Thoughts on upgrading system?? suggestions welcome..gaming in mind.

[bozack]

Well, it is time to upgrade the old box because Battlefield 2 is out and I want to play....

Currently I have an Athlon XP 2400 on an ECS K7S5a mainboard with a gig of memory and a Radeon 9600 video card...however all of that is going to go as I have been milking it too long.

Through a work goof up I was able to land an EVGA Geforce 6800GT and a Enermax Noisetaker 420 Watt ATX 12V Power Supply

Here is a link to the powersupply specs but if this one sucks I can always sell it or dump it in favor of something else...

http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0183945

I want to stick to a budget so the less I can spend in building this system the better, however I also don't want to be uber cheap as I am tired of ghettoing out my systems....

for a processor I was looking at either an amd atholon 64 3400+ or 3500+ Retail depending on availability...

memory will probabily be about a gig of value PC3200 DDR either Corsair or Crucial

the case is something that is up in the air, while I would like a cool case I also don't want to spend a ton on them as I just cart it around and beat on it...lighter is better...

What I am having a really hard time with though is the motherboard, I was looking at the DFI lanparty board probabily the non SLI version as I don't see myself going SLI...

any suggestions or changes would be appreciated, I am in no rush so any and all info will be considered...

Thanks again

 

[imported_Kensai]

Time to get a new computer.

A64 3000+ Venice
DFI LanParty Ultra-D
2GB Value RAM
etc. etc.

 

[bozack]

So far this is what I am considering...

COOLER MASTER Wave Master TAC-T01-E1C Silver All Aluminum Alloy ATX Mid Tower Case without Power Supply - Retail
Model #: TAC-T01-E1C
$129.50

Western Digital Caviar SE WD1200JS 120GB 7200 RPM Serial ATA II Hard Drive - OEM
Model #: WD1200JS
$89.00

DFI LANPARTY UT nF4 Ultra-D Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce4 Ultra ATX AMD Motherboard - Retail
Model #: LANPARTY UT nF4 Ultr
$135.00

OCZ Value Series 2GB (2 x 1GB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM DDR 400 (PC 3200) Unbuffered Dual Channel Kit System Memory Model OCZ4002048V3DC-K - Retail
Model #: OCZ4002048V3DC-K
$186.01

AMD Athlon 64 3500+ Venice 1GHz FSB Socket 939 Processor Model ADA3500BPBOX - Retail
Model #: ADA3500BPBOX
$267.00

This would be used with my existing:

evga 6800GT 256mb PCI Video card
Enermax Noisetaker 420 Watt ATX 12V Power Supply
CDRW/DVD Rom drive

Total cost of the upgrade would be about $823 without shipping...could lower it about $80 by getting a crappier case and maybe a not so good mainboard but don't want to skimp...

Personally I like Abit boards so if anyone has any good suggestions that would be on par or close to the DFI it would be appreciated, thanks.

 

[shoRunner]

lose the raptor...it aint worth it if your one any kind of budget.

 

[bozack]

Originally posted by: shoRunner
lose the raptor...it aint worth it if your one any kind of budget.

any suggestions for a drive that will be decent in performance or should I just go with any SATA 7200 drive?

Thanks

How about this one???

Western Digital Caviar SE WD1200JS 120GB 7200 RPM Serial ATA II Hard Drive - OEM
Model #: WD1200JS
$89.00

 

[d2arcturus]

Originally posted by: bozack

Originally posted by: shoRunner
lose the raptor...it aint worth it if your one any kind of budget.

any suggestions for a drive that will be decent in performance or should I just go with any SATA 7200 drive?

Thanks

Yeah Seagate, WD, Samsung, etc. (stay away from Maxtor IMO) look for an 8MB cache though.
You're going to want 2GB of RAM for BF2, and the DFIs are finicky, you may want to look at this: OCZ

 

[bozack]

Thanks for the heads up on the memory just switched it out, any suggestions on a non finiky and non expensive 939 mainbaord?? thanks again.

 

[xTYBALTx]

Yeah, try the MSI K8N

It's an nForce4 Ultra chipset, just like the DFI.

 

[d2arcturus]

Originally posted by: bozack
Thanks for the heads up on the memory just switched it out, any suggestions on a non finiky and non expensive 939 mainbaord?? thanks again.

The DFI is a stable board, I just meant it doesn't work well with Corsair and some other memory, but OCZ :heart: DFI. Best s939 overclocking board out there too. AT Review