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Validate my Gaming Rig Selections - Take 2

Starbuck1975

Starbuck1975

Lifer
Around 6 months ago, I was considering upgrading my system of nearly 3 years, as I have hit that threshold once again where my computer is struggling to play the latest games: KOTOR was the last relatively new game I was able to run on my system, and that was with a lot of the graphics settings tuned way down...Half Life 2, Deus Ex 2 and other games simply sputter to the point where they are simply unplayable. This is my current system:

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

SLI hit around the time I was considering an upgrade, so I decided to wait a few months and see how the market rounded out. After doing some more research, these are the components I am considering:

Antec NeoPower 480 Power Supply
AMD Athlon 64 3200+ Winchester Socket 939 90nm
2x512MB OCZ Premier Value PC-3200
Maxtor Ultra Series Kit 120GB IDE Ultra ATA133 Hard Drive
XFX PVT45GUDF3 Geforce 6800GT 256MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16 Video Card
ASUS A8N family of motherboards (not sure which one yet)

These are my questions:
1. Will the Antec power supply provide enough juice for this system?
2. There are several variations of the ASUS A8N motherboard. I have no intention of ever going SLI (two video cards is overkill), and I do not intend to overclock...but I will make the leap to PCI-express. Also, I have heard many recommend going SATA on the hard drive, which of course will change my hard drive selection from the one listed above. Which of the A8N family should I go with, or perhaps an Abit alternative.
3. Should I spend the extra money to go with a San Diego core AMD chip?
4. I have heard many mention that value RAM is the way to go, especially if I do not intend to overclock. I have typically used Crucial, but the guides on AnandTech tend to favor OCZ. Is the value RAM selected a suitable value RAM, or is value RAM comperable across the various manufacturers?

I am sticking with ASUS simply because I have had good luck with ASUS and Abit products...MSI and DFX intimidate me a bit as they seem to be geared more towards overclockers, which I try to avoid as I dont know enough about the hardware to take it to that level.

Comments or suggestions?
 
I think Crucial, Corsair, OCZ, and Kingston all make good value ram. The best would be the one that works good with the motherboard that you pick. Check the forums to see which value ram people are using without any problems. Check the variations of the Asus board you picked. I think there are serveral nvidia chipset features with each one. Try newegg and look at the reviews that people wrote about each one. Personally I went with the sli board because so many people had bought it and really liked it. I think that makes it a safer bet. Besided the price difference was not that much.
 
Everything looks great

That power supply is more then enough
Don't spend the extra on a San Diego, not worth it
Corsair Value Select is also very nice memory
 
go 3200+ venice. Better memory controller and better ocer.
go MSI Neo4 Platnium or Asus A8n(not sli, just normal Nf4 ultra chipset, ill esplain this later)
Not sure how much that ram costs, but for $100 at newegg, you can get 2x 512mb Dual channel Cas2 latency G.Skill kit.
Go seagate fro a balance of performance and quiet or samsung for pure quietness. Maxtor is sort of a unreliable value brand image.
go fro something else but XFx. sure you save a few bucks, but customer service is horrendous and quality control isnt exactly acceptable.

Now about why sli is worthless. Say you bought a 6800gt now and want ot upgrade yto sli 6800gt in 1 year.
$300now
$200 in a year
$500
slower than a 7800gtx still in a year in most games.

Now if you decided to upgrade instead
$300 now
-$200 by selling it later
+400 by buying a 7800gtx later(prices are around $500 or $500 already)
same price for less heat, less power consumption, less heat, faster in most games.

Now some people will say get a DFI nforce4 ultra board and that is a GREAT OC'er board, but it is not friendly at all. It has a myraid of problems with other hardware and comes with little documentation. only go for it if yuo REALLY know what you are doing.

The Video card brands go like this
BFG/Leadtek/EVGA
MSI/ASUS
All others
PNY/XFX

edit: search XFx sucks in video forums and see how many results pop up. there is a thread in the archives where many people's 6800gts were missing transistors and caps right out of the box.
 
I would say swap that 3200+ WInny for Venice.. Newer and better less heat.
DOnt go for a crappy Maxtor HD, but Go Seagate or WD. ASUS A8N-E is a good motherboard with one pci-e slot and 5 normal pci slots.. available in europe where im over @.. dunno about the USA though.
 
Ok, based on the comments so far, I updated my wishlist:

Antec NeoPower 480 Power Supply
AMD Athlon 64 3200+ Venice Socket 939 90nm
2x512MB OCZ Premier Value PC-3200
ASUS A8N-E
Leadtek Winfast PX6800 (not sure which model yet)
Seagate SATA2.0 hard drive (not sure which model yet)

Some more questions, of course:

1. I have always used and had good experiences with Maxtor drives. I will do some more research on Seagate drives. I believe that the ASUS A8N-E supports SATA2.0.

