Validate my Component Choices for a Gaming Rig

[Starbuck1975]

I have read over the latest AnandTech Gaming Rig guide, and I am a bit overwhelmed by the sheer number of component options currently available. I am finding that my current rig is playing very sluggish on newer games like Half Life 2, Dawn of War, Battle for Middle Earth and Rome Total War. I have to turn all of the graphics features down to their lowest settings, and my load times on levels and save games is cumbersome and slow...my current setup is as follows:

CPU AMD|1800+/266 ATHLON 1.53GXP RT
Crucial DDRAM 256MB|32X64 PC-2100C2.5 * 2 (512MB total)
ATI Radeon All In Wonder Pro 9700
HD 40GB|MAXTOR 6E040L0 72R ATA133
Soundblaster Audigy 2
Win XP Professional OS

While I have built several gaming rigs over the years, I do not know enough about the technology to make an educated decision on bang for the buck upgrade considerations...that being said, this is the upgrade I am considering:

MSI "K8N Neo2 Platinum" NVIDIA nForce3 ULTRA Chipset Motherboard For AMD Socket 939 CPU
AMD Socket 939 Athlon 64 3500+, 90nm, 2.2 GHz, 512KB L2 Cache 64-bit Processor
OCZ EL Platinum Revision 2 Dual Channel Kit 184-Pin 1GB(512MBx2) DDR PC-3200
Maxtor Ultra Series Kit 160GB 7200RPM IDE Hard Drive, Model L01P160

This upgrade comes in at around $800. I am looking for a significant gaming performance jump from my current setup, so I want to ensure that my component choices are money well spent. My questions are:

1. Would any of you swap out any of the components I listed for a cheaper or even more expensive option.

2. I am concerned that I will not see a huge performance increase due to my graphics card being dated, even if it is just over 18 months old...would you recommend adding a new video card to my upgrade, and if so, which one?

 

[Edward Lee]

what no graphics card?
Also unless you're planning to overclock alot value ram is still very good.
And if you are planning to overclock I would get 3200 and overclock it to 3500 speed instead.

Do you realize my Socket 754 3000+ overclocked is the same speed as a stock S939 3500 and it's over $200.00 cheaper? hmm.. very interesting...

 

[sammyunltd]

Yeah... it depends of your budget... if you want a bang for the buck.. go with a GeForce 6600 GT AGP8X (@ $200-220) but, because you have already a 9700 PRO, I'm not sure it will provide a huge boost. If you have $100 more, go with a GeForce 6800 GT (I found one @ $320) and now you'll have a big big big big boost. (maybe 200% boost in some games, like Doom 3).

Yeah, if you overclock, change your 3500+ to a 3000+ / 3200+ and with that extra money, go with a 6800 (at least) if you wanna see huge improvements.

 

[Starbuck1975]

Well my graphics card is a bit of a question mark as I currently have a Radeon 9700 All in Wonder Pro...would you recommend updating the graphics card?

I have no intention of overclocking, so what did you have in mind for value RAM?

So far the vibe I am getting is go for the components I mentioned, perhaps downgrade to budget RAM, and throw in a high end graphics card. While I don't have unlimited funds, I have some flexibility in my budget.

 

[sammyunltd]

Value RAM... I mean, Corsair Value RAM, Kingston Value RAM, Samsung RAM....it is cheap and good.

Even if you're not o/c, I would go with a 3200+, cause the performance gap between the 3200+ and the 3500+ isn't that big, considering the price difference between the two.

If you don't have the money to go with a 6800 GT.. go with a 6800 NU (Non-Ultra) @ less than $300.

 

[JBDan]

Look at the Epox board ($99). For the $ it has had great reviews and is a good oc'er. Also after you read Zebo's memory post(s) you might get sick at your stomach if you spend big $$ on RAM. Go with the Corsair value select , mushkin, or crucial value RAM. Save a lot of $ there. Mushkin I think has a 1 GB pack for around $136. I reccomend a 6800GT but if your wallet cant deal with that a 6600gt is nice as well. You will see a large difference in gaming if you upgrade that ath xp, especially if you get a newer gen gfx card like the 2 I mentioned..

