Thinking of building a computer - review potential components

[Rankenphile]

So I'm going to be building a new rig in about a month. I'm doing some preliminary windowshopping on NewEgg (http://newegg.com) and have put together the following computer.

Keep in mind, I'm nopt on a huge budget, I want to keep the total build under $1500, ideally as close to $1000 as possible for the initial build. I will be upgrading in parts down the road - second vid card, additional stick of ram, sound card, etc.

With that in mind, please give me your thoughts on the following components:

COOLER MASTER Centurion 5 CAC-T05-UW Black Computer Case (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16811119068)

ASUS A8N-SLI Premium ATX AMD Motherboard (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16813131540)

AMD Athlon 64 3700+ 1GHz FSB Socket 939 Processor (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16819103539)

GIGABYTE Geforce 6800GS GV-NX68G256D-B Video Card (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16814125218)

ASPIRE ATX-AS520W BLACK 520W Power Supply (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16817148008)

Western Digital Caviar SE 200GB 3.5" IDE Ultra ATA100 Hard Drive (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16822144129)

CORSAIR XMS 1GB 184-Pin DDR SDRAM (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16820145488)

Rosewill R912E Black 19" 8ms LCD Monitor (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16824021019)

Microsoft Windows XP Pro (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16837102062)

Your thoughts? Again, I'm on a budget and can't afford to go all out, but want to be able to game on this rig for at least a year or two, and it seems to me I've left enough room for upgrades and such down the road that it should make up for it. I just want a new rig to be able to play ELder Scrolls: Oblivion and the occasional BF2 game, among other greats coming out soon.

[public_eyesore]

if i was you, i'd try and spring the extra cash for a 3800x2 proc and a 7800gt, otherwise everything looks great.

[Rankenphile]

You know, for the extra $250 that would const, I'm not convinced I would see the jump in performance to justify it. I know the 7800 is a hulk, and I'm still thinking about doing it, but geez, that's a lot of extra dough to toss down for a video card. I'm leaving the SLI slot there so I can always get a second 6800GS to match, which should really help the performance, about 6 months or so down the road, once they become much cheaper and the cost/performance ratio becomes a bit more realistic.

I jsut don't want to spend too much on this rig - I'm just now getting out of debt from my surgery bills, my bills from Christmas and a recent HUGE shopping trip for cabinetry, so I don't want to dig myself too big a hole right off the bat.


Also - what are the differences between the letter sets that follow the numbers in the 6800/7800 series video cards (GS, GT, etc etc)?

[OvRiDe]

On the hdd selection.. I would consider this one (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822144416).
Same capacity and its 3.0GB/s SATA II. Since the mobo you picked supports it, and its only $3 more. There is a 250GB version of the same drive for $103. Also I believe the letters on the end of the 6800 boil down to clock speeds of the GPU, but Im not 100% on that.

I also agree with public_eyesore on the X2, I hear the latest Q4 patch enables multi processing support, but it does add $100 to the processor allotment..

[Rankenphile]

Cool, thx. That HDD is awesome, that will work well.

What do you guys know about WinXP 64? Is there a noticeable performance improvement? I've heard horror stories about driver issues and such, but haven't found any really good reviews or articles explaining the differences.

Is it worth getting now, or should I just wait for Vista to roll out and stabilize?

[Malignus Wingnut]

Ehh, you've got a while until the 64 bit era REALLY starts. Go ahead and stick with XP for now, as it will still be supported for a while.

As for the whole video card debate, it's something I went through when building my new computer. I finally opted for a 7800GT and I have to say there really is no comparison. The performace of it completely justifies, to me, it's cost. Look into eVGA's line of 7800Gts, mine was 295 dollars, and they have promos for free stuff all the time.

the 6800GS will handle the games you listed just fine, however if an investment for the future is what you want, go for the 7800. You can also wait until the 7900ultra is released, at which time the 7800 line price should drop by a good 50 dollars...along with every other line below it.

Also, under the processor debate, dual core processors are currently only the choice for people who plan to do audio/video editing. In gaming the single core processors blow them out of the water.

[hxcguitarist]

by spending about $6-$10 more on the ram you could have a much better cas latency and timing, i.e. this cruicial ram HERE (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820148007)

Edit: i forgot to mention that it is also in dual channel, which aslo increases performance to a certain extent

[Rankenphile]

by spending about $6-$10 more on the ram you could have a much better cas latency and timing, i.e. this cruicial ram HERE (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820148007)

Edit: i forgot to mention that it is also in dual channel, which aslo increases performance to a certain extent

Good to know. Thanks. :D

[hxcguitarist]

np! just want to help out! :D

[public_eyesore]

Also - what are the differences between the letter sets that follow the numbers in the 6800/7800 series video cards (GS, GT, etc etc)?

ultra
gs- pci-e version overclocked will beat the ultra, but these are all stock
gt
nu
le
xt

its only 100 bucks more for the 7800gt than the 6800gs, and its as powerful as 6800gs in sli.

[OvRiDe]

If your thinking about gaming while your doing other things (ie. ripping dvds, transcoding video, or whatever..) then the X2 is the way to go. If you just want to do one thing at a time, then you would probably be better to apply the $100 difference in CPU towards a 7800GT. Although it was said that the single core will blow away the X2, I would think thats a bit overstated since (I believe) they use the same cores as the FX-57. I have seen that the single core does inch out the X2 in many cases, but I do believe that with the release of the Quake 4 patch that increases dual cpu support, the XBOX 360 with multi processors, and the eagerly awaited PS3 with multiprocessors, the PC game industry is going to start working with multi processor support, if not only to stay competitive with the console market.