2. The leadtek card is a bit more problematic, as there are a total of five different models (Ultra TDH 512MB, Ultra TDH, LE TDH, GT TDH and TDH). Which of these five models would you recommend as the best bang for the buck option?
 
Get the Seagate 7200.8 series. Nice performers.
Click to expand...
Is it worth going SATA, or is ultra IDE still a reasonable alternative...cost wise they are about the same, but I have never configured a SATA system.
 
if you use the sata ports from the nforce chipset then it shouldn't be any different. that PSU will be more than enought to power your system.
 
Originally posted by: Starbuck1975
Ok, based on the comments so far, I updated my wishlist:

Antec NeoPower 480 Power Supply
AMD Athlon 64 3200+ Venice Socket 939 90nm
2x512MB OCZ Premier Value PC-3200
ASUS A8N-E
Leadtek Winfast PX6800 (not sure which model yet)
Seagate SATA2.0 hard drive (not sure which model yet)

Some more questions, of course:

1. I have always used and had good experiences with Maxtor drives. I will do some more research on Seagate drives. I believe that the ASUS A8N-E supports SATA2.0.

2. The leadtek card is a bit more problematic, as there are a total of five different models (Ultra TDH 512MB, Ultra TDH, LE TDH, GT TDH and TDH). Which of these five models would you recommend as the best bang for the buck option?
Click to expand...

The Ultra Editions aren't really worth it at this point, while the LE and Regular are not exactly going to give you the performance. If you can find the GT for a good price, go with that
 
Originally posted by: Sentinel
venice at ewiz its only 120 shipped oem. Text

*i didnt see you edit, but here's the link :beer:
Click to expand...


Hmmmm???? "item does not exist"

If you were talking about the 3200+ Venice (which is what was mentioned by the OP) the cheapest you are gonna find that is like $170 or so, I know NewEgg has it for that price now.
 
The Ultra Editions aren't really worth it at this point, while the LE and Regular are not exactly going to give you the performance. If you can find the GT for a good price, go with that
Click to expand...

By GT I assume you mean the GT TDH model? If I identified the correct model on newegg.com, it is running for around $288.

http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16814122207

If you were talking about the 3200+ Venice (which is what was mentioned by the OP) the cheapest you are gonna find that is like $170 or so, I know NewEgg has it for that price now.
Click to expand...
Using pricewatch and other resources, the cheapest I have priced out all of the components at is around $781...not bad for an upgrade.

Leadtek PX6800TDH Geforce 6800 256MB DDR PCI Express x16 Video Card - $288
Antec NeoPower ATX 480W Power Supply - $99
AMD Athlon 64 3200+ Venice 1GHz FSB Socket 939 Processor - $190
OCZ Premier Value 1GB (2 x 512MB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM DDR 400 (PC 3200) - $93.95
Seagate Barracuda 7200.8 ST3200826AS 200GB 7200 RPM Serial ATA150 Hard Drive - $111
 
I hate to bump the thread, but I was hoping for some more inputs, particularly with regard to my questions about video card selection. Thanks.
 
Don't feel bad about bumping -- we're glad to help!

Here are my suggestions:

Processor: AMD Athlon 64 3200+ CPU (Venice)
Motherboard: One of the ASUS boards (I've used the A8N-SLI Deluxe and it is a fine board)
Memory: (512MB x 2) or (1GB x 2) Corsair ValueSelect PC3200 DDR RAM
Video Card: BFG GeForce 6800 GT OC PCI-e GPU or eVGA GeForce 6800 GT (you can find them for similar prices to XFX, just use a pricing engine; they are better quality and have better support than XFX, IMO)
Hard Drive: Maxtor DiamondMax 10 SATA HDD (w/ 16MB Cache) or Seagate Barracuda SATA HDD or Western Digital SATAII HDD (size is completely dependent on your needs)
Antec SmartPower 2.0 400/450/500W PSU (it's 24-pin, has a PCI-e connector, and has dual 12V rails; any of those wattages will suffice)

Those are just my suggestions, feel free to pick and choose what you'd like to use and what you wouldn't.

The 3000+ is practically as good as the 3200+ (AMD clock speeds matter very little as compared with Intel, but some people consider the 3200+ to be the "best buy" from the AMD64 line of processors, so it's really up to you)

ASUS is really good with any RAM, really, so go for Corsair ValueSelect, as it is the cheapest and most reliable and popular ValueRAM.

