Working on a new gaming machine, need input

[Setzar]

Most of the time I like to talk about computers and give advice, but this time I'm willing to listen. I've been thinking of building a new gaming PC for some time now, and the computer show is back in town, so I decided that now was as good of time as any to lay down some cash. I know what I want pretty much, but I'd like some input because I don't keep my ear to the ground as much as I used to with hardware. Ok, enough rambling, here we go:

1) Processor - Definaly going with a version of the AMD 64 chip, question is do I go for a model with the 1MB L2 cashe or a model with a higher clock speed? I'm not sure which would offer better performance, but I'm thinking the 1MB L2 cashe might not be nessary because everything I've read says the 64 chips have a bus speed of 1600 Mhz (Yeah, I thought that was crazy too).

2) Motherboards - More specifically, RAM. Does this new craze (actually old idea, new shine) of going for the matched RAM offer that big of a performance boost? I was thinking it may be connected to the fact of that insaine FSB, but then again thats just my guess.

3) Graphics card - Um, nevermind, going for the shinest on this one. If someone could offer advice about what setup is best for running a Video Out to a television? I don't really care to get a AIW or PersonalCinima card, because I may eventually get a PCI HD Tuner card.

Any comments, suggestions, corrections, and cash will be appreciated.

If anyone has any suggestions I'd love to hear them.

[Murr0w]

Sounds like you've got some money to burn, so I'll give you an improved version of my machine.

AMD Athlon 64 3200+ (Socket 939)
MSI K8T Neo-FSR
Thermalright XP-120
Vantec SF12025L 120MM Fan (heatsink)
Arctic Silver 5
Kingston HyperX 1GB PC3200
ATI Radeon X800 Pro 256MB (or the high-end nVidia)
Western Digital Raptor WD740GD 10,000RPM 74GB
Western Digital WD2500JD 7200RPM 250GB
NED ND-3500A BK DVD/CD RW
Samsung TS-H352A/WBGH DVD/CD ROM
Antec Sonata (case)
NEC/Mitsubishi FE991SB-BK
Sennheiser PC150 headset
Logitech MX700 Wireless Mouse
Auravision EluminX S203-12 Illuminated Keyboard
Antec A26 Cobra Cable x2

And Win XP Pro for the OS.

[Blacktastic]

Sounds about right Murrow

Although I'd get the X700 instead of the X800. IMO its never worth getting the flagship card unless you like playing at the maximum resolution...in which case you may as well get the biggest monitor you can find as well.

[Murr0w]

Only X700s I can find are PCI-Express. And the only PCI-Express mobos I can find are P4s. So eh.

[Lustt]

Asus have a nice shiny new bunch of PCIe mobo's coming out soon, using the new nforce4 i believe as well. im not actually that informed about pc's just regurgitate what i read, but yer, if u have money to burn, and looking for a future proof machine id definitely get PCIe Mobo and video card. although i dont think the "flagship" x800 Ultra from nvidia is pciE yet so whatever.

Im building a new pc soonish and i dont think im gonna bother with the PCIe just yet, i mean, theres hardly any difference in performance between agp x4 and x8 so i dont think pcie is going to be that effective yet, with gfx cards pumping out 30 gb/s atm, the other parts of the pc just cant keep up, once their there then pcie will be worth it, but not yet :]

and btw the asus board is AMD ;P

oh, www.tomshardware.com

probably one of the best review sites ive used, anyone else use any others?

good luck :S let us know what u go for.

[PcT]

well it dont exist a x800ultra from nvidia.. it does exist geforce 6800ultra from nvidia.. and u get that one in pcie

[Lustt]

sorry yer, the radeon is the X800 ?

im gonna be doing a load of overtime and site work over the xmas break, ive had this pc for a long time now, whilst it still does the job, i only get around 15 fps in WoW with pretty much everything on lowest running around barrens/dun morgh etc.

going for this sort of set up:

AMD Athlon 64 3000+ Winchester 90nm (Socket 939)
Abit AV8 3RD Eye (Socket 939) Motherboard
Crucial 1GB (2x512MB) DDR PC3200 Ballistix Dual Channel Kit
Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 200gb
Asus Extreme N6600GT TOP GeForce PCX6600 GT 128MB
WaterChill KT12A-L20 Antarctica


with a few other little bits like a fan/hd add on for cooler.

its just over 900 quid including the case, which is quite a lot, a bit more than i expected for a DIY project but i suppose the water cooling really throws it up a lot.

Do you have to run 2x SATA drives in RAID to actually gain any benefit over IDE ? have absolutely no clue about sata/raid.

cheers.

[Setzar]

I've read a couple of articals that say running an RAID array for performance boost for games isn't worth it. The improvement is little to nothing for the added cost and overhead.

