Ultimate Gaming System

[anthrax]

Originally posted by: Vicious38
Well... I'm not quite sure about the Monitor I'll be getting, but I had great expierence with my past ViewSonic Monitors. As for Video Cards, I think it's a matter of loyality... Some games were made for the nVidia's GeForce 6800 Ultra Edition and some games were made for ATI's Radeon X800 XT Platinum Edition. I for one have been using ATI for a long time, and I still have a Radeon 9000 Pro working nicely in one of my old computers. As I said earlier I'm not to big on overclocking and thats what I heard nVidia was best at. I've also been loyal to Western Digital, they've worked great for me and I haven't came across a problem with any of there internal or external drives yet, Maxtor and Seagate are another thing though. No one can change my mind about how much memory I'm going to have, 2 GB is what I'm getting plane and simple. The only thing that remains is what Motherboard I'll be getting and what brand of memory I'd be getting for the particular motherboard. DDR2 doesn't work on any 939 Socket Motherboards, actually nothing about 400 MHz.

So please, what are you suggestions on Socket 939 Motherboards and what brand memory?

WARNING. The GIGABYTE has issues with memory compatiability... Stay away from it... I suggest get a ASUS A8V Revsion 2.0 instead

 

[imported_Phil]

Originally posted by: anthrax

Originally posted by: Vicious38
Well... I'm not quite sure about the Monitor I'll be getting, but I had great expierence with my past ViewSonic Monitors. As for Video Cards, I think it's a matter of loyality... Some games were made for the nVidia's GeForce 6800 Ultra Edition and some games were made for ATI's Radeon X800 XT Platinum Edition. I for one have been using ATI for a long time, and I still have a Radeon 9000 Pro working nicely in one of my old computers. As I said earlier I'm not to big on overclocking and thats what I heard nVidia was best at. I've also been loyal to Western Digital, they've worked great for me and I haven't came across a problem with any of there internal or external drives yet, Maxtor and Seagate are another thing though. No one can change my mind about how much memory I'm going to have, 2 GB is what I'm getting plane and simple. The only thing that remains is what Motherboard I'll be getting and what brand of memory I'd be getting for the particular motherboard. DDR2 doesn't work on any 939 Socket Motherboards, actually nothing about 400 MHz.

So please, what are you suggestions on Socket 939 Motherboards and what brand memory?

WARNING. The GIGABYTE has issues with memory compatiability... Stay away from it... I suggest get a ASUS A8V Revsion 2.0 instead

And people wonder why I don't like Gigabyte boards much.

Agreed, Asus board, or Abit.

 

[Luthien]

How come I see so many people still buying a Creative labs Audigy 2 etc. for these new motherboards that have awesome built in sound? Am I missing something I should know about that would make having an audigy 2 instead so much better? I own and audigy 2 I got a great sale price on several months ago and have not installed it because I was going to put in my new system when I built it eventually and eventually is about 3 days away. I was planning on selling it but before I do that I would like some feedback on what I am missing out on if I use the on board sound. MSI Neo 2 Platinum 939 is my mobo arriving tuesday along with my retail Athlon 64 3500 939 retail cpu. thanks for your feedback.

 

[Goi]

Well, onboard sound has come a long way, but standalone cards like the Audigy2 will still edge them out in sound quality, features and performance.

 

[Luthien]

Well all I will use it for is games, music, voice chat. I dont do much audio editing or anything like that at all. So, why would I need to keep my audigy 2 platinum other than it looks nice? The only thing that would make me want to keep it is if sound in games is noticably better with it, or there are sound anomalies or something caused by onboard sound that I have heard happens with some onboard sound but I figure onboard sound has advanced enough now that, that is no longer an issue.

 

[Jojo7]

EGGO, do some more reading. He's looking at the 939 pin version of the Athlon Fx. Registered memory is not supported and WILL NOT WORK with any current s939 motherboards.

Also, as others have said, DDR2 WILL NOT WORK with current s939 boards.

Vicious38, I use 1gb Corsair Twinx pc3200XL with my Asus A8V and love the memory. I kinda had alot of bad luck with this board. It took me 2 rma's to get a good one. If I didn't already have this system built, I would have gone with the MSI K8N Neo2.

