Judgement Day! Feedback on system specs before I purchase...

O

OBSESSION

Weaksauce
Joined
Jun 10, 2004
Messages
78
Edited post so it's not so long and tedious to read.

Please let me know if you see errors, conflicts or missing components as well as your suggestions and opinions. (Newegg prices)

CASE - Antec Silver Aluminum Performance 1 ATX Mid Tower $115
Model: P160

PSU - Antec 430W True Power $69
Model: TRUE430
Is this enough power? Too much?

PROCESSOR - AMD Athlon 64 3000+, 512KB L2 Cache 64-bit - Retail $223
Model: ADA3000BOX
I've been waffling on this for a while... go with the 3000+ or the 3200+?

CPU COOLER - AMD Retail HSF $0

MOTHERBOARD - Asus "K8V SE Deluxe" K8T800 Chipset Motherboard $123
Model: K8V SE Deluxe

MEMORY - Qty 2 Corsair 2X Value Select 184 Pin 512MB DDR PC-3200 $168
Model: VS512MB400C3
I really didn't know what to choose here, so I went with a brand that I saw a lot of people using and chose a nice affordable DIMM. For all I know, this stuff could cripple my system.

VIDEO - Sapphire ATI RADEON X800 PRO, 256MB GDDR3, 256-bit, DVI/VIVO, 8X AGP -OEM $445
Model: 100-435020

STORAGE - Western Digital 160GB 7200RPM SATA Hard Drive OEM $113
Model: WD1600JD

AUDIO - Creative Labs Sound Blaster Audigy2 ZS GAMER Limited Edition $110
Model: 70SB035000013
Overkill for 2.1 speakers and/or my Sennheiser headphones?

CD-RW - Lite-On 52X32X52 Internal EIDE CD-RW,Retail $34
Model: LTR-52327S BLACK
Should I just get a CD-RW/DVD-ROM combo drive instead.

DVD-RW - Lite-On 8X DVD+/-RW Drive, Retail $77
Model: SOHW-812S BLACK
Should I get only a DVD-RW and forego the separate CD-RW. Decisions.. decisions.

FLOPPY - NEC 1.44MB Black Internal Floppy Drive, OEM $10
Model: FD1231H-302

COOLING - Kingwin 120mm Double Ball Bearing Case Fan $7
Model: F-012BB
Front of the case - intake.

OS - Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition OEM $90

GOODIES
Far Cry - Free with the purchase of the mobo and CPU. How can I say no?

TOTAL PRICE (as configured): $1584

I'll be recycling my monitor, mouse, keyboard, speakers/headphones and UPS.
 
Soooo, you're getting a socket 754, but still getting a VIA chipset?

o_0
 
Actually it's a decent board, as long as you don't plan on overclocking the cpu
 
I would go for the 9800XT myself. the X800 is still too new, who knows if there are going to be problems down the road?

And why not get a CD/DVD+/-RW combo? And then go for a 16X DVD? Cheaper in the long run right there.

70 for DVD+/-RW/CD-RW at newegg (Lite-On)
30 for 16X DVD at newegg (Lite-On)

My .02
 
JSClark said:
And why not get a CD/DVD+/-RW combo? And then go for a 16X DVD? Cheaper in the long run right there.

70 for DVD+/-RW/CD-RW at newegg (Lite-On)
30 for 16X DVD at newegg (Lite-On)
Click to expand...

I guess I could do it that way... but I'd only save $10 and give up a little CD speed.
 
I'd get a nforce 3 250 board as they do allow overclocking in case you ever want to do so in the future (you will get 400+Mhz more outta ur chip making it near 3700+ levels) . Decide for yourself though for what suits you best. Hard has some reviews of nforce 3 boards and anand has a roundup so i'd check those out.

Graphics card is good, even though in a month it will surely be down to $400 but you dont need to wait :p

Case, nice choice since it does have free shipping. Personally I like the Antec Super Lanboy, while it has less features to an extent it is a very nice looking case and would save you a couple of bucks.

Hard drive: get 2 80Gig SATA WD drives and run them in raid 1 for a lil faster performance although you also have a greater risk of a drive failing since you have two :p Other than that i think it looks good, the RAM may be a lil cheap but it surely will get the job done. Make sure to get the Corsair value ram thats cas 2.5, not 3.0 since they sell both for around the same price.
 
