So, I am going to start building a new pc and need suggestions..

[GodWhomIsMike]

Objective: Most speed on a mid-level budget.


Here is what I am looking at:

AMD Athlon64 3500+ (90nm)
Good Motherboard (Via or Nforce3?) (Suggestions?)
1024MB DDR400 Ram (Good ram suggestions?)
74GB 10K WD raptor SATA HD
200GB 7200rpm WD SATA HD
128mb or 256mb AGP 8X video card (suggestions?)


I already have the OS, 16x DVD burner, keyboard, mouse, and monitor.

Budget: ~ $1250


- Mike

 

[Matthias99]

Try the stickied thread at the top of the forum first.

 

[Azndude51]

Anandtech has an excellent guide HERE
If you can wait, it's probably better to get nforce4 when that comes out since it has PCI-e. also, with your budget, any value RAM from a respectable company like Mushkin, or crucial will be fine unless you plan to overclock. IMO, don't get the raptor and spend more on a good video card.

 

[Mrvile]

For the motherboard, both work fine. Just make sure the chipset is either the nForce3 Ultra or the VIA K8T800Pro. Pick a good brand name (Asus, MSI, Abit, Soltek, etc) and go for it.

Good ram would be Corsair, Crucial, OCZ, or Mushkin. Other brands such as Buffalo and Kingston will work, but to be safe I'd stick with the good four. Corsair makes a nice cheap ram called Corsair Value Select DDR400 512mb stick for like 75 bucks.

I would get a 256mb video card, but I don't know if you can get one with the rest of the stuff you mentioned and still stay below 1250. The cheapest ones are about 360 - 400 bucks, so make sure you budget right.

Let's add things up a bit...
CPU and motherboard - 380
RAM - 150
Hard drives - 300

Video card budget is tight. If you can afford to bump to budget up to maybe 1300 - 1350, you can get a 256bit video card (6800GT or X800Pro). If not, the 6800nu which is probably the best 128bit works.

About the hard drives - what will you be using the computer for? And what will you use the 74gb Raptor for? Raptors are a bit on the expensive side right now, and if you're just going to use a Raptor for boot, then the lowest (34gb) will do, saving you like 70 bucks. In fact, if you're just going to use the computer for, say, gaming, a Raptor drive isn't really necessary, and you can save yourself almost 200 dollars by just sticking with the SATA. Your choice.

 

[Matthias99]

Originally posted by: Mrvile
Video card budget is tight. If you can afford to bump to budget up to maybe 1300 - 1350, you can get a 256bit video card (6800GT or X800Pro). If not, the 6800nu which is probably the best 128bit works.

The 6800NU has 256-bit memory, but only 12 pipelines (and lower clockspeeds than the 6800GT/Ultra). The 6600/6600GT has a 128-bit memory interface and 8 pipelines (but higher clocks, which sort of makes up for the lowered pipelines but still leaves it with much less bandwidth than the 6800NU).

 

[frankie38]

nvidia chipset better IMHO. I like ASUS.

 

[Mrvile]

Oh yeah oops. I was thinking memory. My bad.

6800s have 256bit with 128mb memory, EXCEPT for the Gainward version, which has 256mb memory. The Gainward does cost about 100 bucks more than any other 6800 though.

 

[db2]

If you do not want to spend $399 or more on a card like the 6800GT then the 6600GT is a great performance for the price card. Of cousre the 6800GT is only AGP at present where the 6600GT now has PCIEx and AGP versions available.
Memory - Corsair has Value Select ram that gets good reviews. The Kingston Value ram has also performed well according to some friend of mine who are using it.

 

[GodWhomIsMike]

AMD Athlon64 3500+ (90nm)
MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum
1024MB DDR400 Ram
74GB 10K WD raptor SATA HD
200GB 7200rpm WD SATA HD
XFX GeForce 6800 128MB
A-Top XBlade Black/Silver Case with 450watt PS - Link


I'll probably bump the budget up to 1300-1350


- Mike