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 Posted: Thu, 9th Mar 2006 02:58 Post subject: Considering a new PC |
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Spent the past hour online looking for PC parts, this is what I came up with. Please discuss/give opinions. This is primarily meant for Oblivion and for approximately the next 2-3 years as my primary gaming rig. I plan to get this as soon as my financial aid refund comes, so the price will have gone down about $1-2 hundred I hope.
CPU: $355
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+ Dual Core Processor
Motherboard: $66.88
ECS (Elitegroup Computers) NFORCE4-A939 1.0 Motherboard
Memory: $141.99
Corsair 2GB PC3200 DDR DIMM Memory Kit
Video: $464
Sapphire Radeon X1900 XT Video Card
HDD: $181
2 x Seagate Barracuda 7200.9 250GB Hard Drive
DVD-RW: $43.49
NEC ND-3550A Dual Layer DVD±RW Writer - Black
Power Supply: $63
COOLMAX 550W Taurus CX Series Silent Power Supply 1 x 120mm fan 3 Speed Fan Control Switch (Auto Low Medium) BLACK Model CX550B
LCD: $412
ViewSonic VX2025WM Black/Silver 20.1" LCD Monitor
Total: $1727.36
The case will be the same as the one from my existing rig (I figured dropping a hundred on the case that could go towards living expenses or better parts, when I already have a solid case, didn't make sense.)
Edit: being upgraded from the following:
P4 2.4GHz
512MB DDR
Radeon 9600 Pro/128
80GB ATA HDD
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Mutantius
VIP Member
Posts: 18594
Location: In Elektro looking for beans
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| Posted: Thu, 9th Mar 2006 05:57 Post subject: |
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Well you could wait for the new AMD sockets to arrive which will make the CPU really cheap and if you want to really be gaming just buy a 4000+ 64 bit it perfoms as good as the dual core and as far as I know alot cheaper.
http://www.tomshardware.com/2005/05/09/amd/page15.html
"Why don't you zip it, Zipfero?" - fraich3
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kosmiq
Posts: 2304
Location: Somewhere
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| Posted: Thu, 9th Mar 2006 09:51 Post subject: |
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The new socket is still a few months away and it will probably not be as cheap to begin with.
I would seriously consider keeping that Dual-Core as more and more games actually gets some benefits from Dual-Cores (FEAR, Oblivion etc.). Maybe you should consider getting Seasonic S12 600W PSU though, to make sure you really get enough power for all that...?
On top of that I have no idea how good or bad that motherboard is. Haven't ECS been releasing some weird m/b's in the past? Maybe you should consider Asus or similar?
Looks great otherwise, if you feel like you could give me the gfx... 
Behold his GLORY! Bow for the technical master!
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| Posted: Thu, 9th Mar 2006 11:31 Post subject: |
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ECS got some bad shit mobos,don't get asus get MSI or ABIT
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kosmiq
Posts: 2304
Location: Somewhere
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| Posted: Thu, 9th Mar 2006 11:59 Post subject: |
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ECS have made a few good motherboards too. One they had for SocketA was very good. Not much of an overclocker but stable and featured both SDram and DDR Ram capabilites.
Why not get asus? Asus makes great motherboards and their nForce 4 motherboards are wonderful. I have an A8N32-SLI Deluxe myself with the chopper heatpipe and I love it. No little fan spinning making any noises, 100% rock stable, overclocks wonderful, a lot of features on it and I have nothing to complain about. Not one single hiccup since I got it installed.
But I guess it is all about personal preference anyway, however I would not really even consider getting Abit today. The lack of features and lately the stability issues seem to make them a no go. They usually makes good m/b's but their nForce 4 series is not that much to have. And for overclocking I would get DFI instead anyway.
The MSI K8N Diamond has a very good layout and seem to be stable too, however I don't think there is much difference between that one and the A8N32-SLI Deluxe.
Behold his GLORY! Bow for the technical master!
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| Posted: Fri, 10th Mar 2006 00:07 Post subject: |
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go for the 4400+ because it has 1MB of L2 cahce (same as the 4800 and double what the 4600 and 4200 have)
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pancake
Posts: 1091
Location: England
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| Posted: Fri, 10th Mar 2006 09:00 Post subject: |
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or get a opteron 165 as they have 1 mb l2 cache per core and clock really well for not a bad price to.
Also dont skimp on the psu, buy a good name brand psu like tagan, which has nice steady volts.
You wouldnt buy a new ferrari and try running it on diesel as the fuel was a better deal, so dont run your expensive pc off shitty psu's.
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kosmiq
Posts: 2304
Location: Somewhere
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| Posted: Fri, 10th Mar 2006 21:41 Post subject: |
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| pancake wrote: | or get a opteron 165 as they have 1 mb l2 cache per core and clock really well for not a bad price to.
Also dont skimp on the psu, buy a good name brand psu like tagan, which has nice steady volts.
You wouldnt buy a new ferrari and try running it on diesel as the fuel was a better deal, so dont run your expensive pc off shitty psu's. |
Opteron really is a good advice, good prices and the stabiliity tests on them are very well done. The cravings from the target market is huge!
Behold his GLORY! Bow for the technical master! |
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| Posted: Mon, 13th Mar 2006 20:36 Post subject: |
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| Posted: Mon, 13th Mar 2006 20:55 Post subject: |
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On another note, the Opertron 165 and the Radeon X1900XT both seem overclockable (the Opertron is a monster, apparently) so I was thinking of a way to use that. The stock cooling shipped with any CPU is going to be shit, so I was considering watercooling or a good fan, with water seeming more and more likely in light of the fact that I need to cool the GPU and the CPU.
Any suggestions?
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kosmiq
Posts: 2304
Location: Somewhere
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| Posted: Tue, 14th Mar 2006 02:07 Post subject: |
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The stock heatsinks for A64 actually are quite good. and the newer ones has heatpipes and all that. I am using the stock heatsink and it gives me 500Mhz overclock without any problems at all.
As for watercooling... Sure its good if you take your time to really implent it, I am too lazy for that though. Anything swiftech should be good.
Behold his GLORY! Bow for the technical master!
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| Posted: Tue, 14th Mar 2006 02:24 Post subject: |
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| pancake wrote: | or get a opteron 165 as they have 1 mb l2 cache per core and clock really well for not a bad price to.
Also dont skimp on the psu, buy a good name brand psu like tagan, which has nice steady volts.
You wouldnt buy a new ferrari and try running it on diesel as the fuel was a better deal, so dont run your expensive pc off shitty psu's. |
This CPU is usually overclockable by about 50%, to about 2.6GHz, which is the stock performance for an FX-60, a $1010 CPU. Coincidentally, they're both based on the 90mm Toledo core. You pretty much gave me a stock FX-60 for a quarter of the price. Thanks. |
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| Posted: Tue, 14th Mar 2006 18:57 Post subject: |
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I'm getting a mobo for about 1/4 that, only without SLI and dual networking. Mid-end Asus mobos have great potential if properly picked. I'm still on a budget, so I'm only getting parts that matter most performance-wise, the mobo isn't a big part of it. I'll consider it, but none of the parts are final, as I won't be getting the system until mid-April at best.
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