New PC, need advice

Because TES4: Oblivion is on the horizon and MTW2 supposedly coming out somewhere late this year or early next year I am putting together a new PC (couple of things I will salvage from my old PC), however I would like to know if anyone has any recommendations for alterations in my current setup:

Case: Sweex Neptune Prescott 400 watt 2x USB 2.0. sound
Cooler: Zalman CNPS7700-Cu CPU Cooler (put on top the processor right?)
DVD: ASUS 16x DVD Player retail Black
DVDRW: NEC 4550 dvdwriter black bulk
HDD: Maxtor 250GB PATA 7200RPM 16MB Diamond Max 10
Memory: Kingston ValueRam 1Gb PC4200 533Mhz CL4 (KVR533D2N4/1G) DDR2
Motherbord: Asus A8N-Sli SE or Asus A8N-SLI Nforce4 Ultra Skt 939 or Asus A8N-SLI DELUXE
Processor: Athlon 64 3500+ Skt 939 2000 F 512kb Venice tray or Athlon 64 3500+ Skt 939 2000 FSB Boxed 512kb Venice
Graphicscard: ASUS EN6800GT/2DT/ 256mb GF FX 6800.DVI. PCI-e
Audiocard: Creative SB Audigy 4 Bulk

Together this setup costs about €940-980,-.

I don't need an expensive, high-end machine, but sufficient enough for about two years (can always upgrade certain things later on).

The main things I am unsure about are the processor, motherbord and audiocard.

- Processor: Athlon 64 3500+ Skt 939 2000 F 512kb Venice tray or Athlon 64 3500+ Skt 939 2000 FSB Boxed 512kb Venice?
- Motherbord: Asus A8N-Sli SE or Asus A8N-SLI Nforce4 Ultra Skt 939 or Asus A8N-SLI DELUXE?
('m open for other processors and motherbords aswell ofcourse.)
- Is the audiocard a decent one or rubbish? Know of a better one, but not overly expensive? This one is btw €51,-.

- More memory isn't really neccesary, right?
- One more question; What's the difference between tray and boxed with the processors?

I'm open to any other suggestions on the rest of my setup aswell, as long as it isn't too expensive.

"Memory: Kingston ValueRam 1Gb PC4200 533Mhz CL4 (KVR533D2N4/1G) DDR2"

I'm not so good with the whole PC gobbledegook. You planning a gig of ram right?

Personally, I would have thought thats enough. But in the m2tw forum I got told I would need to upgrade my ram, currently I have one gig.

Your memory choice is unacceptable. AMD Socket 939 processors can't use DDR2, they use DDR1.

An audigy 4 is a fine card as far as gaming PCs goes. Drivers can sometimes be a pain, but that's creative labs for you. Most of the time the audigy drivers are OK though, it was the older Live drivers that were really unpleasant.

How much is that 6800GT setting you back?

For the cooler, are you more concerned about noise or temperature? The zalmans are nice and quiet, but you'll get better cooling from a thermalright XP-90 or SI-120, or the Thermaltake Big Typhoon, though the last one is a massive beast. I hear scythe makes some pretty good coolers too.

Never ever neglect the PSU. Personally I'm leery of any psu that comes with the case unless the manufacturer is reputable. Stick to good brands like Seasonic, Enermax, Fortron, Powerpc&cooling, Zalman.

Xaser, Aspire are terrible brands.

Thanks for the reactions!

Good to know DDR2 doesn't work with AMD's. It would be better if I'd put 2 gigs of DDR1's in then or is that a bit excessive? Perhaps 1,5 gig? I thought DDR2 was a faster and better memory type. Btw the DDR2 one is just as expensive, if not less, as the DDR1.

- Kingston 1GB DDR PC3200 CL3 ValueRAM (KVR400X64C3A/1G) €83,70
- Kingston 1GB DDR PC3200 CL3 (2x512) Dual Channel Kit ValueRAM €84,95
- Kingston 1GB DDR PC2700 CL2.5 ValueRAM (KVR333X64C25/1G) €89,90

Which is the best one? The last one has a faster CL, but is it really worth it? It's only a few bucks difference, so I'd like to know which one is "actually" better.