 

[Starbuck1975]

There seems to be quite a price range even in the 6800 GTs...would you recommend a particular manufacturer or model...I have actually moved away from nVidia cards in favor of ATI in my last two upgrades, so I am somewhat out of the loop on what has been going on in the nVidia community.

 

[sammyunltd]

If you want a good idea of good manufacturer for the 6600 GT, go here: http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2295

As for the 6600 GT, it is probably the best bang for the buck, but you have already a 9700 PRO... the boost would be giant (Pixel Shader 3.0, ...) but not that big (compared to if you take a 6800 GT). But like I said, it depends of your $$$

 

[JBDan]

Originally posted by: Starbuck1975
There seems to be quite a price range even in the 6800 GTs...would you recommend a particular manufacturer or model...I have actually moved away from nVidia cards in favor of ATI in my last two upgrades, so I am somewhat out of the loop on what has been going on in the nVidia community.

LOL I was a diehard ATI fan until the 6800 series came out. These 6800's are sweet . I am now back with Nvidia until ATI comes out with something that blows me away like the 6800GT did lol. I chose eVga 6800GT because of their name and because of the price when I bought it. It was $389 and came with full install of Farcry. If you stick with the stock GPU cooler on the card you might want to shop around (here on Anand) and see which manufacturers rated the best in benchmarks as far as cooling,ocing potential, and noise. The Leadtek 6600gt Winfast, if Im not mistaken, was the best 6600gt as far as cooling/oc'ing/noise. I put an NV5 Silencer on mine so I just looked for the cheapest 6800gt and it was eVga at the time.

 

[Edward Lee]

Look for a Card with a lifetime warranty and/or games you want that are bundled with the card. I think BFG has a lifetime warranty. Then shop price.

 

[Starbuck1975]

If I downgrade on the RAM, the money I shave off there can go towards purchasing a 6800. I will have to dig into the forums and guides on the 6800 models to narrow my options down, but it is a starting point.

Also after you read Zebo's memory post(s) you might get sick at your stomach if you spend big $$ on RAM.

I assume Zebo is a regular poster on AnandTech...can I find his memory posts if I dig around for them?

 

[drpootums]

Zebo's memory posts are stickied at the top of the CPU forums.

And if you want good yet cheap ram (better than value by a bit) the PDP makes good stuff. I have PDP Patriot pc3200 low latency ram that i got from newegg for $180 or so. I havent tried but i hear it is a very good for overclocking, and the latencies are 2-3-2-5, while most value ram is 2.5-3-3-7 or so. You wont notice much of a difference between the timings in real world apps, but i figured for a bit more it doesnt hurt! In benchmarks it's about 0.5-1% slower that Corsair XMS memory at $60 cheaper.

But if you dont wanna upgrade the ram much then regular Corsair VS is pretty good. All up to you.

And i also suggest you go skt754 if you want to save more money. My 3400+ (newcastle core) is about $50+ cheaper than that 3500+ and is faster in most apps. Sure you wont be able to upgrade the processor much on that socket, but by the time the 3400+ is too slow there will be much better stuff out for mobo's i'm guessing, and u can use that $50 you saved to buy a new mobo!! And if you arent overclocking, then i personally think the skt939 cpu's are a waste of money. The extra 200mhz clock speed with the skt754 cpu's are going to help you much more than the dual channel memory (3% boost with dual channel...who hoo!!!).

Just my $.02 worth...

 

[Starbuck1975]

Interesting comments on the 754 vs the 939. The pricing I have seen is that a Newcastle 3200+ is comperable in price to the Winchester 3200+, although most reviews and forums I have read seem to lean towards 939 for gaming performance on a mid to high end system.

