Help on new computer options

[sbjlsmtj]

Hi, I'm new here and I'm a novice computer guy, yea I can do minimal things to it but that's it lol. I'm looking to buy a new computer and I need help on what to pick. I have bought my last 3 computers from http://www.ibuypower.com. On side by side comparisons, they are a bit cheaper than monarch.

First I always use AMD. I am looking at going up in computer power from my 64. Here's the things I was going to get and my questions with each:

1 coolemaster ammo 533 case
2 evermax ed565p 535 watt power supply
3 amd athlon64 x2 (here's one of my major questions, how high a processor speed do I need to go? Will I tell a difference in my games from a 3800 to 4800? somewhere in the middle? bigger the speed, the bigger the money, I want as good as I can get without breaking my bank. The x2 3800 in the system is +174 where as the x2 4800 is +645 dollars)
4 liquid cpu cooling fan system kit
5 Motherboard (here's another major question, they have either gigabyte gak8n pro sli or asus [nforce 4 sli, deluxe, premium, or 18n32] and the prices go from 45 to 137 on the asus which I normally like)
6 2 gig corsair value ram (2-1 gigs)
7 WD RAptor WD 740gd 74 gb hard drive
8 seperate dvd and dvd dual layer drives and a floppy
9 onboard sound (not super important to me)
10 creative labs inspire 7800 7.1 speakers
11 rounded cables
12 xp home edition
13 2x nvidia geforce 7800gt 256mb with dvi and tv out

So that's what I was thinking of getting, you can see the system for yourself under gamer sli at ibuypower.com. The basic just is with all that figuring in the x2 4800 processors and the asus a8n32 sli deluxe mother board, it comes out to 1600.

If there is something I can save on (like processor speed) let me know, also is everything I have listed compatible? Is there anything I'm missing or should change?
Thanks for any suggestions and your time for reading!

[Apoptosis]

Welcome to the forums sbjlsmtj!

What a long first post! LOL

In terms of the processor you can save some money by overclocking or going to a lower cache if you didn't need the larger cache found on the 4400+ and the 4800+ processors. While I am a fan of Western Digital drives i do feel that a large cache (8MB+) enterprise drive can perform as good if not better than the raptors and still come with a 5 year warranty.

Good call on the motherboard (I love the ASUS AN832 SLI Deluexe) and the 2GB of memory is great, but for this system why not get something with low latencies?

Just some food for thought... either way it's a killer system.

[sbjlsmtj]

Sorry for the long post. I wanted to get as much info as I could out there and honestly, I just typed in the things that looked good lol. I don't have the lingo or knowledge of you all, so I tried not to look like a dummy.

I wasn't really thinking of going lower than 4400 for that reason, but there is a few hundred bucks between 4400 and 4800 and I didn't know if it was worth it or not, I mean can I tell a big difference? Is it that much better?

Lower latencies? LOL, I don't know what that means. I've tried to read posts for the last 3 days to try and understand the things that are being said, but I only have a small grasp on the lingo lol. I hope to reach high school level lingo and understanding some day but right now, I'm still on the grade school level lol.

Thanks for responding and any tips, btw, this forum and articles are great!

PS forgot to clarrify something about the hard drive. I have an option of a serial ata II 3 gb 7200 rpm 16m cache 300 gig hard drive, would that do as well as the raptor at 10k rpm? it's 24 bucks cheaper too than the raptor lol.

[Apoptosis]

I'd get something like the 4400+ and overclock it if you feel like it is something you would like to try. You could easily get a 5-10% overclock for free and stick that few hundred bucks in your pocket ot better yet invest in an IRA. ;)

In terms of a hard drive I might go with the 16MB cache 300GB drive for less money too... I hate hard drive noise and the Raptors tend to be noisy and hot and offer marginal performance gains over the other drives.

To make the memory lesson short the lower the timings (also known as latencies) the better the performance (mostly gaming frames per second) numbers. For DDR1 3-4-4-8 are the standard timings for value memory at PC-3200. Enthusiast memory offers timings of 2-2-2-5, which allow for better gaming performance and benchmark scores. Lower is better so get what you can afford. CL3 < CL2.5 < CL2

[FZ1]

While I am a fan of Western Digital drives i do feel that a large cache (8MB+) enterprise drive can perform as good if not better than the raptors and still come with a 5 year warranty.

I'd look for a 16MB cache as well but stay away from Maxtor if you get an NF4 board (although they claim the problem is fixed, you don't know if the drive you get will be one of them).
If you are going to get 7.1 speakers, you should at least get a SB Audigy card. Cheap used ones are everywhere since Xi-fi came out...on board audio is typically poor.

For a liquid cooling kit, check out the Danger Den Kits or the Swiftech kits. They are very nice, <$200, and easy to install although Corsair is coming out with a new one (see one of the threads in the cooling section I think).

