Right knowledgable peeps, some assistance if possible, please.

I'm now thinking of building a new rig for the ATi9800 pro to reside in.
I think I need the following, bare minimum:

- case (LanFire)
- PSU (butterfly 480w)
- ATX motherboard (please recommend)
- P4 3.2 (recommendations on which one?) + fan (again, please recommend)
- memory, 1GB, but which type.
- hard disk (circa 200-250Gb) - any recommendations?
- DVD-R drive - again, please recommend
- soundcard , not bothered about 5.1 or above - but please recommend
- wireless lan (will get the same make as my router, belkin)
And finally the ATi9800 pro installed.

Any help appreciated... specifically on the motherboard side, as there are so many chipsets around... Also, what budgets should I set for the individual items?

Cheers, Alex

 

see comments:

- case (LanFire) - I'm a Lian-li man myself but good case
- PSU (butterfly 480w) - excellent reviews, not personally use it yet
- ATX motherboard (please recommend) see end
- P4 3.2 (recommendations on which one?) + fan (again, please recommend) see end
- memory, 1GB, but which type.
- hard disk (circa 200-250Gb) - Any of the maxtor high end SATA disks 0- do not touch Western Digital or IBM or Hitachi
- DVD-R drive - I personally like Liton's stuff great VFM & has more widgets to aid copy protected stuff.
- soundcard - most on-board stuff will be fine.
- wireless lan - pass
- ATi9800 pro installed - they are all fairly similar it really comes down to package it comes with. good card. Drivers now stable.

The 'ol pentium vs athlon debate.

I'm an athlon boy - simply because of the performance / price ratio. A Athlon 3200 (32 bit) - £90 + vat +/-
P4 3.2 HT - £160 + vat +/-

OK the P4 slightly has the edge, but not noticably. Athlon motherboards are also cheaper.

I currently run a NF7-S Rev 2.0 which had excellent sound, LAN SATA, firewire etc etc etc and it's only £54.00 + vat.

Avoid VIA chipsets. Get an NFORCE 2 board - vastly superiour

Memory. . get branded stuff classified for "PC 3200" as a minimum, you should be looking at 2 x 512 modules for "dual DDR access" - basicly faster than a single stick.

Well thaty's my 2c worth.

 

Havent actually used an athlon before but I'm planning on building my own pc too and i'm looking at an athlon 64 with windows xp64.

my 2penneth worth - get a playstation dualshock2 controller and a usb adapter - gaming bliss.

oh can anyone recommend good 5.1 pc speakers?

 

I'd hold fire on building an athlon 64 rig.

AMD are in the process of releasing a new chipset pinout which will replace the current one - making it impossible to upgrade existing Athlon 64 processors without swapping out motherboards & memory.

You have been warned

As for speakers, I've liked Creatives gear, Logitec do a nice 5.1 setup as well.

Again it's down to budget/

 

Thanks for the info.. afraid I'm an intel boy.

So the NFORCEx motherboards are good then...

I've been looking at the following two

ASUS http://www.dabs.com/uk/channels/comp...quicklinx=2J4Y

And

Aopen
http://www.dabs.com/uk/channels/comp...quicklinx=33S4

Thanks for the other pointers.. looks like I'm sort of the right tracks (bar Intel ).

 

I can't help you on the intel front I'm afraid.

Shops I use (cheaper than dabs in most cases)

www.aria.co.uk

www.cclcomputers.co.uk

www.ebuyer.co.uk

www.overclockers.co.uk - great for thermalrite heat-syncs

 

If AMD, how about this board:

http://www.dabs.com/uk/channels/comp...quicklinx=30GC

 

it's an athlon 64 board.

See post above.

The Abit NF7-S is a tryed & tested board. Great for overclocking. I've learnt the hard way about buying "new" products. You usually end up being the beta testers. I'm sure a few other users will vouch for that.

 

Ah, but I won't be overclocking... well, probably not..

 

PS. just seen a nasty cooling video from Tom's hardware guide, the AMDs don't fair too well.

 

It's purely down to dolla.

I've no idea what budget you have. I can only advise what I'd do for. When I purchase I try and get the best "bang for buck". Even if it does mean an upgrade a year down the road (but still achieving a net saving).

 

LOL I've seen that vid too!

Of course your gonna fry your chip if you run it without a heatsync. . .

 

I'm hoping to get a better set-up than the Compaq Presario 1080UK that I have.

The spec of the NForce3 looks good, 1600Mhz bus speed ain't bad!

 

Klipsch Promedia are *the best* PC speakers, bordering on pro hi-fi. I have a 2.1 setup and it puts my living room hi fi to shame. They're THX rated too. Pricey but worth it IMO - my 2.1's were about £180 but I haven't regretted it from the second I fired them up.

 

dont get the ati 9800 pro much better graphic cards out there

 

Athlons generally perform better in games & P4's in applications.
I would get a fast & cheap Athlon XP 3200 with an nForce2 mobo.

Darren

 

No there ain't!

Maybe slightly better but not much better

 

yes there are. . . but they have a £400 price tag. . .

 

Athlon 64's beat P4's in gaming benchmarks. If your building a gaming rig then you HAVE to go Athlon64.

Go to www.overclockers.co.uk forums and get them to price you a rig over there, they know their stuff believe me and would offer the best advice.

 

Do not even think of buying from Dabs - they are a bunch of hopeless cowboys with woeful customer support - which you will find out because you will be dealing with them pretty often. Of the on-line dealers, Overclockers are the best. Ring them and ask for for Andy Gibson - he can give you some good advice.

But for longterm value, I'd also advise Athlon64. Socket 754 isn't much better than 32-bit ATM, but once 64-bit Windows is running it will show the difference. Socket 939 is the best, but there are almost no motherboards and chip prices are insane.

If you insist on Intel, I'd go for Socket 775, which has just come out. Again, the future-proofing thing. Intel has the advantage of not getting as hot and generally being easier to set up - provided you use an Intel chipset, not something like SiS (even though the SiS set is better) - because M$ includes a reasonable set of drivers, as do most Linux distros. If you aren't overclocking then the retail Intel cooling system is fine.

I'm inclined to agree over Lian-Li case, although all my machines are in Antec/Chieftec.

Generally with motherboards, Abit are best, with Asus, Epox and MSI close behind. DFI are patchy, so probably best avoided. Gigabyte, Soltek, AOPen and Chaintek are third-raters; and ECS and Albatron should be dumped in a skip. Other brands are too rare to worry about. This applies to AMD and Intel boards.

Memory - get Corsair, and accept no substitute.

Hard drives, I agree with Maxtor. Go Serial ATA and get about a 120GB. Unless you plan on loads of illegal downloads that will be more than enough.

Whether you need your own sound card depends on how fussy you are, and what you'll be using the rig for. But if you want sound, then it has to be a SB Audigy2 in some form.

M

 

Meridian and all, thanks for the info.
I'm going to think about this for a bit, don't want to rush into things, but the general feel I'm getting from here and other sites, is go AMD to get gaming performance (and slightly less out of your pocket!).

Cheers, Alex

 

- PSU (Tagan 480w)
http://www.thecoolingshop.com/produc...roducts_id/886
- ATX motherboard (MSI K8n Neo)
http://www.cpucitystore.co.uk/catalo...roducts_id=462
- A64 3200 Newcastle
http://www.cpucitystore.co.uk/catalo...roducts_id=295
- soundcard , onboard

Similar setup to what I have, very stable & very quick

 

Cheers, this is all good stuff