Based on the comments in this thread so far, I have updated my components list:

MSI "K8N Neo2 Platinum" NVIDIA nForce3 ULTRA Chipset Motherboard For AMD Socket 939 CPU
Leadtek nVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT Video Card, 256MB GDDR3, 256-Bit, TV-Out/DVI, 8X AGP
AMD Athlon 64 3200+, 512KB L2 Cache, Socket 939 64-bit Processor
Mushkin Dual Pack 184-Pin 1GB(512MBx2) DDR PC-3200
Maxtor Ultra Series Kit 160GB 7200RPM IDE Hard Drive, Model L01P160

Puts me at around $1000, which is still within my budget...the other notable addition to this is that it throws in a significant video card upgrade from my current ATI card...the tradeoff for the GEFORCE 6800 GT was to downgrade my RAM and also move from an Athlon 64 3500+ down to a 3200+.

Does this sound like a good balance of performance, price and gaming power?

 

[Edward Lee]

Yea the 3200's are comparable in price but they are not the same quality. a 3200 Newcastle is 2.2 GHz while a 3200 Winchester is only 2.0 GHz. Winchester

As for Gaming performance. a 2.0 GHZ AMD will work about the same regardless if it's 939 or 754. Althogh a 939 might be a better choice if you're planning to upgrade in the near future. If not go for whichever rocks your boat more. I personally don't think it makes a difference if you don't plan to upgrade your CPU/MOBO in the next 3 or so years because any upgrade you do from here on won't make a donkey hoot of a difference until the new dual core socket 10XX Super PCI-e II with Quadruple Hyperthreading come out.


Your updated parts look damn good. I wish I had those.....

 

[Starbuck1975]

Thanks for the info...my cycle time for upgrades is usually dictated by game performance...the first system I ever built was motivated by Quake 2, and all of my subsequent upgrades have been based on when my system could no longer handle the latest and greatest graphics engines. My second upgrade was around the time Deux Ex came out, with another upgrade nearly two years ago...so I am not so much concerned about having the latest and greatest...its more a question of how do I get my system to handle the games of today, and probably the next one or two years.

I will have to do some thinking about the 754 vs 939 trade-off, as I am hearing good arguments for both...although in the past I have made the mistake of configuring a system so I can upgrade the processor, but more often then not, a suitable upgrade requires new RAM, a new video card and a new motherboard anyway...I have never done an upgrade that was a simple processor swap...and like you said, the next generation of technology is always right around the corner.

 

[Starbuck1975]

So if I swap out the 939 with the 754, it looks something like this:

MSI nForce3 250 Chipset Motherboard for AMD Athlon 64 Socket 754 CPU, Model "K8N Neo Platinum"
AMD Athlon 64 3400+, 512k L2 Cache
Leadtek nVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT Video Card, 256MB GDDR3, 256-Bit, TV-Out/DVI, 8X AGP
Mushkin Dual Pack 184-Pin 1GB(512MBx2) DDR PC-3200
Maxtor Ultra Series Kit 160GB 7200RPM IDE Hard Drive, Model L01P160

Actually dropped my price point by around $100, placing the upgrade in the $900 range...not a bad price for this much hardware.

 

[coejus]

That looks pretty good. The only suggestion I would have may be to replace the Maxtor disk with an SATA hard disk. You can get an SATA disk with the same capacity for around the same price, and then you'll have a drive that'll be more friendly to future motherboards and clean up cables in your case.

 

[Starbuck1975]

I read over Zebo's sticky thread on memory, and it definitely convinced me that budget RAM is the better option in terms of price over performance.

I have always purchased the most expensive RAM I can afford and simply slapped it into my system...I never realized there are configuration considerations with RAM that also effect performance.

So should I decide to purchase these components and update my system, I assume that there are configuration considerations for RAM besides placing it in the motherboard...the problem is that discussions about latency and voltages are somewhat above my head. Are there any good guides out there that talk about fine tuning and tweaking a system once it is built...I know how to do the hardware part, but I am largely ignorant of the bios settings and tweaking that are not necessarily overclocking but do have tangible performance implications.

