so my current system lacks *see BLOWS* wat im looking for to play recent games flawlessly, and ill be all set wen it comes to games for a few years ( with hardly no upgrades ). Now dont get me wrong, im hardly a lazy person BUT i dont really have any experience in buying FULL systems, an updated card here, some memory there, thats all well and good, but not a full system. My problem is ( with computer hardware that is ) ill see somethin i want, and ill see somethin with a few more features ( mostly stuff i dont need ) and ill want that instead What im wondering is if i could get some advice on a damn decent setup ( IE: everything inside, the case ) Mebe play some doom 3/half life 2/ect... on v-high detail setting @ 1024x768 with the max amount of people ingame, in a wide open area filled with sprites, and not even have the computer come close to flinching FPS wise. as for the budget to spend.... id say go nuts, but be conservative at the same time ( cause of my little problem, id be picking stuff i didnt need, hence why im comin here and askin for the help ), and since i only really need the stuff on the inside it shouldnt be too bad... right ? i realize this might seem like im just lazy, and dont wanna do the research, but i have and i dont have the experience, and frankly i dont trust myself with a CC so you guys dont have to answer back if you dont want to.. but hey if your bored just sitting there and know this type of stuff, this threads here right *edit* only the names of the components are what im curious about if you only have a vauge idea about them, as i do realize it looks like im asking for all the info ( im not completely deviod of using a search engine )
English man. USE ENGLISH! Ok, now that I vented that, here's what I think is a good setup for you; I'd be more certain, but when you said "I'd say go nuts, but be conservative at the same time", you're really telling me you have no clue whatsoever as to what you want. All this stuff comes from Newegg.com: CPU - Intel Pentium 4 2.4C Retail - $167 Motherboard - Abit AI7 - $112 RAM - Corsair XMS 256mb Twin-Pack PC3200 - $119 Video Card - ATI Radeon 9800 Pro - $298 Sound Card - M-Audio Revolution 7.1 - $100 Hard Drive - Western Digital 120gb SATA - $110 CD-RW - Liteon 52x32x52x CD-RW - $38 Case - Antec SLK3700BQE - $77 Total - $1036 w/ shipping to MA
AMD 2500+ or 3200+ if you really have THAT much money Asus A7N8X Deluxe Sapphire Radeon 9800XT Antec or Enermax or even Q-Tec PSU. Corsair TwinX, Kingston HyperX, OCZ. Good stuff Sorry if I left any good parts out.
Well this is the full system which you may like: 1. MOTHERBOARD: Abit NF7-S - $132 2. PROCESSOR: AMD Athlon XP 2500+ (if you want to overclock) - $109 OR AMD Athlon XP 3000+ - $220 3. POWER SUPPLY: Zalman ZM400A-APF - $132 4. GRAPHICS CARD: Hercules 9800 Pro 256MB - $564 5. RAM: Corsair CMX512-3200LLPRO (512MB of PC3200 @ 2-3-2-6 also with flashing LEDS) - $211 6. CABLES: 2 x Akaska rounded IDE Cables AND Akaska rounded Floppy cable. - $8 7. CD-ROM DRIVES: Samsung SM-352 (CDR-CDRW-DVD) - $79 AND Samsung SC-152LEBB (CD) - $28 8. HARD DRIVE: Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 Plus 7200RPM, 160GB, with 8MB Cache - $151 9. SOUND: Onboard motherboard sound OR Creative Soundblaster Audigy 2 ZS - $176 Let me explain: 1. Simply the best motherboard around. FACT! 2. If you wanna overclock then get the 2500+ AND YOU WILL ALSO WANT TO GET SOME WATER COOLING STUFF. If you dont then get the 3000+. It is about $150 cheaper than the 3200+ and for that you will want Thermalright SLK-900U with a 92MM fan. 3. Good voltage regulation with 400W. 4. Can be overclocked to batter the XT's and you save about $200. 5. Best Quality Ram and comes with LEDs 6. Tidy and look nice 7. Fast and Cheap drives 8. Huge cache with good capacity 9. Cheap sound OR best quality sound.
