sub $1500 gaming machine

[3chordcharlie]

well... yeah - the 875 brings some minor performance improvements, for a premium price. So the benefit to the 865 is it's essentially 'just as good' but costs less. I can't think of a reason not to buy 875 if you don't care about the money.

I've yet to see a college with gigabit lan... but I live in Canada, so maybe the dog sleds haven't brought us the new faster routers yet.

 

[thatsright]

Originally posted by: jerome12345

Originally posted by: thatsright
Jerome, a few questions for you...

On your NewEgg list, your up to about $1600 already. Is this price point fine, or are you still trying to get under $1500? What about a monitor, should this be part of your $1500 budget or is that a separate expense? Let us know what your Monitor budget is. For gaming I'd go with a 21" CRT, but thats just my preference.
________________________

A few ideas of what I would change on your NewEgg wish list:

-Get a ABIT IS7-G mobo, or the ASUS P4P800-E Deluxe. You'll save $50+ and get the exact same performance as the P4C800-E DELUXE

-Your power supply is a bit expensive. Look @ the Antec True 480 PSthat will save you $25, or for the same price as the Enermax you can go with the Antec True 550. For gaming rigs you can never have too much power! The Antec True PS line is so quite, the loudest thing in my case are the case fans and I have a Antec True 430.

-Go with a P4 2.8c and you can O'C it on air to around 3.4-3.6Ghz with your beefy Zalman cooler. (I have the exact same HSF, its ULTRA quite) My 2.4c goes up to 3.2Ghz on my IC7 with same cooler and stock CPU voltage.

-I agree with what the other guys have said about the Modem & CD-ROM drive. $60+ for a modem is highway robbery; you can spend at least 1/2 that and get the same quality. Good choice of the DVD-ROM drive.

-Definitely get a full gig of ram, even more so since you will be gaming. Corsair is good, but I'd go with a of PC3500 Kingston HyperX ram. . It's a great price, and its great for overclocking. With my HyperX I can run it @ 2-2-2-5 timings @ 2.8Vdimm even with my overclocked rig @ a 5:4 CPU divider on my ABIT IC7. IMHO, with corsair your get the same as you do with the HyperX, but with a significant premium.

-For HD's, I think for the same $$ you could get 2x 36Gig Raptors in a RAID setup, and much better load times and performance. But it's up to you.

-Everything else looks great. Esp the 9800 Pro is the greatest bang for the buck out their right now. Thats a BEAUT of a case

Good luck and let us know what you get, and how you like it.:thumbsup:

the budget isnt really that big of a deal. my parents are gonna give me $2000 for everything, so im just trying to leave some room for a nice monitor if i decide to go with an lcd

i think im gonna go with the Abit, im just too lazy to change it now
ill consider the antec, but does the lack of active PFC make much of a difference?
this computer will be at my dad's store (where i am most of the time)
it has dsl, and my house doesnt. when im at home i have to dialup to the store for internet
ive heard that a more expensive hardware modem will serve up a faster speed.
anyone know if its true?

can i run 3500 ram without overclocking?

again, the cd drives i need for copying cds for my dad
i specifically wnat the plextor for overburning cds to a gig (for mp3s)

thanks for the good comments

Follow-up:

-The 875 Intel Chipset has everything the 865 has, EXCEPT the 875 has CSA Intel Gigabit NIC that operates off the PCI bus, so that all of your network traffic can go directly to the 875 chipset and not saturate the PCI bus. And the 875 has PAT technology, which (supposedly) shaves 1 or 2 extra clock cycles off your RAM on a 875 board; so the RAM has 1 or 2 less operations your RAM has to perform. But ABIT & ASUS have tweaked their 865 mobo BIOS's to offer the same PAT like performance, if not better. And usually the 875 boards have 4 SATA ports, but not all (like my IC7).

-Pretty much any hardware based v.90/92 modem will be fine. Your not going to get 58K speeds from a US Robotics modem, just because of the name. Years ago, it was wise to go with a good maker like USR, but now, it's all the same.

-Yes, you can run PC3500 w/o OC'ing. But if you ever got anything above PC3500 your not going to be able to get ultra low timings like 2-2-2-5 or close to that. Another thing, if you have no plans whatsoever of overclocking, then you don't need PC3500 @ all. Just get some PC3200 Kingston Hyper X ram. Thought take some time and think a bit to see if there is even a remote possibility that you might overclock in the future. If so then get the PC3500. And a full gig is a must, for gamers nowadays.