 

[jterrell]

Go with a 3000+ and OC it. You can get it to 3500+ levels with very little effort or risk.
Go with cheaper RAM. Corsair or Mushkin cheapo 3200 work fine for minor OC'ing. If you want high performance ram get the PDP w/ xbl for about 50 less than that ocz. Its the same product essentially.

Get a 6600 or 6800 vid card depending on budget constraints. Vanilla 6800 if you can find one at 275 or so is a great deal. Leadtek, BFG, eVGA, Galaxy have all been commended.

I'd advise a chaintech nf4 board but it takes a miracle to find one.
The nf4 woulda let you move to pci-express which would have been nice since you are making such a big leap this upgrade.

A 120 gig HD should be fine for you and generally have great price points. About 85 bucks.
Prolly 15 to 20 more for another 40 gigs but you will unlikely ever use it unless you record tv to HDD.

I didn't see a dvd-rw on there and most suggest the NEC 3520-a as a great value DVD burner for 70 bucks shipped.

Make sure you have a good power supply as you will be using about twice as many watts as your old rig. I'd say a quality name brand at 450 watts or so.

And you will probably be able to play those games now and wonder how you ever suffered through the slower pc LOL.

 

[coejus]

450 watts would be overkill for that system. 350 would be fine. 400 would be more than enough and leave him room for upgrades.

 

[Starbuck1975]

The LeadTek 6800 card I am watching now comes in at around $400, which I guess is typical for a high end video card...although perhaps I should consider going more vanilla on a 6800 to save the cash.

I am somewhat wary of overclocking as I dont know enough about tweaking to do a proper job of it, and I really dont want to fry my new toy

I think 120GB will suit my needs fine as I still have a Maxtor 80GB hard drive I intend to salvage from my current system...my current power supply is suitable for the upgrade as it comes in at 450W, and I have a plextor CD/DVD RW and a DVD-ROM I can salvage from my current system...gonna keep my current case and monitor as well.

 

[JBDan]

Originally posted by: Starbuck1975
The LeadTek 6800 card I am watching now comes in at around $400, which I guess is typical for a high end video card...although perhaps I should consider going more vanilla on a 6800 to save the cash.

I am somewhat wary of overclocking as I dont know enough about tweaking to do a proper job of it, and I really dont want to fry my new toy

I think 120GB will suit my needs fine as I still have a Maxtor 80GB hard drive I intend to salvage from my current system...my current power supply is suitable for the upgrade as it comes in at 450W, and I have a plextor CD/DVD RW and a DVD-ROM I can salvage from my current system...gonna keep my current case and monitor as well.

Looks like you are almost there. Thought I would say this though- the 939 is more "near future" proof than the 754's. The 3000+ is @ $152 oem @ Newegg. This 3000+ can reach 3500+ speeds EASY. You say your wary on oc'ing? Then its up to you on where you spend your $ . I was once wary of oc'ing as well, but as long as I own a pc I will oc. With careful reading here on Anand and patience, the chances of you "frying" your new toy are slim.

 

[Starbuck1975]

I found the sticky thread on overclocking, and am doing some reading up on the ins and outs of the process...if anything it makes for an interesting read, although I am still somewhat skeptical of going that route.

I did notice something else in researching video card prices. Leadtek makes a GEFORCE 6800 that retails for around $280 and a GEFORCE 6800 GT that retails for around $400...that is a huge price differential for two cards in the same family, and I am not sure if the "GT" is worth the extra $100+. Similarly the Realtek 6600 GT runs for around $219, so again I am not where I should focus in that range of price versus performance in upgrading from my Radeon.

 

[Edward Lee]

Stick with the 6800 family if you can. They are a much better card than the 6600. Worth the $50.00 difference. I own a 6800 NU and you can easily clock it close to GT speeds and it's a wonderful card. It will probably last me 2-3 more years or so without an upgrade.

 

[Starbuck1975]

I will probably go with the 6800 as opposed to the 6800 GT...unless the GT comes down in the next month...always that tradeoff between waiting for prices to drop and the technology becoming outdated...decisions decisions