The_Gza

Going to have a bash at building my first PC, so I've been trying to spec it - wondered if the massed intellect of SN had any views on my initial planned spec?

Don't know if these are all compatible, but I couldn't see any obvious howlers (famous last words! )

I'd like it to be able to run games at a decent rate - but it doesn't have to be the fastest thing on the planet. Ideally it'll last me for 3 - 4 years without needing to upgrade much.

Anyway, here's my proposed spec:

Motherboard
Asus A8N-Sli Standard (£85) - even though I'm only going for one GC at the mo, thought it would be good to retain the option of buying a second in the future..

CPU

AMD (Venice) Athlon 64 3500+ 939pin 512Kb L2 Cache 90nm Retail Boxed Processor With 3 Year Warranty and Fan Included (£150)

Graphics Card options

Sapphire ATI X800 GTO 256MB Tv-Out/DVI (£146)

256Mb XFX PCI-E GF6800GT DDR3 TvOut/Dual DVI (£199)

256MB Gigabyte NX68256D, Geforce6800 (£142)
Any thoughts on these ones I picked out? Graphics cards is probably the area I'm not so clear on - along with the RAM...
RAM

Crucial Ballistix 1GB DDR PC4000 (£140)

Case Options

Coolermaster Praetorian 730 (£90)

3DAurora GZ-FSCA1-ANS(ANB) SilverAluminumTower Case - Hi End (£85)

Power Supply

460W Akasa Ultra quiet aPFC PSU with Blue LED 12cm Fan ( 24Pin connector ) (£55) - Is a 460W PSU likely to be enough??

Hard Drive

Maxstor DiamondMax 300GB 16MB cache (£102)

DVD Burner

Pioneer 106 something - use my existing one

Soundcard

Creative Soundblaster Audigy - again hope to reuse my existing one!

Speakers

Creative Labs 5.1 Surround - again, got these already

Keyboard

Saitek Eclipse - (£30)



According to my 'back of a *** packet' sums, I should be looking at about £780 for that lot - I'm hoping to reuse my existing soundcard, speakers, mouse and monitor

PS Sorry 'bout the wonky formatting - cut 'n paste from a spreadsheet

slickrick

cpu, get a winchester not venice
ram, get 2 paired 512's (quicker)
gfx, go pci e (i prefer radeon)
hard drive, make sure its ata not ide
my 2p worth the rest looks fine..

Daz34

It all looks ok.
Regards the graphics card though, I would spend a bit more (£240) and get a GeForce 7800GT. Much faster & the latest generation card.
Also, it is only nVidia cards that support SLi.

HTH - Darren

jowl

I would stick with your Venice Core CPU - faster and cooler.

Good point about SLI - I would go for the 6800GT, less power needed and less heat produced. It should be fine for games now and a few years (though I'm not a gamer)

ATi's answer is crossfire - a little less restrictive.

460W PSU should be enough I reckon - just make sure you get a good make (like the one you've mentioned)

As for HDD, everybody will give you a different make to buy. I bought several Maxtor DiamondMax hard drives for file servers - 120gb upwards. A lot tended to fail after only a year or so.

I know stick with Western Digital or Seagate. Having said that, my current home HDD is a 120gb Maxtor (bloomin noisy though)

Daz34

A 7800GT uses no more power and is a single slot solution.
Crossfire is still nowhere to be seen & the comparative reviews with SLI haven't been that impressive but neither are needed anyway unless you play at resolutions of 1600 x 1200 or more.
A single 7800 card will play at 1280 x 1024 with 4x AA 16x AF no problem at all and this is the optimum setting for most TFT screens anyway.

jpor

iTrader: (1)

ATis answer to SLi here: http://graphics.tomshardware.com/gra...006/index.html

If you want a board that supports SLI x2 then have a look at this beast: http://www.tomshardware.com/motherbo...004/index.html

Just hope NVidia get the hint and produce the drivers to support 4 x Nvidia Graphics cards.

badcompany

do you want a internet pc or a gamers one ???

the specs can be a lot different as the games now like battlefield2 require

awesome spec really to play with no glitches

The_Gza

Perhaps I should mention I'd quite like it not to sound like concorde has taken up residence in my room too - with 4x Graphics cards it wouldn't be too far away

Thanks for the advice so far though chaps

Daz34

But it's not here.
No sign of it appearing at a retailer any time soon either.