I have the P160, Its great
PSU is fine
Cpu/mobo/memory looks fine for no O/C
video- wanna save $260? get a 9800Pro. Feel the need for the extra 60-75% speed? Keept he X800
stoage is good
audio is overkill but not by much. Do you have good ears or crappy ears? good speakers?
opticals are fine
why do you need a floppy?
OS is fine, pro is better but doesn't make a big difference for 99.9% of stuff

looks good overall
 
SpitFire said:
I'd get a nforce 3 250 board as they do allow overclocking in case you ever want to do so in the future (you will get 400+Mhz more outta ur chip making it near 3700+ levels) . Decide for yourself though for what suits you best. Hard has some reviews of nforce 3 boards and anand has a roundup so i'd check those out.
Click to expand...
Well, as I said, I don't plan to OC. That said... is the nForce more a recommendation for OCing, and the VIA chipset is good for me, or should I be looking at the nForce chipset no matter what? Sucks is the fact that no Asus nForce board is out yet for that CPU.


Graphics card is good, even though in a month it will surely be down to $400 but you dont need to wait :p
Click to expand...
Yeah, but then again... wait a year and I can get that card for $200. :rolleyes: I'm still trying to decide if I really need all that horsepower, or if *I* would be fine with a 9800.


Case, nice choice since it does have free shipping. Personally I like the Antec Super Lanboy, while it has less features to an extent it is a very nice looking case and would save you a couple of bucks.
Click to expand...
Hmmm, thanks for the rec on this case. I took a look, and it's not bad. A little too much "bling" for me, and the portability and window is a non-issue since this will be living in by desk cubby all the time. I wasn't able to find a review on case build quality and features for the SLB like I was on Tom's Hardware for the P160.


Hard drive: get 2 80Gig SATA WD drives and run them in raid 1 for a lil faster performance
Click to expand...
Um... do you mean RAID 0? RAID 1 would give me a total of 80GB with the protection of striping my drives should one fail. And the performance would take a slight hit. Besides that, 2 80-giggers would run me 50% more in cost. I'm not sure the nominal performance increase is worth that extra cost.


Other than that i think it looks good, the RAM may be a lil cheap but it surely will get the job done. Make sure to get the Corsair value ram thats cas 2.5, not 3.0 since they sell both for around the same price.
Click to expand...
Yeah, RAM seems to be the thing I understand the least about. :eek:
 
GLSauron said:
audio is overkill but not by much. Do you have good ears or crappy ears? good speakers?
Click to expand...
Would a regular Audigy be good? Or even a SB Live? My ears are so-so... I'm no audio-phile. My speakers are aging Cambridge Soundworks 2.1 units. Rated tops when I got them about 7 years ago. But I do have a sweet set of headphones.


why do you need a floppy?
Click to expand...
For $10 or less... why not? In the course of owning a PC, I seem to need it at least a couple times.
 
OBSESSION said:
I guess I could do it that way... but I'd only save $10 and give up a little CD speed.
Click to expand...

But also, Lite-On is of quality. I wouldn't recommend anything else.

And why buy a CD-RW and a DVD+/-R/RW anyways? thats more of a waste. the 16X DVD-ROM can also serve as a 40X CD-ROM, not to mention that the burner can do both DVDs and CDs.
 
If your ears are so-so, use the onboard sound first and see if you like it. You can always add a soundcard later.

Always assume you will EVENTUALLY overclock. Even if you don't plan to, the having the option to do so is always good.

I recently went from a DVD drive + CDRW Drive to a single DVD+/-RW, and while I like the idea of less power draw and heat inside the case, I'm finding I liked the convenience of having dual drives (for disk duplication) better. You might just get a DVD reader instead of the CDRW as your second drive. Also, consider getting one of the newer dual layer DVD+/-RWs, they're surprisingly only a few bucks more, still typically under 100.00 for the drive.

BB
 
JSClark said:
I would go for the 9800XT myself. the X800 is still too new, who knows if there are going to be problems down the road?
Click to expand...


So you want him to spend the same amount of money yet get only 50-60% of the performance. Yeah ok. :rolleyes: Even if there are "problems" down the road you'd be hard pressed to ever find a situation where the X800 Pro loses to the 9800XT.
 
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