Upgradeable System Specs

[Big Bunny]

My system just turned four years old, it's been very reliable but the old dog just don't hunt like she used to. Time to turn her over to the wife, I guess

I am planning to build a completely new system, with a view towards upgradeability. I am going to try to skimp on a few components, like the CPU and graphics card, that I can replace in 6-12 months with what is today's hottest hardware at more affordable prices. I plan to overclock my machine here and there, I am currently a novice but I like to play ;-)

I am willing to put some extra money into the important components that shouldn't drop substantially in price, but are important to system stability and performance. I am thinking the PSU, case, CPU fan and memory are in this category.

I am a fairly avid gamer, so I plan to go with a CRT for both performance and cost reasons. The wife and baby keep me from cranking up the volume, so the audio performance of my machine isn't really important, although I would like the sound clarity to be decent.

I do a reasonable amount of DVD/CD ripping and burning, plus some ripping/authoring from my camcorder. Those tasks have been really cumbersome with my current setup, so I would like to make sure I maximize the performance in those areas if I can. My current NEC DVD burner is fairly new, so I plan to move it over to the new machine.

OK, enough preamble already, here's my preliminary list of hardware:

Motherboard: Asus A8N-SLI Socket 939 (definitely want nForce4 for gaming/video upgradeability)

Processor: AMD Athlon 64 3200+ 2.0 GHz Winchester 90 nm 512k L2 (planning to replace before long but want something decent for now)

CPU Fan: Thermalright XP-120 (maybe not needed so much right now, but may be helpful after future upgrades?)

Memory: 2X Crucial Ballistix 184-Pin 512MB DDR400 PC-3200

Case: Cooler Master CM Stacker STC-TO1-UWK Silver/Black (I like the clean design and size)

Power Supply: Antec NeoPower 480 (will this be large enough for future needs?)

Video Card: eVGA 256-P2-N369 nVIDIA GeForce 6600 256MB DDR PCIe (probably replace or at least get another of the same at some point)

Monitor: Samsung Syncmaster 997DF T/T 19" DynaFlat CRT (my SyncMaster 950p has been flawless for 4+ years, I gotta go with a Samsung unless there's a real good reason not to)

Hard Drives: 2X Samsung 120GB 7200RPM SATA (don't need tons of space but planning on going RAID 1, I've been burned before!)

Sound Card: On Motherboard

Modem: Encore ENF656-EHW-IN 56K Internal PCI Fax Modem V.92 (damn DSL requirements)

Network Card: On Motherboard

Speakers: Logitech X-620 6.1 70.1 Watts

 

[wetcat007]

Looks pretty nice, and yes the PSU will be large enough for future needs, my antec 430 has tons of stuff hooked into it and runs perfect. Samsung makes some very nice CRT's as well as LCD's so I'd stick with that. Depending on how much you game you could upgrade to a 6800GT, but that's personal preference and right now that wouldn't fit with PCI-E i guess, but in the furure they probabily will.

btw welcome to the forums!

 

[Rike]

Why do you want to go RAID 1? What do you need the redundancy for? It's nice to have backup, but you can image your drives with DVD's for backup. You can buy a lot of DVD's for the price of a drive.

 

[IEC]

not bad at all... but I wouldn't call that skimping at all

Still running "fine" on my XP 2700+/Corsair XMS/R9700 Pro

 

[Big Bunny]

Originally posted by: Rike
Why do you want to go RAID 1? What do you need the redundancy for? It's nice to have backup, but you can image your drives with DVD's for backup. You can buy a lot of DVD's for the price of a drive.

Well, I have been using DVDs for backup purposes, and have found it to be pretty cumbersome organizing everything with a backup scheme. I also tend to forget to do it often enough :-o I am thinking it's worth it to me to spend an extra $80 for another drive, then not just plain not have to deal with backups.

Thanks for the input!

 

[Rike]

Originally posted by: Big Bunny

Originally posted by: Rike
Why do you want to go RAID 1? What do you need the redundancy for? It's nice to have backup, but you can image your drives with DVD's for backup. You can buy a lot of DVD's for the price of a drive.

Well, I have been using DVDs for backup purposes, and have found it to be pretty cumbersome organizing everything with a backup scheme. I also tend to forget to do it often enough :-o I am thinking it's worth it to me to spend an extra $80 for another drive, then not just plain not have to deal with backups.

Thanks for the input!

True, if you have the $80 to burn, it's cheap insureance.

By the way, the Thermalright XP-120 is an outstanding heatsink, but unless you plan to overclock it's a waste of money. If you are planning to OC, you're in great shape.