"How much is that 6800GT setting you back?"

In what context do you mean by this? Money-wise or performance-wise (unlikely)?
Anyways my current graphicscard is an ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB. I've seen charts that do show that the GF 6800 GT has a considerable increase in performance incomparance with the 9800 Pro. Maybe I'll take a look at the GF 7800's to see whether or not it's worth the higher price. I was a bit disappointed with the 9800 Pro, that's why I'm looking at Geforce again. However maybe the ASUS ATI EAX800XL 256Mb PCI-e which costs €275,50, whereas the GF 6800 GT costs €259,95, is the better pick. Not to keen on a misbuy again though.


Because my old PSU was to weak to feed my 9800 Pro properly, I bought an Antec Truepower 480 Watt. Going to take this one out and put the 400 Watt of the new sys in my old PC (My mom's getting my old PC - cycling ~;))


The zalman cooler is just fine then ~:)

DDR2 generally reaches higher clockspeeds, but has a much higher latency too. It's finally starting to get to the point where DDR2 is overtaking DDR1 with pure clockspeed, but it's taken a while. For an A64 though, it's a moot point, the memory controller is on the chip and only does DDR1.

Of the three memory options, you'd generally want to avoid the third - PC3200 is the speed A64 memory typically runs at, using PC2700 even at a lower latency isn't going to help performance.

Beyond that, well, depends on your intents. I've got 1 GB, and it does just fine in most games, but a few more recent games would like to have more. You should be aware though, that to use dual channel RAM you need 2 or 4 dimms. Ideally 2, as A64s running four dimms turn on 2T memory timing which has some performance impact. It's not huge, but if you can avoid it, all the better.

So, ideally if you're going to stick with 1 GB, decide so now and get 2 512 MB DIMMs, and if you're gonna go for 2 GB, get 2 1 GB dimms.


With that said though, you should probably just pick whatever PC3200 ram you can get at the best price in the configuration you want. The actual performance gain from more expensive memory is pretty much negligible.





I ask about the GT primarily because I thought they were phasing those out in favor of the 6800GS. Practically identical performance between the two. Can't comment more then that though, as I'm not up on how graphics card prices are in the UK.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Phatose

Ideally 2, as A64s running for dimms turn on 2T memory timing which has some performance impact. It's not huge, but if you can avoid it, all the better.

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Yeah, I discovered that the hard way. :wall:

Just to get this straight; I should either go for 2 dual channel dimms (e.g. Kingston 1GB DDR PC3200 CL3 (2x512) Dual Channel Kit ValueRAM) or 1 normal stick (Kingston 1GB DDR PC3200 CL3 ValueRAM)? What's better or worse about dual channel incomparance with the normal one? From the looks of it I can eventually gain more out of a normal one.

Someone else told me the GS was in between the standard 6800 and GT and was advised to go for the GT. I'll have to doublecheck that though!

Also saw a benchmark test where the 6600GT performed for the most part better then the 6800GT. I'll just have to crosscheck a bit more to get a good card I guess.

Thanks a lot for the help so far!

Get the dual channel kit since a single stick will not work on a 939.
The 6800gs is very similar to the GT, not much difference imo.
The 6600gt is definitely much slower than the 6800gt.

Bit confused here. So dual channel is nothing more then just 2 regular sticks? E.g. Kingston 1GB DDR PC3200 CL3 ValueRAM is called Dual Channel (Kingston 2GB DDR PC3200 CL3 (2x1GB) Dual Channel Kit ValueRAM) when there are two of them?

Anyways do you know whether or not the X800XL is worth more the cash (performance-wise) then the 6800 GT/GS?

Quote of one of my previous replies:

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Anyways my current graphicscard is an ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB. I've seen charts that do show that the GF 6800 GT has a considerable increase in performance incomparance with the 9800 Pro. Maybe I'll take a look at the GF 7800's to see whether or not it's worth the higher price. I was a bit disappointed with the 9800 Pro, that's why I'm looking at Geforce again. However maybe the ASUS ATI EAX800XL 256Mb PCI-e which costs €275,50, whereas the GF 6800 GT costs €259,95, is the better pick. Not to keen on a misbuy again though.