I would also strongly recommend going with the 6800U instead of the x800XT. I love my 6800U.

 

[EGGO]

Originally posted by: Jojo7
EGGO, do some more reading. He's looking at the 939 pin version of the Athlon Fx. Registered memory is not supported and WILL NOT WORK with any current s939 motherboards.

Also, as others have said, DDR2 WILL NOT WORK with current s939 boards.

I didn't think it was DDR2. Do you have any suggestions for a 2GB mem for that?

[edit] I found the answer to my problem. Thanks anyway.

 

[Bugalaman]

first, ATI sucls right now. get a 6800 Ultra. and jesus! get some descent speakers, perferably the Klipsch promedia 5.1 ultra's or the 7.1 gigaworks.

 

[Caminetto]

Great system. Only weakness may be Cox. What kind of up and down speeds do you get?

 

[Vicious38]

Originally posted by: Caminetto
Great system. Only weakness may be Cox. What kind of up and down speeds do you get?

Downloading, I haven't reached my speed limit yet, I've gone as fast as 10 MB/s. Uploading I've gotten 500 kb/s

 

[Goi]

10MB/s downloads?!? 500KB/s uploads?!? Are you kidding? I'm getting like <10% of that with RoadRunner

Edit: I just went to Cox's website to check out their Hi Speed Internet plans, and the fastest they have there is 5Mbps/768Kbps down/up speeds. Are you sure you didn't get your bits and bytes mixed up?

 

[Vicious38]

Originally posted by: Goi
10MB/s downloads?!? 500KB/s uploads?!? Are you kidding? I'm getting like <10% of that with RoadRunner

Edit: I just went to Cox's website to check out their Hi Speed Internet plans, and the fastest they have there is 5Mbps/768Kbps down/up speeds. Are you sure you didn't get your bits and bytes mixed up?

We have a buisness plan. For my father's at home company...

 

[Goi]

That's awesome. Is it a T1? I'm guessing not since you're getting assymetrical up/download speeds.

 

[JoeChicken]

Up here in Alaska I am getting 8MB download/768KB upload with MTA's DTV Plan. Very nice indeed... only problem is every cable box I have turned on sucks 3MB/sec off of my download speed, which I have two of them. So if I am watching TV on one and my roomies are watching TV on the other my internet slows to 2MB/sec download... ah well, still fast!

 

[Mik3y]

Originally posted by: JoeChicken
Up here in Alaska I am getting 8MB download/768KB upload with MTA's DTV Plan. Very nice indeed... only problem is every cable box I have turned on sucks 3MB/sec off of my download speed, which I have two of them. So if I am watching TV on one and my roomies are watching TV on the other my internet slows to 2MB/sec download... ah well, still fast!

wtf! dude, that is crazy fast. i can only wish of getting that much bandwidth.

 

[Brickster]

Originally posted by: Vicious38
Also... No one has yet helped me with picking out my Motherboard. Mind you I don't plan on being a heavy Overclocker. People say Gigabyte is great in every aspect except Overclocking and I'm ok with that. So come on people MSI, Gigabyte, Asus, or Abit?

I purchased the Gigabyte 939 board. It's kick ass. Only had one driver update issue (Marvell LAN controller) and that was all.

I bought the Corsair XMS 3200XL memory. Just make sure if you buy it, you run it at the recommended 2.75V. Default on mobo is 2.5V.

I love my machine very, very much.

I don't know why people are saying the Gigabyte is not good for overclocking? I haven't heard that. I am going to OC the memory, CPU, and Video card at a later time. Gigabyte has a working AGP/PCI lock and the BIOS is very easy to use, and also comes with EasyTune4 - the Gigabyte OCing program. Makes OCing super easy from a first-timer's perspective.

Good luck.

 

[Vicious38]

I just upgraded my list, changed alot of things around including Video Card, Memory, and Monitor.
Going to either being putting the ATI Radeon X800 XT Platinum Edition in another computer or sell it on eBay for a couple hundred more.

