Advice needed on building first comp

MIK3daG33K · 01-20-2006, 02:26 PM

Not for gaming AMD is proven better for gaming while intel beats AMD in synthetic tasks. Looks good so far, but definitly get that second stick of RAM. 512 just won't cut it now a days.

rahving · 01-20-2006, 02:37 PM

Thanks for the input everyone, appreciate it. Yet again, another updated component list for you. I believe this will be very close to the final list, if not the one.

$160.00 (NE) AMD Athlon 64 3200+ 1GHz FSB Socket 939 Processor - Retail ($1.99 S&H)

$65.99 (DT) Abit UL8 Uli M1689 ATX Motherboard, Support AMD Socket 939 Dual Core Processors, Dual DDR400, SATA RAID, w/ Audio, LAN

$27.99 (NE) LITE-ON Black IDE Combo Drive Model SOHC-5236V BK OEM - OEM ($4.89 S&H)

$40.99 (NE) Kingston ValueRAM 512MB 184-Pin DDR SDRAM Unbuffered DDR 400 (PC 3200) System Memory - Retail ($4.81 S&H)

$53.00 (NE) ASUS N6200/TD/128 Geforce 6200 128MB DDR AGP 4X/8X Low Profile Video Card - Retail ($4.50 S&H)

$47.99 (DT) Black Raidmax Milano Mid-tower Computer ATX Case w/ Side Air Duct, 420W PSU, Model: 405BP

Let me know what you think.

gamerman4 · 01-20-2006, 03:12 PM

looks good but the nForce chipset is preferred by many gamers.

rahving · 01-21-2006, 09:15 AM

Thanks for the info guys. Question about the nforce chipset on the mobo...how much of a difference would there be with vs without it? I'm looking to keep my mobo cost under around $75, so if anyone has a recommendation for me, shoot.

**Praetor** · 01-21-2006, 12:49 PM

Quote:

Reason for the sound card is I heard while the above mobo is great/reliable for it's price, sometimes the onboard sound doesn't work. Thanks again.

1. The board sucks
2. PCChips sucks
3. Onboard sound is plenty fine

Quote:

and what are you basing this statement on?

No idea, but my box will prolly be a better platform overall

Quote:

AMD has been generally used for gaming rigs because it has showed that it can usually outperform a similar Intel CPU at the same price. The Intel rig you posted earlier would actually perform slower than the AMD rig since the 3200 on the Athlon means it can perform as well as an Intel CPU at 3.2 Ghz. These have some accuracy to them and the Intel CPU you posted is only 2.66 Ghz, well below the AMD performace rating. The GPU on the Intel rig is also probably slower since you wanted an FX5200 and on the AMD rig, you want a 6200. Though you did initially put 1GB RAM into the Intel Rig, the 512MB RAM in the AM rig will keep you going enough for you to get that second 512MB stick later.

1. Its not a FX5200, its GF6200
2. The CPU doesnt bloody matter, that comp is so GPU bound it silly

Quote:

Not for gaming AMD is proven better for gaming while intel beats AMD in synthetic tasks. Looks good so far, but definitly get that second stick of RAM. 512 just won't cut it now a days.

1. You've never seen a PentiumM vs Athlon64FX showdown before have you?

2. The CPU doesnt matter in this case since, well, um, its going to be GPU bound like silly

Quote:

Thanks for the input everyone, appreciate it. Yet again, another updated component list for you. I believe this will be very close to the final list, if not the one.
$160.00 (NE) AMD Athlon 64 3200+ 1GHz FSB Socket 939 Processor - Retail ($1.99 S&H)
$65.99 (DT) Abit UL8 Uli M1689 ATX Motherboard, Support AMD Socket 939 Dual Core Processors, Dual DDR400, SATA RAID, w/ Audio, LAN
$27.99 (NE) LITE-ON Black IDE Combo Drive Model SOHC-5236V BK OEM - OEM ($4.89 S&H)
$40.99 (NE) Kingston ValueRAM 512MB 184-Pin DDR SDRAM Unbuffered DDR 400 (PC 3200) System Memory - Retail ($4.81 S&H)
$53.00 (NE) ASUS N6200/TD/128 Geforce 6200 128MB DDR AGP 4X/8X Low Profile Video Card - Retail ($4.50 S&H)
$47.99 (DT) Black Raidmax Milano Mid-tower Computer ATX Case w/ Side Air Duct, 420W PSU, Model: 405BP
Let me know what you think.

