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Would you qualify this as decent?

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lemings

Member
Joined
Oct 10, 2005
Location
Texas
(Trying to keep the budget less than or equal to $1000 USD here)

Case: Antec Performance TX1050b
CPU: AMD Athlon 64 3500+ (Venice)
Mobo: MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum
RAM: Will be going with the usuall Corsair 1gb kit here
Video: Sapphire x800gto2
HDD: Hitachi T7k250 7200 (250gb)
CD/DVD: BenQ DW1620

Also, do you guys think getting Windows XP 64 ed would be a wise investment (I don't mind if this brings me a little over the $1000 mark or should I wait for longhorn to arrive (currently using XP Home))

Thanks in advance
-------------------
Lemings
 
Looks good, what PSU will you be using?
I think driver support to Win64 is still limited, personally I'd rather WinXP

EDIT: Welcome!!! :welcome:
 
Last edited:
Welcome to the forums!

That does look good....a suggestion though if your going to be gaming drop the CPU down and upgrade the video card. a 7800GT possibly or if your strictly ATI perhaps a 850 or 1800 (not sure on those costs though)
 
What is this rig going to be used for? Might think about upgrading to 2gb kit if you want a little extra room to grow.

Just don't go cheap on the PSU and that looks like a winning system.
 
Yeah, just make sure you invest in a quality PSU. The 500w Fortron Blue Storm is a very nice PSU that will power most anything you throw at it and is relatively inexpensive ($75-$80).

That video card should do you good, it's a nice choice.
I don't see the need for 2Gb of RAM just quite yet. The only game I've seen that can show a noticeable performance improvement with 2Gb of RAM over 1Gb is Battlefield 2.

I don't think you should go with Win64 just quite yet as I think the driver support is still lagging behind a little. Give it some time and things will catch up, but for now you might as well just go with regular XP just for sake of stability/combatability.

Do your homework and see if there are any other motherboards out there that you like because I've heard really mixed results about the s939 boards. I have a Chaintech VNF4 Ultra and it is solid but not a good overclocker. Many others have had amazing success with the DFI NF4 series boards if you like to tinker with BIOS settings. But it's all up to you.

Do you even plan to overclock at all? If so, making sure you get the Corsair XL with 2-2-2 timings would be a good investment as it overclocks very well.

I've heard good things about the new Hitachi HDD's so I'd say you're good to go there. Choosing a drive with SATA II and NCQ would also be wise. But make sure it supports NCQ (Native Command Queing) because I'm pretty sure that just because a drive says it is SATA II, doesn't necessarily mean that it has NCQ...

My only other suggestion would be to maybe check out the prices of the 3200 Venice as it is a good amount cheaper than the 3500 but still performs and overclocks very well compared to the 3500. But if you are not concerned with saving every extra $, then you will not be let down by the 3500 :)
 
I'd say don't spend the extra money getting XP 64 Edition, if you already have a OS, it's not worth buying a whole new one that barely gives any performance increase for now. It only gives a few points in benchmarks and not even noticeable in gaming.

Since you probably won't be OCing, (I'm assuming that because of value ram and motherboard), then I'd say get the 3700+. It may be worth it for you to go with the extra cache since you won't be OCing much on your current core. But if you do plan on OCing, I'd say drop down to the 3000+ and grab a DFI with better ram.

So yeah, the only changes I'd say is getting the 3700+ and a new PSU, maybe even a better video card if needed.
 
darksparkz said:
So yeah, the only changes I'd say is getting the 3700+ and a new PSU, maybe even a better video card if needed.
By the time you bump up to a 3700 San Diego, you might as well start pricing out the X2 3800!

I think the 3200 is a better bang for your buck in the single core realm. But If you're willing to spend almost $300 for a 3700, it would be a worthwhile investment to spend another ~$60 for dual core with the 3800.
 
Looks absolutely awsome to me. But as said before, keep in mind that fancy components tend to sometimes suck more juice, especially overclocking as well. Try to make sure your powersupply is good enough. For a system like that, and if you plan to do any overclocking, a decent 400-550 watt PSU would be good. I currently have:

Thoroughbred B 1700 at 2.4GHz
KT400 chipset based motherboard
ATi Radeon 9000 Pro
512mb of ram running at 200MHz and 3.2VDIMM (I don't suggest going this high unless you know what you are doing, my ram is cheap and can be easily replaced if I burn it out)
40GB HD
48X CD burner

I have a 520watt AG PSU (pretty much a no-name brand) and my 5 and 12 volt rails are already sagging.
 
gvblake22 said:
By the time you bump up to a 3700 San Diego, you might as well start pricing out the X2 3800!