-For what you want to do with your optical drives, you have a perfect pair of drives. Just make sure you buy the proper media that will support 1GB overburn to the disc.

-For the mobo choice, I thought they still made the IS7-G, but I can't seem to find it on NewEgg or ZZF. But for a rig like your's, you want @ least 4 SATA ports. Take a look @ the IC7-G or the ASUS P4P800-E Deluxe. You could get the IC7-G and still save $.

-I hate so admit that I have no idea what PFC is, for the Power Supply's.

-Did you think about maybe switching to 2x 36Gig Raptors, or are you going to just get 1 74Gig Raptor?

-This is a great 21" CRT.. As a fellow gamer, I'm partial to CRT's now as they offer no-ghosting compared to LCDs and it's great watching movies. But, to each his own.......

-Do you think your parents would mind adopting a (27 y.o.) kid from Boston. I'd like to get a $2000 allowance just for a PC:Q

That's all the tweaking I can think of for now. Again, let me know what you think to my suggestions if you like.

And thats my $0.03

 

[Runner20]

Originally posted by: thatsright
JESUS CHRIST GUYS, why does EVERY damn 'Need comments for new rig' type posts always seem to degenerate into a) ATI Vs. Nvidia War or b) AMD Vs. Intel???

The guy has a good idea of what he wants, and has his reasons. LIVE WITH IT!!!

AGREED!!!

These people have such hatred of Intel that they bash it every chance they get

 

[jerome12345]

arent the smaller raptors noisier, a little bit slower and hotter?
or did they fix that?

if not then, will raid 0 really increase the perf much?

im still debating the ABIT mobo b/c the max 3 is more than the ASUS
so i need to do some research on which IC7 to get
and compare the asus p4c, the IC7 1, the IC7 2, and the IC73 and see what i really need

without overclocking, is a non-stock hsf necessary? or just good to have? or no diff at all?

has anyone had both asus and abit? which has better bios? more adjustable?

will a sapphire 9800pro have ati support and ati drivers or sapphire support and drivers
that is my only concern with buying third party

edit: do timings matter much? should i get top of line 3200 or slower 3500

thanks
jerome

 

[crazycarl]

Originally posted by: Runner20

Originally posted by: thatsright
JESUS CHRIST GUYS, why does EVERY damn 'Need comments for new rig' type posts always seem to degenerate into a) ATI Vs. Nvidia War or b) AMD Vs. Intel???

The guy has a good idea of what he wants, and has his reasons. LIVE WITH IT!!!

AGREED!!!

These people have such hatred of Intel that they bash it every chance they get

I don't think people here hate intel.... I just read a photoshop thread where they told him to get Intel and posted benchmarks to back them up. it seems people here just hate those who have been brainwashed by millions of marketing dollars

 

[Ilmater]

I refuse to give advice to someone who wants to make a BUDGET computer for GAMING that won't look at AMD.

I did take a quick look at your computer, and AMD could save you WELL over $100. I... I just... forget it.

 

[Ilmater]

Originally posted by: crazycarl

Originally posted by: Runner20

Originally posted by: thatsright
JESUS CHRIST GUYS, why does EVERY damn 'Need comments for new rig' type posts always seem to degenerate into a) ATI Vs. Nvidia War or b) AMD Vs. Intel???

The guy has a good idea of what he wants, and has his reasons. LIVE WITH IT!!!

AGREED!!!

These people have such hatred of Intel that they bash it every chance they get

I don't think people here hate intel.... I just read a photoshop thread where they told him to get Intel and posted benchmarks to back them up. it seems people here just hate those who have been brainwashed by millions of marketing dollars

EXACTLY! If this were a video encoding rig, I'd say, "Go with Intel. They're your best friend." But this is a gaming rig on a budget.

It's not that MOST people here are anti-Intel (I said MOST), we're just perfectionists. I can't justify suggesting/recommending Intel when AMD is, in my mind, a FAR superior choice for him.

Since I've justified this side of the story, why don't you tell me how that statement is somehow just "fanboy dribble?"

Edit: Oh, and whoever that was that suggested a 21" monitor should not be listened to. Sorry. 21" monitors are FAR more expensive for what you get, and they're also to big. If you EVER move this rig, it'll be even more of a pain, and it will also take up considerably more desk space.