BFG, and to a lesser extent eVGA, offer better performance than XFX, IMO. Additionally, all of the vendors' products can be had for about the same price (within a few dollars) if you are prepared to do a little shooping around (try Pricegrabber, Pricewatch, Froogle, Techbargains, etc.). Great deals are to be had, they just need to be sought after...

For hard drives, any of the big three offer great SATA hard drives. I would highly suggest you get a hard drive with NCQ. I know for sure that Maxtor's DiamondMax 10 series offers a 16MB cache, NCQ, and the 250GB models offer SATAII. Seagate has their unrivaled warranty, NCQ, and SATAII. Western Digital I am not so sure about, but they do have mondels that have both NCQ and SATAII. All drives can be found for about the same price/capacity ratio as well, so it's really up to you which brand you prefer and what features each company offers. Prior experience with a company will probably determine your choice here.

I've said this a number of times on other occasions and I'm not sure how valid it is: "AMD recommends a power supply with a two-fan solution for your computer." I'm pretty sure I read that in two of the two AMD64 nF4 motherboard manuals that I've had as of yet (my old ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe and my current DFI LANParty UT nF4 Ultra-D), but people don't seem to heed their recommendation at all, so I'm gonna leave it up to you whether or not two fans is something you're interested in. Overall for PSUs, my recommendation goes to Antec for their reliablity. I've heard good things about Seasonic, OCZ, and Fortron among others, and I've experienced good things with Enermax (which is supposed to be on par with Antec for quality at a lower cost). Again, use your discretion when choosing and prior experience will probably determine your choice here.

Good luck!

 
BFG Lifetime warranty = good buy the best vid card you can afford, don't plan SLI unless your about to buy another one in a month or so (next pay check). You may still SLI later but because of a good deal or what not but it sucks to go pick up that second card and find out you have spent more on tthe 2 and it isn't as good as the new 1. I got a SLi board expecting to get 2 6800GTs and SLI them instead I decided that for $200 less I could get one 7800GTX and have better performance then those 2 together. I will still get another 7800GTX maybe a year from now to partner with it but only because it is a nice compliment to my original expensive purchase. Basically don't go cheap becuase it will cost more in the long run.

Mobo Asus is a great choice even if you don't SLI they are feature rich and they just release the best of them all in terms of the A8N-SLI Premium.

RAM depends on intentions but amount i would recommend is at least 2GB

CPU if you Overclock the 3000+ or 3200+ Winny or Venice are great choises. If you don't overclock stepping up to a 3500+ or 3800+ would probably be a better choice.

Use a SATA drive thinner cable pwn all.

pick a PSU on the higher end like 450-500W.

and for a Case I suggest looking at the P160 and P180 from Antec.
 
Thanks Bolt...as always, many parts are interchangeable, and everyone has their own preference when it comes to companies, depending on their prior experiences. I am partial to Abit, Crucial for memory, Maxtor, Antec for power supplies, and ATI only because these are the manufacturers whose parts I have used in the past. I need to do a bit more research and pricing on video cards, but otherwise, I think the core system is already in place.

As quite a few people have recommended Corsair ValueSelect, I will probably go that route. Of course, as I am now under budget, I can afford pricier RAM, but so many people have told me that budget RAM is just as good, I don't see a reason to go with the more expensive flavors.

RAM depends on intentions but amount i would recommend is at least 2GB
Click to expand...
WOW...I have never heard anyone recommend going over 1GB as RAM...would be interested in hearing your reasoning for this recommendation.
 
Mobo Asus is a great choice even if you don't SLI they are feature rich and they just release the best of them all in terms of the A8N-SLI Premium.
Click to expand...
As far as I can tell in doing a capabilities comparison, the A8N-SLI Premium and the new A8N-E are identical feature wise with the exception of SLI.
 
Updated component list based on previous recommendations:

BFG Tech Geforce 6800GT 256MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16 Video Card - $356
Antec NeoPower ATX 480W Power Supply - $99
AMD Athlon 64 3800+ Venice 1GHz FSB Socket 939 Processor - $366
OCZ Premier Value 1GB (2 x 512MB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM DDR 400 (PC 3200) Unbuffered Dual Channel Kit - $93.95
Seagate Barracuda 7200.8 ST3200826AS 200GB 7200 RPM Serial ATA150 - $111

