Hey guys, pretty new here, been lurking a bunch and reading up on things, but I do have a couple of questions.
I have built every PC I have ever had, all from the ground up. I like to tinker and upgrade myself but have in the last 2 years not really paid attention to the PC Hardware world.
About the only thing I’m really aware of are video cards going PCI-express.
So comes my question.
I have an old AMD Athlon 1900+ with 1 Gig of ram, Leadtek 6600GT (AGP) and about 200Gig of HD space (Western Digital drives ATA 133), so its time for an upgrade.
I have about a grand to drop and want to get the best bang for the buck.
I am a gamer, my wife has now gotten into games, but nowhere near what I am, so she is going to get my current system while I upgrade. I do not need a case, nor do I need a monitor. I am also partial to AMD and nVidia.
So what I would like to hear from you guys is your recommendations on the following:
Motherboard/CPU
Memory
Video (I’m thinking dual 6600GTs)
Hard Drive(s)
Power
Thanks in advance.
Upgrade
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gvblake22
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How about overclocking? Are you into the overclocking scene or like the comfort of knowing that your hardware is running at stable stock speeds and all of your warrenties are intact?
If not overclocking, I would recommend the following:
Mobo: Chaintech VNF4 Ultra
CPU: Athlon64 3200 Venice core. But if you have left over $$ after the other components, you should seriously look into the Dual Core offerings from AMD, particularly the X2 3800.
RAM: 1Gb (2x512mb) OCZ Platinum PC-3200 rev.2 or 2Gb of similar low latency PC-3200 (CAS 2)
Graphics: It is actually cheaper and faster/easier to get a single 7800GT rather than two 6600GT's. The 7800GT is arguably one of the best cards available and has the best price in its class!
Hard Drive(s): This could go many ways, depending on your storage needs, but I like having a single fast drive for OS, programs, games, etc. and another "average" large capacity drive for mass storage, backups, etc. I have a Western Digital 10,000rpm 74Gb Raptor and I really like it. I also have a 120Gb Seagate Barracuda 7200rpm drive for everything else. The Seagate is ultra quiet and of top quality (never had a single problem with it or any of the other Seagate drives I have owned). But you might want to look into something with a little larger capacity, like 180 or 200Gb storage.
Your other option for storage would be to get a single, large capacity drive that is fast. In this arena, you're gonna want to get a newer SATA II drive that is spec'd for 300mb/s and has NCQ (native command queing). For this, you should check out the Maxtor Diamondmax 10 16mb cache 7200rpm 300Gb drives, the similar drive from Hitachi (Deskstar T7K250), or the new 7200.9 drives from Seagate. It is hard to recommend a storage solution without knowing your needs/wants. So post back with what you plan to use them for and what kind of a setup you want, and we'll recommend quality drives to suit those needs
Power: I would make sure you don't get some crappy, off-brand PSU that comes with a case or something. A cheap-o powersupply can cause a lot of problems, none of which you will want to deal with, and you will probably end up having to buy a better one later on anyway! As for wattage, most quality powersupplies that are at least 430w and carry with them the ATX 2.0 standard should be able to power your system. I have a Fortron 500w Blue Storm and it is wonderful. The newer Seasonic 500w PSU's with active PFC are nice too. You should also look into the OCZ powerstream 520 and the Antec TPII and neo HE powersupplies. Getting something with at least a total of 30 amps on the combined +12v rails is a good measure of power ability and capacity for newer systems.
Again, this is just some of my recommendations. Others will have different recommendations and opinions about products. But if you can possibly give slightly more detailed information on what you want out of your specific components, we can refine our product recommendations for you
Oh yeah...
Welcome To The L.R. Forums!!!
If not overclocking, I would recommend the following:
Mobo: Chaintech VNF4 Ultra
CPU: Athlon64 3200 Venice core. But if you have left over $$ after the other components, you should seriously look into the Dual Core offerings from AMD, particularly the X2 3800.
RAM: 1Gb (2x512mb) OCZ Platinum PC-3200 rev.2 or 2Gb of similar low latency PC-3200 (CAS 2)
Graphics: It is actually cheaper and faster/easier to get a single 7800GT rather than two 6600GT's. The 7800GT is arguably one of the best cards available and has the best price in its class!
Hard Drive(s): This could go many ways, depending on your storage needs, but I like having a single fast drive for OS, programs, games, etc. and another "average" large capacity drive for mass storage, backups, etc. I have a Western Digital 10,000rpm 74Gb Raptor and I really like it. I also have a 120Gb Seagate Barracuda 7200rpm drive for everything else. The Seagate is ultra quiet and of top quality (never had a single problem with it or any of the other Seagate drives I have owned). But you might want to look into something with a little larger capacity, like 180 or 200Gb storage.