 

[Tostada]

As has been said before, there's no reason not to go with an i865 board. It would be $100 cheaper, and the only benefit of the i875 is CSA GB LAN. This is only a benefit if you have two machines with CSA and you like to throw 4GB DVD images around your LAN for the hell of it. The P4P800 is almost the same board for $94.

Do you REALLY want the Plextor that badly? Do you realize that those 1GB CDR's will NOT play back on other drives? It sounds like a major waste of money to me. You'd be better off spending $48.99 on the Lite-On 52x32x52x16x CD-RW/DVD combo drive. That Plextor is just a complete waste. It's $88.50, and for $89.99 you can get the NEC dual-layer DVD+R burner. You will eventually want a DVD burner, even if you want to wait until DVD-R dual-layer shows up in a few months, and then there will be no benefit to having 3 CD drives in your machine.

It looks like you've just decided that the most expensive US Robitics modem is the way to go. I've personally found that USR modems have gone downhill in a big way in the past few years. I've had no problems with any V.92 Conexant winmodems, which is more than I can say for 3COM/USR. The $9.50 Zonet modem on newegg ($12.50 with shipping) is a really good modem. If you're really planning on having dialup forever, then by all means go with a hardware controller, but I would hope this is a temporary thing. A winmodem isn't exactly going to tax a 3 GHz CPU.

Those Noisetaker PSU's are really nice, but you should get the $63.25 model of the 370W one instead. You don't seem to understand what Active PFC is. It is actually slightly more efficient to have no PFC. Read this: http://www.dansdata.com/gz028.htm

I would go with OCZ Enhanced Latency memory. OCZ EL and Kingston HyperX are both the same timing, and are about 10% faster in many benchmarks than your average CL3 memory.

Is there a reason to spend $88 on an Audigy2? Sure, it's a great card, but do you have a home theater built around the computer? Do you have 7.1 speakers? Do you have acoustical foam on the ceiling and walls? Is this really going to sound any better than the Realtek 8-channel audio that's going on motherboards now?

The price of your list there is up to $1600 with shipping. I'm not going to give you a hard time about going with Intel, but I must say that you're not getting much computer for $1600. You're spending hundreds of dollars on the little things that you'll never notice.

Nobody needs a $1600 machine, do they? This is about bragging rights. For that price you could get a Socket 939 Athlon 64 which will actually be upgradable in the future. For almost the exact same price you could get:

Socket 939 Athlon 64 3500+ Newcastle Retail: $499
ASUS A8V K8T800 Pro, GB LAN, 8-channel audio, etc: $169
Sapphire Radeon 9800 Pro (with R360 core from 9800 XT): $210
2X 160GB Hitachi Deskstar 7K250: 2X $103.50
2X 512MB OCZ EL DDR400: 2X $128
Lite-On 52x32x52x16 combo drive: $48.99
Cooler Master Centurion 4 silver case: $64 + $15 shipping
Enemax Noisetaker P 370W: $63.25 + $6 shipping
Zonet V92 PCI modem: $9.50 + $3 shipping
Logitech Cordless MX Duo: $75 + $5 shipping

That's $1630.74, and it looks like your Intel system is just over $1600 with shipping.

The Raptor 74G is the fastest thing out there, but the Deskstar 7K250 is as fast as the Raptor 36G, and a 320GB RAID is probably better than a 74G single drive, but I suppose that depends on what you want. Maybe you want to save $7 and stick with the Raptor.

If you're going to go with Intel, that's great, but it doesn't mean you have to waste your money.

 

[Tostada]

Originally posted by: Ilmater
Edit: Oh, and whoever that was that suggested a 21" monitor should not be listened to. Sorry. 21" monitors are FAR more expensive for what you get, and they're also to big. If you EVER move this rig, it'll be even more of a pain, and it will also take up considerably more desk space.

That's ridiculous. There's a reason so many people suggest 21" Trinitron monitors.

Personally, for non-gamers, I often suggest that they spend almost as much on their monitor as the whole rest of the system. What is the part of the machine you're looking at all day? What part of your computer are you looking at now? Not that many people are going to be playing Doom 24/7. Not many people encode video all day. Everybody has to look at their monitor whenever they sit down, though.