[pcrobot]

and the 2GB of memory is great, but for this system why not get something with low latencies?

I'd recommend Corsair XMS. Now that stuff performs!

[sbjlsmtj]

1 coolemaster ammo 533 case (I figure this case is as good as any other)
2 evermax ed565p 535 watt power supply (good power supply?)
3 amd athlon64 x2 4400 processors (figured that I want the 2mb but for the difference in cost to speed of 4800, don't seem worth it)
4 liquid cpu cooling fan system kit (going with the 80 coolemaster liquid cooling, is that good? )
5 Motherboard Asus a8n32 (seems like the best for the future also)
6 2 gig corsair xms ram (2-1 gigs) (xms has heatspreaders and is better)
7 WD 300 gig hard drive with 16 mb cache 7200 rpm
8 seperate dvd and dvd dual layer drives and a floppy
9 onboard sound (not super important to me)
10 creative labs inspire 7800 7.1 speakers
11 rounded cables
12 xp home edition
13 2x nvidia geforce 7800gt 256mb with dvi and tv out ( NOW here's the really big question, after reading everything, would I be better off going with one card instead of 2? From reading, it seems like one gtx will out do most or at least as good as the dual card system for half the cost. Is that correct? I have a 21" monitor and I mostly game and it's not fear, WoW mostly but some DAoC, so is it worth getting 2 cards or one?

Thanks for any help on the questions I have left. Really want to get the system coming after I make you all make my final decisions for me. I guess I do have one final question, would it be cheaper to have someone from this forum build it for me instead of ibuypower? apples to apples that is, is it cheaper or the same? Thanks

[bigblockmatt]

If you are going to get 7.1 speakers, you should at least get a SB Audigy card. Cheap used ones are everywhere since Xi-fi came out...on board audio is typically poor.

I agree. I started with onboard sound...with a decent sound system. it sucked. i very soon purchased a SB audigy to get the 5.1. If oyu are going to get 7.1 system, you really should look into getting a card that can handle that well enough. I had an ABIT IS7 that had major problems with onboard sound. I will never use it again (unless im using some POS desktop ones...)

[Heretic]

1 coolemaster ammo 533 case (I figure this case is as good as any other)
2 evermax ed565p 535 watt power supply (good power supply?)
3 amd athlon64 x2 4400 processors (figured that I want the 2mb but for the difference in cost to speed of 4800, don't seem worth it)
4 liquid cpu cooling fan system kit (going with the 80 coolemaster liquid cooling, is that good? )
5 Motherboard Asus a8n32 (seems like the best for the future also)
6 2 gig corsair xms ram (2-1 gigs) (xms has heatspreaders and is better)
7 WD 300 gig hard drive with 16 mb cache 7200 rpm
8 seperate dvd and dvd dual layer drives and a floppy
9 onboard sound (not super important to me)
10 creative labs inspire 7800 7.1 speakers
11 rounded cables
12 xp home edition
13 2x nvidia geforce 7800gt 256mb with dvi and tv out ( NOW here's the really big question, after reading everything, would I be better off going with one card instead of 2? From reading, it seems like one gtx will out do most or at least as good as the dual card system for half the cost. Is that correct? I have a 21" monitor and I mostly game and it's not fear, WoW mostly but some DAoC, so is it worth getting 2 cards or one?

Thanks for any help on the questions I have left. Really want to get the system coming after I make you all make my final decisions for me. I guess I do have one final question, would it be cheaper to have someone from this forum build it for me instead of ibuypower? apples to apples that is, is it cheaper or the same? Thanks

1)Yea, it's a good case...since you're going water cooling (and if you don't mind big cases) I'd definitely go with a Stacker over the armor
2)Enermax or Evermax? I've never heard of evermax, so I'd have to do more research on that to judge on the PSU
3)If you're not going to go through ibuypower, get a 939 opteron instead
4)Generally speaking, WC "kits" are less powerful than the best air cooling systems. That said, you might look into one of Swiftech's Apex kits over that CM kit. You might want to pick the components yourself, but I don't know how much cash you have to burn
5)Good motherboard. Other options are the DFI SLI-D/DR or the soon to be released RD580 boards from Asus or DFI
6)Corsair is decent...I honestly prefer other ram manufacturers simply because I don't want to pay for "bling", I want to pay for performance (the best right now is between Mushkin and Crucial)
7)Unless you care a lot about load times, the 16mb cache won't help you too much, but it's still a good hdd
13)Get a single 7800gt/gtx, an x1900xt or wait for g71's numbers to come out and then make your decision. I don't think WoW or DAoC are that graphically intensive (compared to the likes of FEAR anyway ) and you should be happy with one card for a while.

Almost certainly it would be less expensive to build it yourself...getting someone else to build it is another story altogether, but it might be cheaper there. The best part about getting an individual (or a really custom pc company) is that you have the flexibility to pick your components.