Your other option for storage would be to get a single, large capacity drive that is fast. In this arena, you're gonna want to get a newer SATA II drive that is spec'd for 300mb/s and has NCQ (native command queing). For this, you should check out the Maxtor Diamondmax 10 16mb cache 7200rpm 300Gb drives, the similar drive from Hitachi (Deskstar T7K250), or the new 7200.9 drives from Seagate. It is hard to recommend a storage solution without knowing your needs/wants. So post back with what you plan to use them for and what kind of a setup you want, and we'll recommend quality drives to suit those needs
Power: I would make sure you don't get some crappy, off-brand PSU that comes with a case or something. A cheap-o powersupply can cause a lot of problems, none of which you will want to deal with, and you will probably end up having to buy a better one later on anyway! As for wattage, most quality powersupplies that are at least 430w and carry with them the ATX 2.0 standard should be able to power your system. I have a Fortron 500w Blue Storm and it is wonderful. The newer Seasonic 500w PSU's with active PFC are nice too. You should also look into the OCZ powerstream 520 and the Antec TPII and neo HE powersupplies. Getting something with at least a total of 30 amps on the combined +12v rails is a good measure of power ability and capacity for newer systems.
Again, this is just some of my recommendations. Others will have different recommendations and opinions about products. But if you can possibly give slightly more detailed information on what you want out of your specific components, we can refine our product recommendations for you
Oh yeah...
Welcome To The L.R. Forums!!!
Last edited by gvblake22 on Thu Nov 03, 2005 1:59 pm, edited 1 time in total.
DFI Infinity SLI...........................................................$122
AMD 3700+ San Diego...............................................$202
2GB OCZ OCZ4002048ELDCPE-K...............................$219
XFX 7800 GT...............................................................$329
Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD2500KS 250GB.........$121
Antec TRUEPOWERII 550W Power Supply.....................$90
..................................................................................$1083
The Infinity SLI is a damn good board, the only difference is the chipset cooler and the bundle are not as good as the LANParty Series. Unless you are a high end overclocker, you won't see much of a difference.
The 3700+ is a 2.4 GHz chip with 1MB of cache, while not as nice as an X2 CPU, unless you are heavy into multi tasking it just doesn't pay off, the 3700+ will be fine for gaming. To save a little money you can go with the 3200+ or 3500+, but unless you want to O/C the 3700 will be the best and easiest to work with.
2GB of memory is rapidly becoming the standard, and games like F.E.A.R. and BF2 love it. The kit I recommended is only about $30 more than a hig end 1GB kit, and while it is not a serious overclocking kit, you can use the boards dividers to get the best performance out of the CPU and memory.
The 7800GT is the best bang for the buck, and comes with a pretty sweet package as far as games go. mine came with Far Cry and a few others, newer kits are also coming with a coupon for Day of Defeat.
The HDD is mostly a matter of choice, but the new Caviar drives are supposed to be smoking, and with SATA 3.0GB, 16MB cache, you are set up for awhile.
The PSU should also be pretty future proof. 550W will definitely be enough for what you currently have, and will also be fine if you choose to upgrade to a second 7800GT.
I'm sure others will chime in with some advice, and you will get a wide variety of opinions, just research what you are told, and come back to us before making a final decision.
AMD 3700+ San Diego...............................................$202
2GB OCZ OCZ4002048ELDCPE-K...............................$219
XFX 7800 GT...............................................................$329
Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD2500KS 250GB.........$121
Antec TRUEPOWERII 550W Power Supply.....................$90
..................................................................................$1083
The Infinity SLI is a damn good board, the only difference is the chipset cooler and the bundle are not as good as the LANParty Series. Unless you are a high end overclocker, you won't see much of a difference.
The 3700+ is a 2.4 GHz chip with 1MB of cache, while not as nice as an X2 CPU, unless you are heavy into multi tasking it just doesn't pay off, the 3700+ will be fine for gaming. To save a little money you can go with the 3200+ or 3500+, but unless you want to O/C the 3700 will be the best and easiest to work with.
2GB of memory is rapidly becoming the standard, and games like F.E.A.R. and BF2 love it. The kit I recommended is only about $30 more than a hig end 1GB kit, and while it is not a serious overclocking kit, you can use the boards dividers to get the best performance out of the CPU and memory.
The 7800GT is the best bang for the buck, and comes with a pretty sweet package as far as games go. mine came with Far Cry and a few others, newer kits are also coming with a coupon for Day of Defeat.