There are many people who will spend $400 on the latest graphics card to make games look better, which will only be cutting-edge for 6 months. Obviously spending $600 on a monitor is a much better investment. These days, you can get some really good deals on big monitors. You can get an OEM SGI 21" Sony flat Trinitron for $400. You can get a refurbished one for $225. A good monitor will last your over 5 years easily, and it'll make things look a lot better than a couple extra FPS will.

I have a 22" NEC flat aperture grille CRT that still looks absolutely beautiful. When I got this monitor, a Thunderbird 1400 was the fastest thing out there. Your monitor will last longer than any other part of your computer.

I do understand where you're coming from. A 19" NEC SuperBright Diamondtron CRT (probably the best thing out there) is $245. The 22" one is $675. Obviously the 19" is the best bang for the buck, but you can't deny that a 21" is a good investment. A 21" monitor has 24% more viewable area than a 19" monitor.

I can't believe you would actually say that a 21" monitor is too difficult to move. A 27" TV is pretty average; are you going to suggest nobody should buy a TV over 19" because it'd be too hard to move? Nobody ever said 21" CRT's were good for LAN parties.

 

[jerome12345]

i have no knowledge whatsoever about AMD
i have not considered AMD before, so...
can u guys please educate me on AMD?
I am thoroughly confused

is 754 or 939 better

does 939 chips fit in 754 mobos, b/c asus doesnt have a 939 category for mobos

IF i do decide to go with AMD, a comprable p4 chip would be the amd athlon 64? what speed?
if the right chip to get is the 64, then is the best mobo the asus K8N-E Deluxe or the asus K8V SE Deluxe

IF i decide to go with AMD, then do i need to get registered ram?

do i need to get anything different

are there any drawbacks to amd?

you guys havent successfully convinced me, but im willing to give amd a try

part of the reason ive decided this in newegg's far cry offfer

thanks
jerome

 

[crazycarl]

hey jerome,
>is 754 or 939 better?
939 is newer and better but wayyyy expensive. these are the new ultra high end, the equivalent of upcoming 775 for intel more or less.
939 doesn't fit in 754 and vice-versa
you don't need registered ram unless you get an opteron or athlon -fx (super expensive again, like $800)
drawbacks: not as good performance in certain applications like photoshop and 3dsmax, although better in other similar applications. not as good divx encoding performance. less street cred for n00bs
the athlon 64 is more of the equiv. of a p4. roughtly, 3200 = 3.2 p4, 3000 = 3.0 p4, etc. again it varies from application to application.
if you are using the computer for office, excel, and gaming, then amd will do better than intel. if you are trying to make a 3d workstation, then it depends on what application you want to run. if you are going to use it as a dvd-ripping machine, then go intel. but u mentioned its for games and office so i think most of the benchmarks agree AMD is best 4 that.
hope this helps w/ your decision

 

[3chordcharlie]

socket 939 is faster, because it has dual channel memory, and is the newer socket, with more speed upgrades expected in the future, compared to socket 754.

The two sockets are not compatible, which was probably a bad idea on AMD's part, but may have been unavoidable. Kind of like the first pentium 4 socket (423), socket 754 is probably not here to stay.

You will not need registered ram for an athlon 64.

For gaming, any athlon 64 will be as good or better than P4s, with the possible exception of the Extreme Edition P4, which seems to more or less keep pace with the top athlon 64. Most people here seem to find a 3000+ or 3200+ (which are socket 754 chips) great for gaming, while you would be looking at a 3500+ if you wait a couple of weeks for socket 939 to become available.

I have no idea about the feature sets of various boards - you're probably on the right track with asus though.

You don't need to get anything different in terms of peripherals, but you may need to pay close attention to the ram you buy, to maintain compatibility with your chosen motherboard - don't worry there are some good, reasonably priced brand names on the 'compatible' list.

If you decide to go with AMD, the one thing you give up is hyperthreading. You may have followed another post with a very different user who likes to use a lot of applications at the same time, and you'll notice that the same people who recommended AMD to you, told him not to buy one because hyperthreading was a big deal for his computing 'style'. You will also lose a little in encoding audio and video. Frankly, audio encodes so fast these days I can't see it being an issue, and I can encode video faster than real time on an old, slow 1533mhz athlon xp, so if you only encode occasionally, don't worry, it's still quite fast.

cheers

 

[jerome12345]

so what asus mobos can i use if i get 939

 

[SickBeast]

Originally posted by: jerome12345
so what asus mobos can i use if i get 939

I'll be the first one to call your bluff on this one. Hell will freeze over before you buy AMD.