Much improved, but again, still GPU bound... you wont be getting anything resembling a gaming box for that budget im afraid but that will probably be the best that you can do.

Quote:

looks good but the nForce chipset is preferred by many gamers.

Of course most gamers dont know why they prefer the nFroce chipset

You've also got budget considerations ... that and ULI chipsets rock

rahving · 01-21-2006, 01:22 PM

Thanks for your insight Praetor, helps a lot. To give you a little more info from my end, yes indeed it is intended to be a gaming machine, but not a hardcore one by any means. I've had the same P3 733 Mhz comp now for the last 5 yrs or so. TNT2 graphics card.

Basically I'm looking for a comp that will allow me to play new games, as many as possible on medium settings. I'm looking to try out Dungeons & Dragons: Stormreach when it is fully out, since I've played Asheron's Call for a few years, also made by Turbine. As long as this comp can run games equivalent to WoW decently, I'll be happy.

I will be looking to upgrade my graphics card sometime from the planned 6200, my processor from the 3200+, and like I mentioned before (and upgrading first of course), is my ram. Thanks again people for your advice, I think I am done with my component list

Btw - this is a stupid question from someone who should easily know better, but a CD/RW + DVD combo drive comes with 2 individual trays right? I only ask this because on some sites like newegg and directron...the pics of them only display one.

**Praetor** · 01-21-2006, 01:26 PM

Quote:

Thanks for your insight Praetor, helps a lot. To give you a little more info from my end, yes indeed it is intended to be a gaming machine, but not a hardcore one by any means. I've had the same P3 733 Mhz comp now for the last 5 yrs or so. TNT2 graphics card.

In that case, the box I specified above is a superb platform to start from .. it suffers the basic fallacy of the videocard (or rather lack thereof) as your box does but if you can up the budget by about $50 for a cheapo videocard it will be superb handsdown for your needs)

Quote:

Btw - this is a stupid question from someone who should easily know better, but a CD/RW + DVD combo drive comes with 2 individual trays right? I only ask this because on some sites like newegg and directron...the pics of them only display one.

No it comes with one tray.

rahving · 01-22-2006, 09:00 AM

I actually found a place that would put some or most of a custom-built comp together for free. Mwave assembles and tests barebone systems of your choice (with a lot of options).

I'm wondering what type of company mwave.com is, if they're reliable or not. I'd also like to run this setup through you guys to be guaranteed of compatibility. Lastly, I have heard good things about Antec, do you think that PSU with this case would be sufficient for my needs? I'm NOT planning to overclock, I would be adding only one 80GB HD, another stick of 512 DDR ram, and probably a basic DVD-rom drive.

If I went this route, I would only get to install a few of my components myself, but I would have the bonus of being at least fairly sure this thing would be built decent and would take very little ($20 tops) hit on cash compared to newegg or directron. Thanks again

http://www.mwave.com/mwave/Barebones.hmx?

case - ANTEC SLK3800B (BLACK) SUPER MID TOWER W/SMARTPOWER 2.0 400W POWER SUPPLY & FRONT USB CONNECTOR

mobo - ABIT UL8 ULI M1689 CHIPSET SERIAL ATA150 ATX FORM FACTOR 1xAGP(8X)/5xPCI/4xDDR W/SATA RAID,LAN,USB 2.0 & AUDIO (CPU TYPE:AMD ATHLON 64 - SOCKET 939)

cpu - AMD ATHLON 64 3200+ (ADA3200BPBOX) W/512KB CACHE 90NM (VENICE) 64-BIT SOCKET 939 RETAIL BOXED W/COOLING FAN (3 YEARS WARRANTY)

memory - KINGSTON KVR400X64C3A/512 512MB PC3200 400MHZ CL3 (3-3-3) DDR DIMM

fd - MITUSMI 1.44 FLOPPY (Bare drive-black color)

cd/dvd - LITE ON 52X/32X/52X BLACK EIDE INTERNAL CDRW BURN PROOF w/SW (White box) #SOHR5239S

gamerman4 · 01-22-2006, 08:42 PM

Quote:

I will be looking to upgrade my graphics card sometime from the planned 6200, my processor from the 3200+, and like I mentioned before (and upgrading first of course), is my ram. Thanks again people for your advice, I think I am done with my component list

The AMD64 3200+ should be plenty good enough for a while, your RAM and GPU are best to be upgraded sooner but you can keep the 3200+ for a while since it can handle most mid-high end systems well.

**Praetor** · 01-23-2006, 07:15 AM

MWave boxes are nothing special ... and you'll have a time and a half outdoing a dualcore box (as i spec'd) for a $500 budget

01-20-2006, 02:26 PM	#11 (permalink)
MIK3daG33K Gold Member Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: Detroit, MI Age: 22 Posts: 477	Not for gaming AMD is proven better for gaming while intel beats AMD in synthetic tasks. Looks good so far, but definitly get that second stick of RAM. 512 just won't cut it now a days. __________________ DFI LanParty UT Nforce4 Ultra-D AMD Opteron 170 @ 2700 (1.6 Vcore) w\ Thermaltake Big Typhoon 1 GB of OCZ Gold rev. 2 PC-3200 RAM (2.2.2.5) BFG Geforce 7800 GT (510 \ 1.25) w\ NV Silencer 5 Western Digital 120 / 160 GB SATA 7200 RPM hard drive Antec TruePower 2.0 550 W power supply Samsung SyncMaster 204B 20.1 in. (5 ms) Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeMusic Logitech Z-5300e 5.1 Surround Sound

01-20-2006, 03:12 PM	#13 (permalink)
gamerman4 Diamond Member Join Date: Aug 2005 Location: Arkansas Age: 18 Posts: 1,395	looks good but the nForce chipset is preferred by many gamers. __________________ NZXT Nemesis Elite Black Intel Q6600 @ 3.20 Ghz COOLER MASTER RL-EUL-GBU1-GP Watercooling Gigabyte DS3R P965 HDDs: 2 x 80GB 1 x 250GB 1 x 500GB 1x 750GB 2 x 1GB Patriot Extreme Perf. DDR2 nVidia 8800GT 512MB Antec Smartpower 2.0 400 Watt Obama/Biden 08

01-21-2006, 01:22 PM	#16 (permalink)
rahving Silver Member Join Date: Jan 2006 Posts: 195	Thanks for your insight Praetor, helps a lot. To give you a little more info from my end, yes indeed it is intended to be a gaming machine, but not a hardcore one by any means. I've had the same P3 733 Mhz comp now for the last 5 yrs or so. TNT2 graphics card. Basically I'm looking for a comp that will allow me to play new games, as many as possible on medium settings. I'm looking to try out Dungeons & Dragons: Stormreach when it is fully out, since I've played Asheron's Call for a few years, also made by Turbine. As long as this comp can run games equivalent to WoW decently, I'll be happy. I will be looking to upgrade my graphics card sometime from the planned 6200, my processor from the 3200+, and like I mentioned before (and upgrading first of course), is my ram. Thanks again people for your advice, I think I am done with my component list Btw - this is a stupid question from someone who should easily know better, but a CD/RW + DVD combo drive comes with 2 individual trays right? I only ask this because on some sites like newegg and directron...the pics of them only display one. Last edited by rahving; 01-21-2006 at 01:25 PM.