I disagree on the fact that the corsair is the best quality ram... get Mushkin Level 2 PC3500, runs 2-2-2-5 at 213fsb... corsair's low latency modules are no longer strictly low latency, they don't offer 2-2-2 timings anymore. I've hit 230fsb @ 2-2-2-5 with my Mushkin, so it's overclockability is good too. Also the Hercules cards cost a hell of a lot, why not go with a BBA card considering you're out in the states? They tend to clock better. There is no need for watercooling a 2500+ the SLK947u will do fine. I overclocked my 2500+ to 2400Mhz on air 24/7 running. If you're not overclocking I'd say the 2500+ is still fast enough IMO. For motherboards... If you're overclocking, go with the NF7-S, it's the best "overclockers" motherboard around at the moment. If you're not overclocking try the AOpen AK79D-400 MAX, it's jammed with features, and also has a dual bios for extra security. It still has the option to overclock at a later date too. Fortron PSU's are known to be very good, but you won't go wrong with the Zalman mentioned above. As for Hard Drives, either Seagate, Maxtor or Western Digital would be my choice, I'll leave the decision up to you though, it's dependant on capacity and whether you want to use SATA or not. Optical Drives: These days it doesn't really matter what make you go with, they all tend to be the same performance. I'd go with a DVD and CDRW combo rather than CD and CDRW/DVD combo, DVD drives have faster access times. The soundstorm onboard the NF7-S is fine for quality, I've swapped out my Creative Soundblaster Live! Platinum 5.1 for it. Hope this clears a few things up for you.
corsair certainly do have very good quality though. The hercules cards are by far the best. They outperform any you can find...but they are expensive.
1. MOTHERBOARD: http://www.newegg.com/app/viewProductDesc.asp?DEPA=&sumit=Go&description=13-127-166&searchdepa=0 2. PROCESSOR: http://www.newegg.com/app/viewProductDesc.asp?DEPA=0&sumit=Go&description=19-103-394&searchdepa=0 3. POWER SUPPLY: http://www.maxcooler.com/noname82.html 4. GRAPHICS CARD: http://www.newegg.com/app/viewProductDesc.asp?DEPA=1&sumit=Go&description=14-120-143&searchdepa=1 5. RAM: http://www.newegg.com/app/viewProductDesc.asp?DEPA=1&sumit=Go&description=20-146-295&searchdepa=1 6. CABLES: http://www.newegg.com/app/viewProductDesc.asp?DEPA=1&sumit=Go&description=12-104-208&searchdepa=1 7. CD-ROM DRIVES: http://www.newegg.com/app/viewProductDesc.asp?DEPA=1&sumit=Go&description=27-106-234&searchdepa=1 8. HARD DRIVE: http://www.newegg.com/app/viewProductDesc.asp?DEPA=1&sumit=Go&description=22-148-018&searchdepa=1 total cost ( not including case, monitor, fans and the heatsink for the cpu ) $$1264.64 did i miss or go overboard on anything ? *edit* fixxed the hd, gogo 160gb/7200rpm s-ata also, wouldnt the mushkin ram be a problem with the mobo mentioned, since the mobo only goes up to 400, and the ram is 433 ?
not at the same time of course, the mobo here some memory there, all over time and of course ill be getting 2 ram sticks i just forgot to mention it so im geussing there wont be any problems with using the mushkin ram with the abis NF7-S, since noones mentioned it correct ? unless you guys hate me
Well the memory would be worthwhile for the future as it exceeds current AMD Board performabnce. Ask bigZ why you should because he is the real brains about most things including ram! I am hurt you would think such a thing
my opinions: since you did say "go crazy", go for an intel chip, probably 2.8c, unless you want the absolute best, then of course the 3.2c EE but that IS overboard IMO. GFX: Sapphire 9800XT. Them's the best, and since you're in America, they're quite reasonably priced. Would cost over $900 here. snd: M-Audio Revolution, and those nice nice nice Logitech Z-680s. PSU: Antec Truepower, or Enermax. RAM: at least 512meg (1 gig if you're "going crazy") with 2-2-2-5 timings. Optical drives: Get a CD burner and a DVD-ROM, or if you would use it, get a DVD-burner. I link Sony and LiteON, but that's just me. Raptor HD (or two). Just becuase. As for the case, buy whatever you think looks nice, and add some rounded cables, ultra-bright LEDs of whatever colour you like and generally mod it. Monitor: LG are really nice, personally I have a philips because they've got lightframe which is really useful for reducing glare at LAN partys. Keyboard and Mouse: logitech One last thing I would really recommend is a UPS. It's really just a convienience (sp) thing, but it's nice, and might just save your ass if you use the computer for anything important.
I disagree that Sapphire are the best. They are cheaper than most high end manufacturers but Hercules beat them in all benchmarks. Although the difference is marginal it does reflect the little extra you pay for Hercules. Zalman are the silence experts and the PSU is so quiet that it is damn near inaudible and the outputs are as perfect as they are likely to be. Intel are really good but the AMD equivalents are soooo much cheaper that it really isn't practical to buy an intel unless YOU do literally have money to burn!! the choice is yours....
tbh, i think going with a p4 is a better move than an athlon atm.... socket a is at the end of its life cycle and at least socket 478 has 6 months left if in it for future upgrades and what not!!