The HDD is mostly a matter of choice, but the new Caviar drives are supposed to be smoking, and with SATA 3.0GB, 16MB cache, you are set up for awhile.
The PSU should also be pretty future proof. 550W will definitely be enough for what you currently have, and will also be fine if you choose to upgrade to a second 7800GT.
I'm sure others will chime in with some advice, and you will get a wide variety of opinions, just research what you are told, and come back to us before making a final decision.
Storage is mainly games and the OS. I have external drives for archived stuff, so for them speed isn't a huge need.
A long time ago Maxtor (at least for me) had issues with their drives, have they grown past those issues? In the 8 years I have been building my own machines I have lost one WD drive, hence why I have stuck with them.
What is the difference between the AMD chips with the different names? (San Diego and Venice) I remember in my OC'ing days the Celerons had something similar, and only certain ones had the ability to be OC'ed.
As for Overclocking, Im not too worried about doing it, but its not something I have to do.
Video, I now remember reading about the 7800, I think it was here, so I think Ill go that route. Any suggestion on manufacturers for the 7800? I have used both Leadtek and BFG, though BFG seems to be a bit more expensive, the support I have recieved from them is outstanding. I havn't been able to get ahold of Leadtek, nor have I tried others.
Also forgot to put in my first post, recommendations on where to purchase online. In the past I used http://www.mwave.com but it looks as if their selection is not all up to par, so Im looking for some place new, that won't rape me in shipping.
A long time ago Maxtor (at least for me) had issues with their drives, have they grown past those issues? In the 8 years I have been building my own machines I have lost one WD drive, hence why I have stuck with them.
What is the difference between the AMD chips with the different names? (San Diego and Venice) I remember in my OC'ing days the Celerons had something similar, and only certain ones had the ability to be OC'ed.
As for Overclocking, Im not too worried about doing it, but its not something I have to do.
Video, I now remember reading about the 7800, I think it was here, so I think Ill go that route. Any suggestion on manufacturers for the 7800? I have used both Leadtek and BFG, though BFG seems to be a bit more expensive, the support I have recieved from them is outstanding. I havn't been able to get ahold of Leadtek, nor have I tried others.
Also forgot to put in my first post, recommendations on where to purchase online. In the past I used http://www.mwave.com but it looks as if their selection is not all up to par, so Im looking for some place new, that won't rape me in shipping.
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gvblake22
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The only difference between the Venice and San Diego cores is that the Venice has 512kb of L2 cache while the San Diego totes twice that at 1mb L2 cache. The extra cache will indeed help a little in gaming apps. And with the recent price cuts, they are very affordable. The 3700 San Diego is a very nice CPU, I didn't realize they were so cheap now! But they should both overclock pretty similarly.
I have never owned a Maxtor or Hitachi, so I can't give you any first hand experience, but I've heard good things about both. But I've also heard a few complaints as well. Overall I've probably heard fewer bad things about the Hitachi, but I think that's mainly because more people own the Maxtors. My Raptor had a wierd "hiccup" once but I think that is over with. And I have never ever had a single problem with any of the three Seagate drives I've owned. So take that for what it's worth.
If you want pure storage speed, the Raptor is prettymuch top of the line. It is available in 36Gb and 74Gb models, but they are pretty expensive
Otherwise getting one of the nice 200 or 250 gig SATAII HDD's would be a good way to go.
The video card manufacturers of nVidia's cards are all about equal/similar. It's really just gonna come down to the bundle and price. XFX has a "double life warrenty" which is always a nice plus. eVGA is solid, so is BFG, Gainward, and Leadtech. Those are the main players and any one of them should do you well. Check out the stock speeds each company sells their cards at too, some factory overclock them. This is not a bad thing, it's just often simetimes the reasons for the slightly higher prices. I now specifically BFG likes to do this with thier "OC" series cards, so keep an eye out for that. Also the stock cooling solutions can sometimes vary between the companies. If you see a cooling solution you like better, go for that one
Personally, I own an eVGA card (GeForce 6600GT) and I've been very pleased with it.
Finally, for online vendors, there are many. I've ordered my first computer stuff from mwave without issues. They usually have pretty decent prices on stuff. newegg is probably one of the most popular sites as they have a very wide selection, a very user friendly shopping website, and often offer free or discounted shipping. I've ordered lots of stuff from newegg too and all have been pleasant, good customer support too. I've also ordered from http://www.performance-pcs.com , http://www.svc.com , http://www.sidewindercomputers.com , and http://www.monarchcomputer.com and all have gone well. Monarch often has free shipping too, so check them out. http://www.excaliberpc.com/ also has good stuff, and http://www.zipzoomfly.com often times has free shipping as well. Just try to find all your stuff at the same place so you can save on shipping, unless you can get it with free shipping
If you find a website and are unsure about it, jsut check it on http://www.resellerratings.com and see if it has gotten good reviews. I say it's better to be safe than sorry when it comes to shady retailers. I'd rather pay the extra two dollars if I know I will get the product I ordered, get it on time, and be able to contact customer service if I have a problem.
