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Yet another.. "look at my system config" post!

L

lumen

Senior member
I posted a while back about my new system build and am about to start buying parts (already bought the HDD) and was wondering if anyone had any thoughts about any of the parts. As this is my first go at building a system I don't think I can be too careful. This system will be used for gaming as well as general computing (surfing, listening to music) as well as a decent amount of photo editing and graphic design/web design.

Cheiftec Silver Aluminum Case w/Window
EPoX 8RDA+ (Nvidia Nforce2)
AMD Athlon XP 2100+ 1.73ghz (rev. B)
Crucial 512mb PC2700 DDR333 RAM
Maxtor Diamondmax Plus 120gig (8mb)
Gainward Ultra650tv GeF4 Ti4200 128mb
Mitsumi 3.5 Floppy Drive (Black)
Lite-On XJ-HD166S DVD/CD
Antec True 430w Power Supply
Vantec VA4-C7040 processor fan/sink

Klipsch 4.1 THX Speaker System
Viewsonic A90f+
Logitech Optical Mouse MX500
Logitech Elite Keyboard
 
I'd like to second that on the memory module with the current prices. Other than that it looks like a very nice system. How much does the Gainward Ti4200 cost compared to a Radeon 9700 card?

/Matt
 
Ti4200 are waylots cheaper than ATI 9700's.
Looks like a great setup... I'll go with the previos RAM comments as well. Have you considered PC3200?
Corsair 400MHz is widely available, compare the prices with what you'll have invested in RAM already.
 
Very good replies all, to address the questions:

I plan to upgrade with that second stick of RAM in the not-so distant future, I definatly want to capitalize on the dual module features of the nforce2 board. I'm mainly sticking to 512mb for now because of initial startup costs. I only have so much to invest immediatly and want a fully operational system, making no serious compromises. To me upgrading to the second stick later is a good compromise, because i'll have the whole schabang shortly and 512mb is more than enough to get me started I'd say.

I mainly chose the Crucial DDR 2700 RAM because of cost, the Crucial ram is insanely cheap right now and if I step up to Corsair the costs start adding up quickly, and from the sound of things Crucial is an excellent buy. I definatly considered Corsair DDR 400 XMS, but it's a good $100 more, the Crucial is running at $90 for 512mb of 2700 while the Corsair XMS 3200 512mb is $193! (at Newegg.com) and seeing as how I'm going to be buying another stick of it, you see my point I'm sure. Besides, once you start buying slightly better this or that, you can quickly drive the price up on your system.

About the video card, I heavily considered the Ati 9500 pro, but all things being equal I pretty much picked the GeForce at random for the most part, if anyone could give me one good solid reason to pick one over the other I'd be interested, hehe.

I'm still a little unsure about the Gainward card as well, seems to me any of the solid names make a good ti4200, Albatron, Gainward, Asus etc etc...
 
Everything looks good to go, but you may want to consider a better card as others have said. Personally I don't think you'll notice too much performance difference with the 9500pro unless you enable AF and AA, but that also puts the 9500pro at a performance level that may not be acceptable or worth it. The GF4's have come a long way in terms of 2D quality, but the 9500/9700 series still hold the edge in that area as well, albeit slight. Also, ATI cards have onboard mpeg decoders which enhance DVD/movie/video playback. Personally, I would find it difficult to go back to gaming w/out AA or AF enabled, but if its a feature you don't think you'd mind not having and if money is an issue, a GF4 is still an excellent choice (I had a Ti4200 Turbo before my current 9700pro).

I agree with going with a 512MB stick now, and picking a second one up later. Crucial should be just fine, Corsair XMS is a nice luxury, but certainly not a necessity on an Athlon system at the moment.

Chiz
 
The reason I suggested the Corsair 3200, is that googlegear had a great deal on those a bit ago.. I tried to check this morning, but had problems loading the page.... Maybe check if you want, but Crucial is definately a good buy, too 🙂
Now, for the video card, yes, pretty much any good name Geforce4 card will be fine. Against an ATI 9500, I still say go with the nVidia given your desire to game. the 3d from geForce is substantially better than ATI (short of the 9700Pro, that is). I understand the tradeoff is lower quality 2D- acceptable IMO.
 
Originally posted by: chizow
Also, ATI cards have onboard mpeg decoders which enhance DVD/movie/video playback.
Click to expand...
That I didn't know. How much of an issue would that be with a 2100+, though?

 
Chiz: I would definatly love to go with a Ti4600 or the 9700 pro, but it doesn't seem to be in the cards (no pun intended, hah) the price jump to the top cards is a bit rich for my blood. I could afford to go the extra amount to get a 9500 pro, but I can't seem to really find any real justification to go that way, aside from what you said of course... but then, others would contradict what you've said, so it's hard to really know the truth.
 
Originally posted by: godmare
Originally posted by: chizow
Also, ATI cards have onboard mpeg decoders which enhance DVD/movie/video playback.
Click to expand...
That I didn't know. How much of an issue would that be with a 2100+, though?
Click to expand...

The difference was pretty significant in my case. Obviously DVD playback on a PC is largely tied to the quality of the softDVD player you use (unless you use a dedicated DVD decoder card), but with hardware acceleration enabled in PowerDVD 4 on both the Ti4200 and the 9700pro, images looked sharper, colors more vibrant, and fast scenes had little to no ghosting with the 9700pro. Also, the 9700pro (not sure the 9500pro does, but my guess is it does b/c of the R300 core) supports video filtering through the 3D pipeline.

lumen I'm not really up on the pricing schemes on that range of cards anymore, but yah I think the Ti4200 is still a very good card. As for brands, I found the biggest factor in deciding which to go with is the rated RAM speed. That's really the only difference other than amount of memory that is significant. Since all GF4 cards use the same A3 revision core as the Ti4600, you should be able to hit core OC's w/out an issue; that leaves you with how far you can overclock your RAM to increase performance. The 8X versions may have upgraded the RAM they use, but I think at launch they weren't great OC'ers using 3.8ns RAM. The Turbo editions use the same 2.8ns BGA RAM found on the Ti4600. I owned a Turbo made by Albatron and was able to OC it to 310/650 and just left it there. It was $185 when I bought it in October, not sure how much Turbo versions are going for nowadays though, so it might be worth checking out.

Chiz
 
The radeon 9500 pro cards are bargains - they run as fast as GF4 Ti4600 cards, and you can pick one up for about $170 shipped if you look in the hot deals forum. I have one and I must say, I will never play my games without 2xaa/8xaf anymore - it seems almost lossless!
 
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