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by [DnC]

Anyways do you know whether or not the X800XL is worth more the cash (performance-wise) then the 6800 GT/GS?

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Et voila! :idea2:

http://legionhardware.com/document.php?id=505

Quote:

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Originally Posted by [DnC]

Bit confused here. So dual channel is nothing more then just 2 regular sticks? E.g. Kingston 1GB DDR PC3200 CL3 ValueRAM is called Dual Channel (Kingston 2GB DDR PC3200 CL3 (2x1GB) Dual Channel Kit ValueRAM) when there are two of them?

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Yes sortof. I've had no problems getting separate sticks from diff manufacturers to run dual channel but some people prefer matched pairs. Get 2 matched sticks at rated for DDR3200 cl2.5 or cl2 if possible.

Quote:

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Anyways do you know whether or not the X800XL is worth more the cash (performance-wise) then the 6800 GT/GS?

Quote of one of my previous replies:

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The x800xl is very similar to the gt/gs. The x800gto is also in the same price range I think.
http://www.tomshardware.com/2006/01/...wer_end_cards/

Post the link of the vid card you intend to get.

Personally I like the nForce4 MBs as they have soom pretty cool features...

Memory, 2 GB is good in my opinion... It always your high demand games to run while you leave you AV and spyware and whatever going. Plus if you ever try BF2 you will appreciate it...

CPU, I never get the boxed ones, no real reason just personal preference...

Additionally unless you really need all that HDD space I would personally go with the Western Digital Raptor 74GB 10,000 RPM Serial ATA150 HD (two of them if you have the spare cash)...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by orangat

Yes sortof. I've had no problems getting separate sticks from diff manufacturers to run dual channel but some people prefer matched pairs. Get 2 matched sticks at rated for DDR3200 cl2.5 or cl2 if possible.

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I've decided to get two 'Kingston 1GB DDR PC3200 CL3 ValueRAM' sticks.

Quote:

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The x800xl is very similar to the gt/gs. The x800gto is also in the same price range I think.
http://www.tomshardware.com/2006/01/...wer_end_cards/

Post the link of the vid card you intend to get.

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I'm going for the 'Asus EN6800 GT PCI-e 256MB', cool-prices.nl - dutch site though.

I'm most likely going to buy my new system from the person who assembled my current PC. He knows where to get things cheaper. He does this as a side job (?). Plus I know he's trustworthy (ex-colleague of my father). Not to keen on ordering things on the internet, unless I know the company (and it has a good rep).

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Bob the Insane

Personally I like the nForce4 MBs as they have soom pretty cool features...

Memory, 2 GB is good in my opinion... It always your high demand games to run while you leave you AV and spyware and whatever going. Plus if you ever try BF2 you will appreciate it...

CPU, I never get the boxed ones, no real reason just personal preference...

Additionally unless you really need all that HDD space I would personally go with the Western Digital Raptor 74GB 10,000 RPM Serial ATA150 HD (two of them if you have the spare cash)...

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After thinking it over a bit I decided to get a 'AMD Athlon 64 4000+ San Diego (S939. 2.4GHz. 1MB. Boxed)' (maybe it's going to be a tray version considering he assembles it himself and is quite experienced with it). This is also a nForce4 MB.

Those WD's just aren't worth the price if I can get far more for not all that much more. Plus I have good experiences with Maxtor's. However I've changed the PATA to a SATA II.

New setup (getting more and more closer to the end product):

Motherboard: AMD Athlon 64 4000+ San Diego (S939. 2.4GHz. 1MB. Boxed)
Memory: Kingston 1GB DDR PC3200 CL3 ValueRAM (KVR400X64C3A/1G) 2x
Processor: Asus A8N-SLI Premium S939
HDD: Maxtor 250GB SATA II 16mb Diamond Max 10 (6v250F0)
Graphicscard: ASUS EN6800GT/2DT/ 256mb GF FX 6800.DVI. PCI-e
Audiocard: Creative SB Audigy 4 Bulk
DVD RW: NEC 4550 dvdwriter black bulk
DVD Player: ASUS 16x DVD Player retail Black
Case: Sweex Neptune Prescott 400 watt 2x USB 2.0. sound
Cooler: Zalman CNPS7700-Cu CPU Cooler

I might still change the cooler (Zalman) to a CNPS9500 one and the audiocard might change aswell. At first I thought it was a 7.1, but apparently it's a 5.1. Anyone any experiences with both and can tell if there's much difference?

