Building plans for 64 Rig...Suggestions please!

Hey guys...I'm looking into building an Ahtlon64 rig & need some advice on what to get. I don't know what combo provides the best OC/stability...I've been out of the loop since I've been working 12 hours a day and having to share internet time with 5 different people on one 1 PC on a DU connection...I still have to do some research on how to OC on 64s, but for now I'll build the rig so I have something to experiment with during my research...So...I'm looking for:

a good mobo (I hear nForce3 is better than KT600) with SATA & PCI-e...
good OC'ing CPU($200 limit) to go with it...
good PCI-e card...not top-of-the-line, but not standard...a bit better than average card...
best sound card on the market...
speakers: probably gonna go with an older model 7.1 system.

all suggestions welcome...yes, I'm an AMDfan, so no Intel suggestions, please.
vid cards: I'm open to both nVidia & ATi.

For a motherboard I recommend the DFI Lanparty UT Ultra-D
Processor: A64 3000+
Vid card: ATi X800GT or 6600GT
Sound: Creative X-FI
Power Supply: any name brand rated at or over 500 watts.
Memory: Huge choice here, purchasing 2x 1gig is you best bet.

3000+ and DFI mobo...I say go 6800GT though...much better card and worth the increased cost IMO.
I would say go with 2x512 of value RAM
Speakers...7.1 is truly worthless, basicly nothings encoded with it, go 5.1 at the most, I would stick with 4.1...logitech makes great bang for the buck setups...Klipsch are more but well worth it IMO.
Not a fan of creative....unles the X-FI changed entirely it's still a derivative of a 10 year old technology. The chaintech AV-710 would be my choice...that and good speakers.

i'd opt (LOLGETITLOL) for the s939 opteron 144 rathr than the 3000+

kwago said:

i'd opt (LOLGETITLOL) for the s939 opteron 144 rathr than the 3000+

Click to expand...

Your right the Opty is better than the 3000+. I forgot that they are now becoming widely available.

Everything Quest For Speed said sounds about right.

But the 6600GT is not really "above" average nowadays, its probably considered average. The 6600GT is for people in the price range of about $150 for video cards. But if you spend to the upwards of $250, you can get a great 6800GT.

The Creative X-Fi cards are top of the line now, some of them range from $110 to $350ish.

For the PSU, I'd choose any model from Forton, OCZ, and PCP&C. But I'd recommend the Forton AX500-A, it's about $85ish at ewiz and its great for your system choices, rock stable too.

The ram is all on your what you do with your computer. If you want OCing ram, go for 2x512MB. If you rather have performance over OCing ram, stick with 2x1GB. If you don't need OCing, and think 1GB is fine, 2x512MB Value ram is a good deal too.

for 10$ more, you can get the 7800gt. 2gb sets of RAM from OCZ overclock extremely well and have the benefit of being able to play bf2 with no lag.

-1cem4n

Thanks for the input guys.

So far, I'm looking at:
A64 3000+ Venice
DFI Lanparty UT Ultra-D (damn...didn't know nF4 was already out/dual LAN?! sweet!)
Gigabyte Dual GF 6600 256MB GDDR3 if the Lanboy runs in SLI Mode
Gigabyte GF 6800GT 256MB GDDR3 if not
2x512 Geil PC3200 (Lanboy stats show only 3200 support.
WD 120GB SATA HDD

...more later.

Definetly DO NOT do SLI
waste of money unless your getting the absolute top of the line...cuz the 6800GT is on par if not better than 2 6600's and you have no room for upgrading the SLI.
Oh and the DFI will support 3200 or higher...but athlons don't get much performance boost from better RAM (it does give it a boost, but the cash can be spent better elsewhere)

get a 7800gt and the epox nForce4 ultra board. go for corsair value select but mushkin is good. ocz is best of the best imo.

-1cem4n

The 7800GT I think is beyond the price range he's looking for.
I saw some refurbished 6800GTs running for lower $200s on Newegg, which will probably be your best bet right now.

As mentioned, SLI is a waste of money, since a single card can outperform it for a similar price.

Note: NF3 motherboards supports AGP cards, and NF4 supports PCI-e.

The DFI NF4 LANPARTY boards are quite excellent overclockers. Just make sure you know what you're doing. You could seriously damage a component if you do something you're not supposed to lol.

the dfi boards are a little twitchy though and the Epox is just as good IMO. the 7800gt is as low as $365 and they will run circles around the 6800gt.

-1cem4n

1cem4n said:

the 7800gt is as low as $365
-1cem4n

Click to expand...

Actually $314 lol
http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=416389
Scroll down to the Dell deal. I'm not sure ya wanna deal with Tigerdirect.
I'll still stand by the 6800GT, if SAO really doesn't deem it necessary to spend so much on a video card.