Total Cost: $1025.95

Somehow I always manage to cross that $1000 threshold on upgrades :Q


 
semms good, but for such a HUGe difference for minimal gain, i would go with leadtek. Their Quality is top notch justlike BFG but you arent paying $60-70 more fro a warranty. That's insaine since Leadtek offers a very good 3 year anyway.(that and you, if youre like everyone else in the froum are likely try to oc and play around anyway which will void the waranty). Besides, the Leadtek cooler, while slightly louder at idle, stays at a constant speed so it dosent get nerly as loud as the reference cooler used by BFG under load. The leadtek cooler cools better, allowing higher ocs and better temps.

as fro the $360 dollar processor, you could easily oc the 3200 to 3800 speeds. it's not a big oc and the Asus board(which is a decent-above average ocer) would be able to handle it esaily. Just remember memory divider, pci and pci-e lock, and to lower your htt to equal or around 1000mhz and you'll be fine. Besides, it's fun to try something new.
 
as fro the $360 dollar processor, you could easily oc the 3200 to 3800 speeds. it's not a big oc and the Asus board(which is a decent-above average ocer) would be able to handle it esaily. Just remember memory divider, pci and pci-e lock, and to lower your htt to equal or around 1000mhz and you'll be fine. Besides, it's fun to try something new.
Click to expand...
I have never attempted an overclock, and would hate to screw something up given the cost of components these days.

I have heard many use some of the overclocking terminology such as memory dividers, pci-e lock, etc. I am not sure what you mean but lowering my htt to 1000mhz.

Building computers is something I decided to try on a whim a few years ago, and just stuck with the hobby...all of my systems have been quite vanilla, but also very stable, so not sure if I have the knowledge base or experience to delve into the OCing world.

I dont expect you to type up a overclocking newbie manual, but are there any good websites out there for walking people through the process? I know there is a wealth of information in the forums, but it tends not to be consolidated, and most posters assume that you have a working knowledge of how to OC...looking for more of a starting reference point to educate myself better.
 
Your system of:

Antec NeoPower 480 Power Supply
AMD Athlon 64 3200+ Winchester Socket 939 90nm
2x512MB OCZ Premier Value PC-3200
Maxtor Ultra Series Kit 120GB IDE Ultra ATA133 Hard Drive
XFX PVT45GUDF3 Geforce 6800GT 256MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16 Video Card
ASUS A8N family of motherboards (not sure which one yet)

Looks good, I am building a similar system and here is the route I am going.....


Enermax Noisetaker 420w ATX 24 pin dual rail powersupply (free)
AMD Athlon 64 3000 Venice (146.00)
2 gigs (4 x 512) Crucial Value memory CT6464Z40B (free)
Western Digital Caviar SE 80gb SATA Hard drive (however should have gone for Hitachi 80gb SATA II) (free)
evga 6800gt PCI-E 256 (free)
Epox EP-9NPA+ ULtra (107.99, gold editors choice from Anandtech)
Kingwin Aluminum Case (96.00)


Personally from what I have read I would say go with more memory if you are going to be playing battlefield2 (just a guess on my part that you are)

Also a friend has the Neopower and says he doesn't like the modular cabling much...but I guess it depends on how good you are with cable management.

good luck
 
Originally posted by: Starbuck1975
as fro the $360 dollar processor, you could easily oc the 3200 to 3800 speeds. it's not a big oc and the Asus board(which is a decent-above average ocer) would be able to handle it esaily. Just remember memory divider, pci and pci-e lock, and to lower your htt to equal or around 1000mhz and you'll be fine. Besides, it's fun to try something new.
Click to expand...
I have never attempted an overclock, and would hate to screw something up given the cost of components these days.

I have heard many use some of the overclocking terminology such as memory dividers, pci-e lock, etc. I am not sure what you mean but lowering my htt to 1000mhz.

Building computers is something I decided to try on a whim a few years ago, and just stuck with the hobby...all of my systems have been quite vanilla, but also very stable, so not sure if I have the knowledge base or experience to delve into the OCing world.

I dont expect you to type up a overclocking newbie manual, but are there any good websites out there for walking people through the process? I know there is a wealth of information in the forums, but it tends not to be consolidated, and most posters assume that you have a working knowledge of how to OC...looking for more of a starting reference point to educate myself better.
Click to expand...


there are many oc guides in the cpu forums. this one si stickied and a very good start.
http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview...atid=28&threadid=1497607&enterthread=y

btw, i still highly suggest not to pay $60 more for a BFG card since the leadtek is essentially the same thing and a 3 year warranty is all you need since you upgrade every 3 years anyway.
 
btw, i still highly suggest not to pay $60 more for a BFG card since the leadtek is essentially the same thing and a 3 year warranty is all you need since you upgrade every 3 years anyway.
Click to expand...

If I do go Leadtek, which of their 6800 series would you recommend...they appear to have several tiers of cards, with quite a variance in price range.
 
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