In the end I decided for a system that provides me with more longtivity (?).

The reason I asked for the link is to make sure that the 6800gt is a legit version with 16pipes and 256bit interface with ddr3. Asus (and others) do sell crippled versions with the same name with less pipes or cheaper ddr1 memory.

I would go for an dual core 3800+ instead which costs slightly less. If you prefer 4000 single core then get the newer san diego.

5.1/7.1 is unimportant. 7.1 is more of a gimmick.

Just got a reply from the guy and it looks like a good offer. However some things are unclear and the GT is a GS, which it shouldn't be. Anyways he also made a second offer with a different processor and MB. It's a 'Mainboard MSI K8N Diamond Plus' with a 'AMD Dual-Core Processor Athlon 64 x2 4200+' for not a bad price.

I'll ask him aswell if the graphicscard is a 16 pipe and 256bit one.

I have sent a message back and await another answer from him.

Im not familiar with how that case works but it says its meant for Prescott motherboards. It might still work fine for standard motherboards too though.

IMO it would be better to get a 3500+ and then a 7800gt graphics card as that card doesnt cost that much more than the 6800gt from the website you gave a link to. Overall it should be same cost for you.

Getting a dual core would be nice too and a 3800+ X2 is within same price range. And Opterons are the thing you really want for dual cores, but difficult to find though.

I got a Maxtor 200 GB in my now old pc and that was noisy and newer ones might be better. But Im happy with the Hitachi's I got.

The ram is ok but for a game like RTW and of course MTW2 you would like to have high memory bandwidth as that seems to be the real bottleneck, if you want to play more than 10k men on the battlefield and still have good fps. That can be done by getting some higher quality ram and do a bit of overclocking. But everything costs money that you might not want to waste on a PC and the Kingston ram will be fine.


CBR

Well I reasoned that upgrading to a newer graphicscard later on would probably be cheaper then getting a new processor and/or MB.

The one whom I'm going to buy the new PC from offered two 1GB DDR400 memory modules (he looks at my requests and tries to find the same, something simular or even better for the same or better price). I do not however know which brand, which I have asked in the e-mail I send earlier.

EDIT: Just received an answer.

Anyone have any experience with PQI memory? http://www.pqimemory.com/ That's the memory brand.

Also is 16MB cache on a harddisk that much better then a 8MB?

Cache sizes on harddisks should only be compared to models within the same manufacturer. More cache doesn't automatically mean better across manufacturers. So if you were contemplating two Maxtor choices, get the one with the bigger cache.

Well the harddisk is a Hitachi and I'm fine with that now at the moment.

At the moment I'm only comtemplating whether to take a 3800+ dual-core proc or 4200+ dual-core and whether to take a 6800 GS or 7800 GT. Gonna check up on which would be the better pick.

And whether or not the memory is of good quality.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by [DnC]

Anyone have any experience with PQI memory? http://www.pqimemory.com/ That's the memory brand.

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Don't have any personal experience with PQI, but it's been sold for quite a while on Newegg, with generally favorable customer reviews. You can see here that most PQI memory in your size range gets a 4 to 5 egg rating: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...&ATTR8=&ATTR9=

I wouldn't hesitate to use it in my systems, especially if ultimate performance were not a major factor.

P.S. Go for the 7800GT over a 6800GT - the price difference is very minor if you shop carefully, but the performance delta is quite significant. The newer GPU also draws less power (while performing better), and so runs cooler in addition.

Thanks everyone for your help!

My final setup, which I've already ordered:

Motherbord: MSI K8N Diamond plus
Processor: AMD Athlon 64-x2 4200+ dual core with original cooler (can always get another one if this one isn't good enough).
Memory: 2x PQI 1024 MB DDR400
Videocard: MSI PCI-E NX7800 GT-VT2D256E
Harddisk: Hitachi S-ATA II 300 MBs 8 Mb 250GB
DVD Player + RW: Benq
Audio: Sound 7.1 onboard