Does the Memory and Motherboard work together? Can I go faster with Memory? Like to DDR 500 MHz? Is MSI even a good Motherboard or should I go with Gigabyte, Asus or Abit?

 

[Brickster]

Originally posted by: anthrax


WARNING. The GIGABYTE has issues with memory compatiability... Stay away from it... I suggest get a ASUS A8V Revsion 2.0 instead

Where's your data dude? :roll:

I'm rock solid, acutally, I hear of people buying the Gigabyte because of memory problems from others.

Check out the reviews in new egg. Here's a sample:

"Ordered the Asus A8V and would not work with my Mushkin 222 special RAM. RMA's it twice with the same results - BIOS checksum errors and could not get WinXP to install. Ordered the Gigabyte board and it is rock solid. No memory problems what so ever.

The Asus board also incorrectly reports CPU temps. This board reports them correctly. "

The raves go on and on....

Next time - If you are going to claim it, make sure you link it...

 

[Brickster]

Yes, I have heard good things from teh MSI K8N Neo, so I imagine the K8N Neo2 can't be far off. Actually, this mobo was my #1 contender until I figured out it wasn't going to be available for a month (ended up being longer). I went ahead and bought the Gigabyte after researching it, and figured it was a great bet despite the larger price tag.

For MSI's reputation...lots of gripes here: FRIED!

Gigabyte had a great manual, and was so easy to hook up to my case, and other components. Support has been responsive when I had general questions, and the thing is rock solid.

My guess with memory is that if you stick to 3200 DDR400, you can always OC that to a larger number if you like, but you are more likely to have a stable memory at great performance. You should be able to go with Mushkin, Corsair XMS, or OCZ and get something that works well. Again, my Corsair XMS 3200XL DDR400 works like a champion on this board.

Cheers,

 

[Tetsuo316]

fwiw, i have heard that if you populate all four memory banks on the msi neo2 board (and other a64 boards i'm sure, as the memory controller is on-chip), your memory bandwith drops to 333mhz. i can't find the thread at the moment, but if i do later i'll post it here.

so if you're getting 2 gigs of mem, you may want to get it in two sticks - not four.

 

[Vicious38]

Originally posted by: Tetsuo316
fwiw, i have heard that if you populate all four memory banks on the msi neo2 board (and other a64 boards i'm sure, as the memory controller is on-chip), your memory bandwith drops to 333mhz. i can't find the thread at the moment, but if i do later i'll post it here.

so if you're getting 2 gigs of mem, you may want to get it in two sticks - not four.

Thats the Plan... I'm getting to 1 GB Sticks.

 

[Vicious38]

Originally posted by: Brickster
Yes, I have heard good things from teh MSI K8N Neo, so I imagine the K8N Neo2 can't be far off. Actually, this mobo was my #1 contender until I figured out it wasn't going to be available for a month (ended up being longer). I went ahead and bought the Gigabyte after researching it, and figured it was a great bet despite the larger price tag.

For MSI's reputation...lots of gripes here: FRIED!

Gigabyte had a great manual, and was so easy to hook up to my case, and other components. Support has been responsive when I had general questions, and the thing is rock solid.

My guess with memory is that if you stick to 3200 DDR400, you can always OC that to a larger number if you like, but you are more likely to have a stable memory at great performance. You should be able to go with Mushkin, Corsair XMS, or OCZ and get something that works well. Again, my Corsair XMS 3200XL DDR400 works like a champion on this board.

Cheers,

Fried... Well that settles it, I'm switching to Gigabyte K8NSNXP-939. Thanks for letting me know about that Fried MSI Motherboard.

 

[EGGO]

My friend warned me against MSI back in the beginning of me thinking up parts of the motherboard (this was just as the regular 6800 got out).

Anandtech had it as one of their high-end recommendations, and a lot of people said that they'd change their minds and would try it.

Now I'm getting second thoughts, but I already have the box for it sitting right next to me.

 

[cbns]

I have a very similiar rig.
i have the same mobo and processor, if you have any questions as to when it's actually running under it's roof i'll be glad to answer them


-cbns

 

[iamskew]

you gonna try windows 64-bit?