If you have any other questions, just ask!
I have never owned a Maxtor or Hitachi, so I can't give you any first hand experience, but I've heard good things about both. But I've also heard a few complaints as well. Overall I've probably heard fewer bad things about the Hitachi, but I think that's mainly because more people own the Maxtors. My Raptor had a wierd "hiccup" once but I think that is over with. And I have never ever had a single problem with any of the three Seagate drives I've owned. So take that for what it's worth.
If you want pure storage speed, the Raptor is prettymuch top of the line. It is available in 36Gb and 74Gb models, but they are pretty expensive
Otherwise getting one of the nice 200 or 250 gig SATAII HDD's would be a good way to go.
The video card manufacturers of nVidia's cards are all about equal/similar. It's really just gonna come down to the bundle and price. XFX has a "double life warrenty" which is always a nice plus. eVGA is solid, so is BFG, Gainward, and Leadtech. Those are the main players and any one of them should do you well. Check out the stock speeds each company sells their cards at too, some factory overclock them. This is not a bad thing, it's just often simetimes the reasons for the slightly higher prices. I now specifically BFG likes to do this with thier "OC" series cards, so keep an eye out for that. Also the stock cooling solutions can sometimes vary between the companies. If you see a cooling solution you like better, go for that one
Personally, I own an eVGA card (GeForce 6600GT) and I've been very pleased with it.
Finally, for online vendors, there are many. I've ordered my first computer stuff from mwave without issues. They usually have pretty decent prices on stuff. newegg is probably one of the most popular sites as they have a very wide selection, a very user friendly shopping website, and often offer free or discounted shipping. I've ordered lots of stuff from newegg too and all have been pleasant, good customer support too. I've also ordered from http://www.performance-pcs.com , http://www.svc.com , http://www.sidewindercomputers.com , and http://www.monarchcomputer.com and all have gone well. Monarch often has free shipping too, so check them out. http://www.excaliberpc.com/ also has good stuff, and http://www.zipzoomfly.com often times has free shipping as well. Just try to find all your stuff at the same place so you can save on shipping, unless you can get it with free shipping
If you find a website and are unsure about it, jsut check it on http://www.resellerratings.com and see if it has gotten good reviews. I say it's better to be safe than sorry when it comes to shady retailers. I'd rather pay the extra two dollars if I know I will get the product I ordered, get it on time, and be able to contact customer service if I have a problem.
If you have any other questions, just ask!
Yep, I use resellerratings.com on everything I buy online, they have saved me a number of headaches. A friend of mine was buying online and decided to go with the cheapest prices on price watch, took him over 4 weeks to get his items from various "shady" places, when I had mine in a couple of days.
I think this is a really good start for me, once I get everything together, Ill post it here to see what you guys think.
Thanks again for all the input.
I think this is a really good start for me, once I get everything together, Ill post it here to see what you guys think.
Thanks again for all the input.
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Dragon_Cooler
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The one thing i reccomed as an upgrade for you, is at least a WD Raptor. I have 2, one being my main for os and my other for games, which makes an extremely fast computer. Sort of!
I can install windows from scratch in under 10min. Load times are incredible! I think it was the best investment i have ever made on my computer.
http://www.zipzoomfly.com carries cheap prices and free 2-day shipping on everything!
I can install windows from scratch in under 10min. Load times are incredible! I think it was the best investment i have ever made on my computer.
http://www.zipzoomfly.com carries cheap prices and free 2-day shipping on everything!
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killswitch83
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from what I can mostly tell, it appears the prices come from Newegg, at least the PSU is (I plan on getting the same one for now ). It appears the XFX 7800GT has dropped in price from where I last saw it as well. Of course, this site also has a shopping link on the front page, so it's entirely possible he got the prices from there. Good find on prices there cap-man 
). It appears the XFX 7800GT has dropped in price from where I last saw it as well. Of course, this site also has a shopping link on the front page, so it's entirely possible he got the prices from there. Good find on prices there cap-man 
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gvblake22
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Legit reviews uses the DealTime price search engine:
http://legitreviews.shopping.com/xPP-Gr ... id=3032920
http://legitreviews.shopping.com/xPP-Gr ... id=3032920
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killswitch83
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