The_Gza

I'm partial to the occassional game of BF - which is why I'm thinking of upgrading as my current PC (Mesh - AMD1800+, 512MB, GeForce MX440) doesn't support BF2. Saying that, I can still play HL2 on it, so it's served me well

DrEvil

my 2 peneth...

CPU - bump it up to a 939 3700 (1Mb L2 cache)
MOBO - get the A8N-SLI premium, for the quiet factor!
MEM - mixed views on Crucial Bal. - if you've got that sort of money, get the 2Gb (2x1Gb) Geil Value Dual channel - you'll see more benefit from the extra ram.
GPU - for 235 you can get a 7800GT btw! X800GTO or 6800GT will do you proud thou.
CASE - personal preference really
PSU - Enermax Noisetaker 480W or one of the 480W ish Hipers, make sure its ATX 2.x/PCI-E compat.
DVDRW - Pioneer or NEC, or stick with what you have.
Audio - keep the one you have or go with the Audigy 2 ZS OEM circa 50 quid

Oh, and get an anti-static strap from Maplins or somewhere..

Have fun.

jowl

has, anti-static straps are for wimps!

DrEvil

LOL

LEUVEN

If you want to be able to play games on it for the next 3-4 years then in my opinion you need to buy the best you can afford 'now' mainly in the GFX department.

As even the 7800's will be long in the tooth in a couple of years if technology moves anywhere near as fast as recent years. Especially if you'll want to be playing BF3 and HL3.

If you go with a 7800GT or even GTX, then maybe in 2 years time if you need some extra oomph and the price is right, you can add a second card (matched pair tho as in make/model I beleive)

A Seasonic S12-600 will be a very suitable PSU for two 7800's- Just been given "Premium Grade" (Custom PC Award)

Hope this is usefull.

The_Gza

I never quite got around to buying that PC , so I'm revisiting the spec!

Any other changes you'd recommend now?

Here's an updated version of the spec I was looking at:

Scooby Dooby Blue

IMO

Pay the extra tenner for the SLi Premium board or an extra twenty for the A8N-Sli32.

You can grab a Powercolor 7800GT for £190 from MicroDirect at the moment...cracking price.

Definately go for the Geil Value Dual Channel 2gB kit, it's the same price as the 1GB Crucial.

My PSU of choice for these types of systems is the Antec Truepower 480W. AMD also recommend these (and the Neopowers) for supporting their FX series of CPU's.

DrEvil

Budget dependant:

AMD64 3700 or AMD64 X2 4400+
A8N SLI Premium
2Gb Corsair (2x1Gb) Twinx XMS3200C2PT or GEIL Dual Channel Value 2x1Gb 3200
Nvidia 7800GT(XFX or BFG) or ATi X1800XL (ANY)
Enermax Liberty 500W or Enermax Noisetaker 535W SLI (I like the Noisetakers)
Seagate 7200.9 SATAII 160Gb or 250Gb drives
NEC 4551 DVDRW
Creative X-Fi extreme music
Speakers - personal choice.. Creative THX approved 2.1 ones sound cool
Keyboard - Saitek Eclipse or Gamers Keyboard
Mouse - Logitech G5

Guinness

iTrader: (1)

Looks good to me...But i'm partial to Tagan for the PSU...Alan...

DrEvil

BTW - balistix has been getting REALLY bad write ups of late.

TopBanana

I went for a Venice 3000+, 2GB or GEIL value and a 7800GT. It absolutely flies as you can overclock the pants of the CPU. I've got mine running at about 2.5GHz instead of 1.8GHz and it's rock solid. So you could save money on the CPU and have more RAM and a better gfx card!

The_Gza

Thanks for the replies chaps


What's the difference between the Deluxe and the Premium or A8N-Sli32?

DrEvil

Deluxe - noisey as hell NF4 cooling
Premium - silent NF4 cooling
A8N-32 - 2x16 PCI-E and bad layout if you have a lot of PCI cards

D16GER

IMHO you would be mad to get anything other than a dual core CPU at the moment.

All new software, drivers, games etc are being designed to make best use of dual cores.

Heck, even ATi's last driver set showed good gains with dual core CPU's.

And, should you go dual core, then it's between X2 3800 or Opteron 165. The Opty has twice the L2 cache and runs at a lower voltage, but will likely NOT be officially supported by your motherboard.

andys

Agree with DrEvil, the balistix have been getting really bad press, people have been reporting going through 3-4 sets in a matter of months at stock settings. Mind you saying that I have a pair and have had no problems at all.