In my continuing quest...

[Tiny]

...for the perfect compromise between price and performance, i found a new system. The following goes for £1,016.15

Coolermaster Centurion Case (Black)
LED Fan (either Blue, Red or Tri-Colour. Which is best?)
450W QTEC Twin Fan
GIGABYTE GA-K8NS-PRO Motherboard
AMD 64-Bit 3400+
1536MB DDR400 PC3200
160GB 7200rpm ATA133 8MB
80GB Serial ATA 150
16x DVD
52x32x52 CD-RW
GeForce FX5950 ULTRA 256MB DDR + DVI/TV
Soundblaster 5.1 Live! Sound Card
17" CRT
Win XP Home

Can any of these parts be replaced with better ones without compromising on the price?

If it helps, i will be using the system for gaming, surfing, and D/Ling music.

thanks in advance

 

[Praetor]

- I dont have experience with that mobo so i wont comment
- Is that a 'Hammer or Newcastle CPU? I'd take the Newcastle if possible
- You're better off with 1GB or 2GB of memory because then (a) you can run the memory at full speed (instead of downclocking) and(b) u can make use of dual channel
- Not so much the DVDROM but get a good CDRW, say one by Lite-On or ASUS, both are quite cheap nowadays
- You should be able to get a base 6800-128MB for less/same as the 5950
- With the money you've saved so far, consider the Audigy2
- More details on the CRT would be good

 

[Tiny]

Preator, about what you said about the RAM.
On the site, it says that that particular motherboard is not capable of dual channel. I chose it because it had 3 memory slots. The motherboard that is capable of dual channel is only compaitble with AMD Athlon/Duron processors.
The highest athlon available there is the 3200XP, and i would think that that is slower than the 64 3400+. Would it be worth me swithching the mobo, just so i can get 1GB Dual Channel, or should i stay with the current and go down to 1GB?

thanks

 

[Praetor]

On the site, it says that that particular motherboard is not capable of dual channel. I chose it because it had 3 memory slots. The motherboard that is capable of dual channel is only compaitble with AMD Athlon/Duron processors.

- If the mobo doesnt run Dual Channel, odds are its not worth buying
- Intel boards support Dual Channel (in fact they usually have a better implementation of it than AMD boards)

The highest athlon available there is the 3200XP, and I would think that that is slower than the 64 3400+.

The opposite actually. The XP3200 is apart of the aging AthlonXP line while the 64 is a part of the Athlon64 series. On the topic of CPUs you'll probably want to get a socket 939 board as (a) there's more performance compared to say the socket754s (b) you dont need to use registered memory as per the socket940s and (c) both the socket754s and socket940s are discontinued for Athlon64s. If you get a Newcastle you wont have to worry about different socket revisions as i think all Newcastles are socket939

Would it be worth me swithching the mobo, just so I can get 1GB Dual Channel, or should I stay with the current and go down to 1GB?

It would be worth getting the dual channel config.

 

[Tiny]

thanks

 

[Praetor]

Glad I could clear it up

 

[Tiny]

instead of creating a new topic, i'll continue here:

i was able to choose a diff PC setup, so i could start with the Asus P5GD1 PCI Express mobo. i now changed the processor to Intel Pentium 4 540 3.2GHz and the RAM to 1GB dual chnl. Other than that, the setup is the same except for the graphs card. i had to change it to a GeForce PCX5900 128MB DDR. I'd like to know how much worse/better this card is compared to the FX5950. i could also get the Radeon X600 XT 128MB, but i don't know much about that one.

 

[Praetor]

i had to change it to a GeForce PCX5900 128MB DDR. I'd like to know how much worse/better this card is compared to the FX5950. I could also get the Radeon X600 XT 128MB, but I don't know much about that one.

- The difference between the 5900 and the 5950 isnt earthshattering
- Id stay far away from the X600 if possible.... the 9800Pro outpaces it in several categoires and its a generation older. I dunno if they make them in PCIx but there is the GeForce6800 which is quite affordable and outpaces all the cards i just mentioned

 

[Tiny]

unfortunately, the 6800 isn't available in PCX on the site. the fastest available on the site is the 5900. i suppose it'll do. Thanks for your help (again)!

 

[Praetor]

Not a problem .... might you consider waiting? The newer 6600 cards are due in September and will be at least on par with the 59x0 cards and probably noticeably better