 

[3chordcharlie]

why jump on the guy - there's no reason to criticize him if he doesn't buy an amd, only if he doesn't even consider it, when so many have suggested he should take a good look. looks to me like he's asking the right questions; I'm certainly not going to be bothered if Jerome buys an intel system, especially if he's taken the time to see what he is and isn't getting by doing so.

 

[jerome12345]

nvmd only the asus av8 i guess huh?

which is faster benchmark...P4 3.2 or AMD 939 3500+...

the 3500+ doesnt look like its a very popular processor on newegg
not many reviews, not many wish lists containing

WHY??????????????????????????????????????????

 

[3chordcharlie]

the 3500+ is brand new, and it isn't the top processor for s939, so it's understandable that it's not on wish lists and hasn't been reviewed much. For what you're describing as uses, the 3500+ should be considerably faster than a 3.2ghz p4

 

[jerome12345]

is this true? or is it marketing?

so right now AMD holds an advantage in the ratio of speed to price???

is that correct?

 

[3chordcharlie]

that looks about right - but pay close attention to the scale - they are showing differences in the order of 10-15% but making it 'look' like A64 is twice as fast as 3.4ghz P4

 

[jerome12345]

the 3800+ doesnt look very popular on newegg either
is 939 just not mainstream?

what uses would a 3500+ be slower than a P4 3.2 at

 

[magomago]

a 3500+ A64 will stop on a 3.2C because the 3500+ is supposed to sa "Dude....we are something similar to a 3.5Ghz P4"


I remember reading about Mobos out there that will suport both 754 and 939 (two different sockets,and can only use one at a time)


If you do go A64, don't hesitate on the 754~ because its going to end up having slightly longer lifespan than the S478 P4s anyways....

and if you plan on waitinf for Socket 775 with Intel, hell S939 for AMD will prolly be out for a long time by then

Anyways, g/luck and hope the AMD rig comes to fruitation

And you should really go check out the benchmarks in games just so you can have some confidence that the A64 really does do well in games (in general, the 3000+ is competitive with the 3.2C in gaming, and will "beat" a 3.0C at gaming)

edit:

as for what a 3500+ be slower at....not much. I'd guess in apps that were coded specifically for the P4 the P4 would take a lead...but at best I'd only be able to guess that a few encoding apps- and if this was true, then the "lead" would most likely be minimal at best

 

[jerome12345]

if the speed of the 3500+ is only a little more than the 3400+
what would be the downside of using a 754?
there are certainly more mobo choices

only thing you lose is the dual channel ram?

if i was going to use 754, what is the best chipset

 

[SickBeast]

Originally posted by: 3chordcharlie
why jump on the guy - there's no reason to criticize him if he doesn't buy an amd, only if he doesn't even consider it, when so many have suggested he should take a good look. looks to me like he's asking the right questions; I'm certainly not going to be bothered if Jerome buys an intel system, especially if he's taken the time to see what he is and isn't getting by doing so.

You don't understand, no matter what you say to these people they will buy intel. The same thing has happened to me time and time again in countless other threads; the guy finally caves and asks about AMD, then we tell him what he asks about, then he goes and buys intel anyway.

 

[3chordcharlie]

no downside, especially at the present time - dual channel isn't the same huge deal for A64 as it is for P4. And it is true that s939 is very expensive, and very unavailable at the moment.

Plus, as pointed out, you might have an upgrade path open up with dual socket motherboards in the future.

 

[dakels]

ok i stopped reading all the intel vs AMD garbage

i will just say something totally different to consider. If you plan on this being a gaming rig, consider getting wired mouse and keyboard. In fast paced FPS games where miliseconds count, I find the latency of the wireless mice to be kinda annoying to downright unusable. I have the same keyboard and mouse and I dont use them on my gaming rig because of the latency. I use normal Kensington optical Elite mice. They are awesome for me. I also use a ratzpad optical mouse pad. I thought it was a gimmick but I got it cheap and I needed to add to an order to reach a coupon minimum. I was really surprised at the performance. It's really nice and accurate great for both my drawing and FPS games where mouse speed and accuracy is critical.