(DISCLAIMER: The above statement is entirely my opinion and was not meant to be a personal attack, it may or may not be the opinion of any one associated, reading, or packet sniffing this website.)

[Rankenphile]

(DISCLAIMER: The above statement is entirely my opinion and was not meant to be a personal attack, it may or may not be the opinion of any one associated, reading, or packet sniffing this website.)

ROFL!!!

Thanks for the input. I'm considering just biting the bullet and springing for both the X2 and the 7800, but I'm still unsure.

Thanks again for all your input, guys. This has been a huge help.

[crazybillybob]

This has been a great thread to read through. It's all the questions everyone has been asking me the last few months. I'm really out of the preformance specs. I've been looking at Mobo's and Procs going how much Run time will this give me on a 7.5AH batt? how much space / heat is it going to put off, and not how many FPS can I get @ 200047x2004064DPI?

It's nice to flip the page and get a real users feel for hardware.

Thanks guys! for giving me a good read. Keep it up!

[public_eyesore]

dual core is the way of the future. Once the game producers make good patches the single cores will be toast. Already if youve seen the 3dmark 2006 scores, dual core is at the top of the list (a slightly overclocked 3800 will beat the 4000 and fx-57).

[Rankenphile]

eyesore, that's an excellent point, but it makes me wonder if now is the best time to get onboard for this tech. Once the processor spec becomes more standardized and more software comes out to take advantage of it, it will inevitably drive the prices down, as manufacturers pump out more and more of the product and compete over the new marketshare. Since it is such a new technology for the consumer end, the prices still demand a premium, which means that it doesn't offer the best performance/cost ratio, know what I mean? It is still in the domain of the "hardcore", who really wants to stay ahead of the curve and get bleeding-edge performance.

I'm still not sure which camp I'm in. I do agree that the dual core is the wave of the future, and the future will be coming soon as game developers start pumping out more and more tech that utilizes the feature for home consoles, which will inevitably bleed into the PC gaming realm as well - especially with the advent of the XNA SDK that Microsoft has implemented for cross-platform game development.

If you're not familiar with XNA, it is basically the predecessor of the DirectX developer platform that games for the PC utilize. The XNA platform is basically a standardized language set that allows games to be developed for the Xbox 360 and the windows PC at the same time, for the most part, which should increase the numbers of cross-platform games you will see, similar to how you can play FFXI on your PS2 or your PC on the same server.

Again, I'm just not sure that the time is quite right for me to get into the dual-core processor market, especially since the performance differences are not as staggering as the price jump would necessitate.

At least, not for my wallet. :D

[OvRiDe]

Well put Rank.. I think you have put into words what has been going through alot of peoples heads. I have been milling this around for quite a while, debating single vs dual for my purposes. I am leaning towards the X2 mainly because it suits my computing style. I find myself not gaming as much because I have some sort app running that will degrade my gaming performance, and I end up waiting till it gets done. So for those that are not needing that, why spend the extra money. Nice thing about the whole situation is most modern socket 939 motherboards support both, if the time comes you find yourself in need of dual cores, its just a matter of a single upgrade. So really its pretty hard to go wrong in either case.. :)

[DangerRanger]

Great thread Rank,im doing the same thing as you.Window shopping at the egg.Got a list saved and check it everyday for 3 days now.Made about 4 changes ie;mobo,went to dual core supported 4 gb max,changed vid card,dvd burner,etc.But got some good tips here.I submit my order in 1-2 weeks.I should have all my dough ready to pay off credit card when it hits..lol,only way wife would let me order.Thanx peeps.

[Guttenaffe]

I just built a system for ~$1880 (1st and prob last time I ever make a "high end" PC)
I'm more like you guys with judging by price per proformance.
Specs:

A8N32-SLI Deluxe ($224.99)
AMD Alth64 4400+(Toledo) Duel Core ($497.00 damn thing went down to $460.00 week after I bought it)
2xeVGA 7800GTX w/ACS3 ($718.78 yes I got them for 359.39 each :D )
Corsair TWINX2048-3500LLPRO 2GB kit ($285.00)
ENERMAX Liberty ELT620AWT ($154.99)
(useing my two Raptor 34G from my current system)
Total: $1,880.76 shipped
Current retail Price: $2,192.73 shipped
I didn't do to bad IMO getting deals for such a high-end PC :D

[OvRiDe]

^
|__BLAM!!... That should GitRDone!! Would love to see some benchmarks.. Thats gotta just be sweet..

[Rankenphile]

I referred a friend of mine to this thread, as he's getting back some cash from a settlement from a car accident he was in and was thinking of building a new rig. One thing he mentioned is that the 7800s are so long (almost 12"? is that right?) that they can restrict access to other PCI slots on certain motherboards, making adding sound cards and other components difficult or impossible.

Anyone know anything about this?

[public_eyesore]

never heard of that, i dont think thats true

[onelegout]

Ive never heard of it either, but I wouldnt be surprised if it were true! My gigabyte 6600GT is fanless and it's two huge heatpipes stick out so far that I cannot close my case due to two case fans!

[Guttenaffe]

well the 7800GTX'es I have (eVGA 256-P2-N527) are 9" long from IO slot to SLI connector (without SLI power connecter pluged in) <4" tall above the PCI-ex slot, and <1" wide from back to front.