click to expand...

That's true, and I considered Athlon 64/ XP's, but I decided on P4 because:

- HT helps a good margin with Editing Multiple Vegas Projects, in addition to having Combustion render in the background while I continue editing in Vegas.

- Video Encoding is faster on P4's

- The cost is relatively the same with both Athlon 64 2800/P4 2.8c
 
Get an AthlonXP Mobile 2500 and OC it.

Mine runs at 2.45 Ghz, and Some peeps have em clocked up to 2.6 or 2.7.

My $90 CPU will outperform your $180 in almost any benchmark you throw at it, EVEN ones that take advantage of HT.

Plus, if you get one that can run in the 2.6/2.7 Ghz range, it will definatley be fsater than that P4.

Anyways, that my rant of the day so bye.


p.s. if you go AMD, get the DFI Lanparty, it's great.
 
newParadime... you are mixing apples and oranges here. I dont like pentium's but i must argue on their behalf for a moment. A P4 will most likely render advanced graphics better than a Athlon-M.

Lets start with HT. While it doesnt do too much for games, office apps etc... it is a great improvement for multithreaded compiling and rendering. Not to mention the the Athlon-M was designed for power comsumption over performance, and that laptops *generally* underpreform desktops.

That being said, if your chip was an XP, you probably would give the P4 a run for the money. If it were a 2.5Ghz RISC chip like the one that Apple just released, you could put hte P4 to shame.

FYI: Apples G5 Desktop
2.5 GHz Reduced Instruction Set Chip (RISC)
1250 Mhz Front Side Bus (FSB)
PCI-X ( 133Mhz -- 4x faster than PCI)
Gigabit ethernet / 800mb firewire / USB2.0 standard.
Radeon 9600 XT

Now THATS a kick-ass video editing rig.
 
That would be an amazing notebook. I'm writing this on my G4 PB aluminum 🙂. I wouldnt hold my breathe though, because Apple seems to put CPU upgrades at the bottom of the list for the powerbooks.

I just hope they release it before AMD64 mobile.
 
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