[Aradorn]

heres my current system

AMD 3500+ 939 (130 nm)
1 gig of OCZ PC-3500 EB ram

x800pro vivo - > Modded to XT:PE (its a real XT:PE now)
MSI Neo2 plat mobo


x800 pro vivo modded to XT:PE > any nvidia card (specially when you mount an artic silencer fan on it)

amd64 90nm > any other processord on the market

pc 3500 ram or higher (1 gig atleast, and i stick with major brands like OCZ or Corsair)


anandtech.com > tomshardware (anandtech is a better review site than tomshardware will ever be =p)

raid arrays arnt worth the performance boosts.

with my system i get anywhere from 65-80 FPS easy, even in crowded areas with lots of mobs

i have no video lag what-so-ever, and can easily run two clients with no video lag or processor lag...

[Lustt]

cheers man :] yer the problem is the price on the x800's id rather just save myself 150 quid and settle for that 5-10% drop :P

just make sure my pc is future proof so when in a couple of years i want to upgrade. its cheap as possible. probably going to wait for some decent reviews of the new PCIe motherboards before i make my choice anyway.

Cheers for imparting those pearly drops of wisdom as well :]

[Renton]

I am also thinking of a new pc tower. My current one is maybe 2 years old, but due to lack of wanting things for christmas, my family wants to get me a new one. We don't want to spend too much, but it should be nice. Also, I was considering buying new parts instead (prolly be cheaper). I have a LCD flatscreen monitor, so I'm keeping that. Currently I have a CyberPower desktop (staying with the D-top), Nvidia GeForce 4 Ti 4600, Windows XP Home edition OS (I hear its inferior now), AMD athlon XP 2600+, 1.92 ghz, 1gb of ram, sound blaster live. No clue about motherboard.

My dad's lookin at a 2.9k gateway, with dual hard drives @ 10,000 speed or something. Anyways, please give input - what would be better/cheaper?

[Lustt]

wow. this has been dragged back up a bit :]

seriously i wouldnt worry about the operating system all that much, just keep it up todate with the latest SP [think its 2 atm ?] and its pretty decent.

saying you dont want to spend much, usually means theres little point really, i mean sure you can improve a few key area's but in general going 1 or 2 notches up doesnt really do much in general. Ive only upgraded three times in nearly 10 years now...from ye olde 3.1 windows [486 i think... wow] to a 233 pentium [with the "latest" intel celeron...hell yes.] to a 1ghz to this current 2ghz. ive never really gone for the very best hardware. I normally just go one or two down, but look at whats on the horizon. With PCIe coming round soon with the new nforce4, it might be worth getting an i.o.u from your parents to look at hardware after the xmas period ?

im waiting till about february, already decided on my set up, and hopefully get it for a bit cheaper than it is now by then :/

if that makes little sense its because im tired and i didnt proof read it :]

good luck.

[Renton]

Aight its updated - that sounds cool man, I'll definetely have my dad check out this thread and see what he thinks. Honestly, I have no idea what PCIe is or any of that. Thanks,

Renton

[fer]

I've read a couple of articals that say running an RAID array for performance boost for games isn't worth it. The improvement is little to nothing for the added cost and overhead.

True it will only cut loading time a bit. A 7200 rpm disk is well enough capable of performing most games. RAID only quickens booting and is good for video/sound recording/editing.

[Murr0w]

I've read a couple of articals that say running an RAID array for performance boost for games isn't worth it. The improvement is little to nothing for the added cost and overhead.

True it will only cut loading time a bit. A 7200 rpm disk is well enough capable of performing most games. RAID only quickens booting and is good for video/sound recording/editing.

Unless you're running 4+ clients at once, AIM, WinAmp/iTunes, browsers...

Actually, I knew a guy that ran like 5+ Shadowbane accounts at once on one machine. He was a rich POS.

[Setzar]

I've read a couple of articals that say running an RAID array for performance boost for games isn't worth it. The improvement is little to nothing for the added cost and overhead.

True it will only cut loading time a bit. A 7200 rpm disk is well enough capable of performing most games. RAID only quickens booting and is good for video/sound recording/editing.

Unless you're running 4+ clients at once, AIM, WinAmp/iTunes, browsers...

Actually, I knew a guy that ran like 5+ Shadowbane accounts at once on one machine. He was a rich POS.

Wow, thats quite a machine he must have had.

Anyways, I've decided to put the machine on hold for a bit. After getting Omega Drivers to work on my laptop correctly, it runs WoW almost as well as my desktop. Now I get the privilage of fixing my desktop after 'someone' installed Morphus on it. The combo of AdAware + Spybot + Norton's AntiVirus isn't enough to take it all off. Time to break out Edgerware. (http://homestarrunner.com/sbemail118.html)

[binsh]

Just wanted to add on the Whole RAID dicussion, read from various sources that performance wasn''t really worth it. I had had some people request it so I did end up setting up a RAID0 array with one of the earlier Athlon 64 754 socket based boards. The drives the customer eneded up going with was WD 36GB Raptors which are 10,000 RPMS. Well, I must stay that for apps loading and windows boot times it sure seemed a lot quicker. Now without sustained disk IO you really aren't making use of your RAID array since seek time is more of a factor for bust IO. Now I was pretty impressed with the setup though and the native SATA support was very nice, SATA onboard chipset is a must really for SATA in both single and dual drive setups IMHO.