That's true, they're about $50 more. Considering what you get though it's well worth it.
 
@md0Cer said:
I currently have:

Thoroughbred B 1700 at 2.4GHz
KT400 chipset based motherboard
ATi Radeon 9000 Pro
512mb of ram running at 200MHz and 3.2VDIMM (I don't suggest going this high unless you know what you are doing, my ram is cheap and can be easily replaced if I burn it out)
40GB HD
48X CD burner
What do you think of the VIA socket A chipsets vs. the nVidia NF2?
 
gvblake22 said:
What do you think of the VIA socket A chipsets vs. the nVidia NF2?


It really depends, they tend to lack lots of features that the NF2 chipsets have. That would include dual channel memory, the ability to run the ram async, and PCI/AGP locks as major problems. Later Via chipsets brought some improvements.

Some of the design and quality can tend to make up for the lack of such features though.

For example, on my KT400 board (basically a KT333 with AGP8X, support and dividers for 200FSB CPU's didn't come until the KT400A) I have three divider settings for the AGP and PCI. They are PCI:AGP:FSB:

3:2:1
4:2:1
5:2:1

Currently running the 5:2:1 divider I am able to run my FSB stable at 200MHz. This puts my AGP at 100MHz and my PCI at 40. These boards are very stable with high bus speeds, so even though I would still really like dividers to get FSB speeds in excess of 200MHz, they really aren't that necessary.

If your CPU is a locked one, the PCI/AGP locks or higher dividers become much more necessary as your overclock depends more on the FSB. For me though, it doesn't matter because I have the full range of CPU multipliers unlocked. At the time I really wanted an Abit NF7, but I had a limited budget and found a great deal on a KD7.
 
No problem. I am definitely not a hater of Via chipsets, and my experience has only been with the "crappy" ones. From what I hear chipsets like the K8T800 Pro and K8T890 are pretty good. Then again the Nforce 4's are not bad either.
 
Yeah I'd drop down to a 3000+, and get an epox board instead of that MSI and use the money you saved on a better psu, and if possible a better videocard.
 
Wow you guys reply fast :)

Concerning the PSU question, included with the case is a 500Watt Antec Truepower 2.0 unit, I have read decent reviews on this unit, its not overclocking material, but it will do me for now.

As for the motherboard, I really was undecided on that and stuck with the option that seemed best to me, Suggestions here are very welcome.

I will be using this system mostly to game on. I was intending to make it where if I wanted to I could interchange key parts for overclocking later on down the road. I was thinking of going with the 3000+ and get some decent overclocking ram but here I was undecided also and went with the higher cpu clock speed, Would you guys recommend going 3000+ (Venice) and instead getting some decent overclocking ram, or stick with the higher clock on the 3500?

As for the video card, I got this because it fit with my budget (With the 3500+) and I heard it was very overclockable for the price. All though if I do downgrade to the 3000+ I am open for suggestions here.

Thanks for the welcome, I hope to help out any way that I can on the forums.
 
if you don't want to jump on the dual core gun yet, a 3000+ and some decent ram should do perfectly. I recommend OCZ but that's just me and although an x800gto2(sapphire only) can x850xt pe, a 7800gt could probably whup it. I'd wait till the new x1800xt comes out and becomes mainstream before you do anything.

-1cem4n
 
That 500W Antec Truepower should do just fine. Most cases come with 400-550 watt no namers that cannot perform worth crap.
 
Like 1cem4n said get the Sapphire card and over clock to x850xt pe speeds. Incase you need the mod it can be found here: GTO2
Another reccomendation would be to spring for a 7800GT. Also as others have stated make sure you have a good PSU to back up all of you components. I would reccomend the OCZ Powerstream 520 Watt. Everything else looks good. Hope this helps.

*EDIT*

I would also consider the Antec SLK-3000b as another great option for your computer case. They can usually be had for under $50 shipped.
 
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