01-22-2006, 09:00 AM	#18 (permalink)
rahving Silver Member Join Date: Jan 2006 Posts: 195	Ok, kind of a freak thing just happened... I actually found a place that would put some or most of a custom-built comp together for free. Mwave assembles and tests barebone systems of your choice (with a lot of options). I'm wondering what type of company mwave.com is, if they're reliable or not. I'd also like to run this setup through you guys to be guaranteed of compatibility. Lastly, I have heard good things about Antec, do you think that PSU with this case would be sufficient for my needs? I'm NOT planning to overclock, I would be adding only one 80GB HD, another stick of 512 DDR ram, and probably a basic DVD-rom drive. If I went this route, I would only get to install a few of my components myself, but I would have the bonus of being at least fairly sure this thing would be built decent and would take very little ($20 tops) hit on cash compared to newegg or directron. Thanks again http://www.mwave.com/mwave/Barebones.hmx? case - ANTEC SLK3800B (BLACK) SUPER MID TOWER W/SMARTPOWER 2.0 400W POWER SUPPLY & FRONT USB CONNECTOR mobo - ABIT UL8 ULI M1689 CHIPSET SERIAL ATA150 ATX FORM FACTOR 1xAGP(8X)/5xPCI/4xDDR W/SATA RAID,LAN,USB 2.0 & AUDIO (CPU TYPE:AMD ATHLON 64 - SOCKET 939) cpu - AMD ATHLON 64 3200+ (ADA3200BPBOX) W/512KB CACHE 90NM (VENICE) 64-BIT SOCKET 939 RETAIL BOXED W/COOLING FAN (3 YEARS WARRANTY) memory - KINGSTON KVR400X64C3A/512 512MB PC3200 400MHZ CL3 (3-3-3) DDR DIMM fd - MITUSMI 1.44 FLOPPY (Bare drive-black color) cd/dvd - LITE ON 52X/32X/52X BLACK EIDE INTERNAL CDRW BURN PROOF w/SW (White box) #SOHR5239S Last edited by rahving; 01-22-2006 at 09:07 AM.

01-23-2006, 07:15 AM	#20 (permalink)
Praetor Administrator Join Date: Jul 2004 Location: Canada Age: 25 Posts: 19,954	MWave boxes are nothing special ... and you'll have a time and a half outdoing a dualcore box (as i spec'd) for a $500 budget __________________ ASUS P5K Premium WiFi-AP, Q6600@3.7 / ASUS P5ND, E6400@3.8 4GB OCz Platinum XTC 8500 / 4GB CorsairXMS2 6400 5x500GB Seagate 7200.10 / 2x500 Seagate 7200.10 OCz 8800GTX 768MB @ 630/800 / 2x Galaxy 8800GT SLI

01-20-2006, 02:37 PM	#12 (permalink)
rahving Silver Member Join Date: Jan 2006 Posts: 195	Thanks for the input everyone, appreciate it. Yet again, another updated component list for you. I believe this will be very close to the final list, if not the one. $160.00 (NE) AMD Athlon 64 3200+ 1GHz FSB Socket 939 Processor - Retail ($1.99 S&H) $65.99 (DT) Abit UL8 Uli M1689 ATX Motherboard, Support AMD Socket 939 Dual Core Processors, Dual DDR400, SATA RAID, w/ Audio, LAN $27.99 (NE) LITE-ON Black IDE Combo Drive Model SOHC-5236V BK OEM - OEM ($4.89 S&H) $40.99 (NE) Kingston ValueRAM 512MB 184-Pin DDR SDRAM Unbuffered DDR 400 (PC 3200) System Memory - Retail ($4.81 S&H) $53.00 (NE) ASUS N6200/TD/128 Geforce 6200 128MB DDR AGP 4X/8X Low Profile Video Card - Retail ($4.50 S&H) $47.99 (DT) Black Raidmax Milano Mid-tower Computer ATX Case w/ Side Air Duct, 420W PSU, Model: 405BP Let me know what you think.

01-21-2006, 09:15 AM	#14 (permalink)
rahving Silver Member Join Date: Jan 2006 Posts: 195	Thanks for the info guys. Question about the nforce chipset on the mobo...how much of a difference would there be with vs without it? I'm looking to keep my mobo cost under around $75, so if anyone has a recommendation for me, shoot.

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