At the time I was using a Abit NF7-S for my personal system , So because I was fairly impressed with the RAID array, I decided to get 2 Western Digitals Raptor but the 74GB model which offers even better performance. Well first thing I imediately noticed was that the just wasn't enough bandwidth for for the RAID array since of the limitations of the PCI bus. I ened up deciding to go with a new mobo but not an Athlon64 based since at that time thing just weren't affordable for anything but the 754 socket which I wasn't even interested in since it only offers a single channel memory controller. Anyways rambling a bit here....so I ended up going with a socket a based board with Nvidia new southbridge with the onchip native SATA and Gigabit ethernet. Well, tested both senarios and was pretty much left that it wasn't worth the permance increase to justify the chances for drive failure using the RAID0 array for a workstation. Now with slower drives there will be more of a performance increase, so for 7,200 rpm models it could very well give a much larger increase.

Anyways as for recomendations really for the Athlon64 939 based boards you really have a hard time making a bad choice since there are so many good boards out there. Anything from Asus, Abit or MSI should be fine. Also both VIA and Nvidia have solid chipsets at the moment. Building one of these tomorrow, went with a Abit AV8 and Kingston Value Ram which I think offers good value for your money if your not concerned about heavy overclocking. Get a 400w or larger PSU ideally from any of the major players like Antec, Thermaltake, Enermax, Silverstone. Chenming 601AE offer goof value for those people on a budget since they offfer it without PSU. They are the OEM for Antec for those that don't know. PCI-Express I don't really see being a huge factor for the near future since 8x AGP still has some bandwidth left, but in the future it definately will be but you most likely will have a new mobo by then.

Hope that helps :D

[jwtiger69]

My new gaming system i just build. The only thing i still need is a gig of RAM, a couple case fans, and a cd burner.

B GIGABYTE GA-K8NSNXP-939 NF3 250 (Qty=1,Price=$189.00)
VGA ATIOEM|RADEON 9600 128M 8X AGP% (Qty=1,Price=$95.00)
CPU AMD 64 3500+ ATHLON 64 939P RT (Qty=1,Price=$269.00)
HD 80GB|SEAGATE ST380011A 7200 % (Qty=1,Price=$55.00)
DVD-ROM Artec|DHM-G48 UR RTL (Qty=1,Price=$28.00)
CPU FAN GIGABYTE 3D GH-PCU22-VG RET (Qty=1,Price=$49.99)

Subtotal:$685.99
TAX:$49.73
Shipping and Handling Charge**:$13.73
Total:$749.45


You can find great deals all over the web. Newegg has a great cpu/motherboard combos.

http://www.newegg.com/app/combspecial.asp?listtype=bundle

Just use the link...

[Lustt]

quick tip here. if ur planning on overclocking at all, just go for the 90nm winchester core 3000+....its overclockable by 45% on stock cooling....the same as the 3500+ can reach. saves u some cash ;P

[binsh]

quick tip here. if ur planning on overclocking at all, just go for the 90nm winchester core 3000+....its overclockable by 45% on stock cooling....the same as the 3500+ can reach. saves u some cash ;P

Nice tip, good info to know just built a box using a 90nm 3000+ Athlon64. It isn't for me so I most likely will leave it stock for now but maybe down the road I will suggest it . Now if only Abit hadn't totally dropped the ball with the AV8, turns out that a lot of them shipped without a new enough BIOS for the 90nm Winchester, resulting in mobo not able to POST without the updated one. So I am waiting on USPS with an updated BIOS chip :(

[Lustt]

yer i read something about that a while ago ? btw, on the stock cooling [the packaged fan] it can reach that overclock assuming the board can.

gl with the new bios :S

[binsh]

yer i read something about that a while ago ? btw, on the stock cooling [the packaged fan] it can reach that overclock assuming the board can.

gl with the new bios :S

Yup, got that from your pervious post which is good news cause stock cooling usually won't give you that much of an OC. The board is the 1.1 revision so should be fine for OC'ing but is for a family member so I doubt that I will be OC'ing in any time soon. Definately will come in handy when I decide to upgrade to one of these, although most likely will go for a nforce3 250GB from either Abit, MSI or Gigabyte.

[Lustt]

yer, im putting of getting my machine till around february time...just after my 2nd uni loan installment. Hopefully by then there will be a review of the new nforce4 PCIe boards....and the prices will have come down :]