- Joined
- Mar 23, 2002
- Location
- Saint Louis, Missouri
I think I’ve narrowed down my choices to the final computer template that I am going to be saving towards and possibly piecing together over the next months. I’ve no idea how long it will take to amass the money to buy them all, but it’s nice to have goals, right?
At this point, I’m looking for your opinions on separate things- do you know a particular item is good/bad? If it’s bad, can you suggest a price equivalent alternative? I’m not worried that much about exact prices right now- I know I’ll be able to get many, though not all, of these items through my work (I work for a computer supply dealer) and therefore get free freight, which is nice, but I’ll shop around for the best prices once I know for certain which specific items I want. I saw a website the other day, zipzoomfly.com or something? They offer free 2nd-day shipping on most items which is a good deal.
I think this set-up leaves some room for expandability, though not a ton, and if I want to move up to the Athlon64 and/or PCI Express formats later, that will be another project. I’m working this plan out to be relatively realistic in scope and possibility, hehe.
I’m starting with the Athlon XP 3000+ 2.0GHz. I'dbe interested in overclocking but have never done anything like that before. This will be my first build. That interests me and even without tinkering it should be pretty fast, which I can hardly wait to experience, seeing as I’m working on a PIII 550Mhz box now!
The motherboard is the ASUS A7N8X-E Deluxe, ATX form factor, nVidia nForce2 Ultra 4 chipset, 400Mhz FBS, UDMA 133, SATA (RAID) AGP 8x, Gigabit Ethernet, Firewire, dual channel DDR 3GB max.
Memory will be Corsair TWINX1024-3200C2 1GB (2 x 512MB) Corsair’s site specifically recommends this for the motherboard I chose.
Based on the experience of a friend, I'd really like to have the GForce 6600 GT graphics adapter and I like the ASUS N6600GT/TD. By the time I can afford a new card, maybe it would be the 6800, but this one I know works well.
I like Seagate hard drives and I plan, at least to start with, sticking with one 80GB like I have now. I’d go for twin drives if the budget allows and they will be the SATA 150 versions, 7200rpm with 8mb buffer.
Also based on advice given various places, I’ll get the Audigy 2 sound card. There’s a Value version available for $25-30 less than the original.
Any brand, internal IDE CD-RW drive 52x32x52x
I’d like to go with an aluminum mid-tower case, and the ones I’ve seen which I like are either InWin or Lian-Li, about $100, come with at least 3 case fans and slide out trays for motherboard and hard drives, thumbscrews, etc. Lian-Li has a few specifically labeled as “silent cases” which may be interesting to check out.
The sound card, case, fans, CD-RW drive, and any other accessories I might need- cables, cpu fan/heat sink, etc, I can likely find locally and save on shipping there as well. I’m guessing about $800 to cover everything at this point, about $200 more than I originally planned, but I’d like to stick with that video card and I want to have a nice case in the end. This is not just my gaming rig but will be the “family” internet, email, and digital photo lab as well, so it has to be presentable enough to satisfy the fashion minded wife, which is fine by me.
I don't think I really have the money to invest in Athlon 64 or PCI Express rightnow, but as I said, by the time I have any money, maybe they'll be more affordable.
Please critique and advise- let it be known that the majority or use for this machine is playing an online MMORPG, heavy duty graphics intensive game, Dark Age of Camelot. Thanks for your help!
At this point, I’m looking for your opinions on separate things- do you know a particular item is good/bad? If it’s bad, can you suggest a price equivalent alternative? I’m not worried that much about exact prices right now- I know I’ll be able to get many, though not all, of these items through my work (I work for a computer supply dealer) and therefore get free freight, which is nice, but I’ll shop around for the best prices once I know for certain which specific items I want. I saw a website the other day, zipzoomfly.com or something? They offer free 2nd-day shipping on most items which is a good deal.
I think this set-up leaves some room for expandability, though not a ton, and if I want to move up to the Athlon64 and/or PCI Express formats later, that will be another project. I’m working this plan out to be relatively realistic in scope and possibility, hehe.
I’m starting with the Athlon XP 3000+ 2.0GHz. I'dbe interested in overclocking but have never done anything like that before. This will be my first build. That interests me and even without tinkering it should be pretty fast, which I can hardly wait to experience, seeing as I’m working on a PIII 550Mhz box now!
The motherboard is the ASUS A7N8X-E Deluxe, ATX form factor, nVidia nForce2 Ultra 4 chipset, 400Mhz FBS, UDMA 133, SATA (RAID) AGP 8x, Gigabit Ethernet, Firewire, dual channel DDR 3GB max.
Memory will be Corsair TWINX1024-3200C2 1GB (2 x 512MB) Corsair’s site specifically recommends this for the motherboard I chose.
Based on the experience of a friend, I'd really like to have the GForce 6600 GT graphics adapter and I like the ASUS N6600GT/TD. By the time I can afford a new card, maybe it would be the 6800, but this one I know works well.
I like Seagate hard drives and I plan, at least to start with, sticking with one 80GB like I have now. I’d go for twin drives if the budget allows and they will be the SATA 150 versions, 7200rpm with 8mb buffer.
Also based on advice given various places, I’ll get the Audigy 2 sound card. There’s a Value version available for $25-30 less than the original.
Any brand, internal IDE CD-RW drive 52x32x52x
I’d like to go with an aluminum mid-tower case, and the ones I’ve seen which I like are either InWin or Lian-Li, about $100, come with at least 3 case fans and slide out trays for motherboard and hard drives, thumbscrews, etc. Lian-Li has a few specifically labeled as “silent cases” which may be interesting to check out.
The sound card, case, fans, CD-RW drive, and any other accessories I might need- cables, cpu fan/heat sink, etc, I can likely find locally and save on shipping there as well. I’m guessing about $800 to cover everything at this point, about $200 more than I originally planned, but I’d like to stick with that video card and I want to have a nice case in the end. This is not just my gaming rig but will be the “family” internet, email, and digital photo lab as well, so it has to be presentable enough to satisfy the fashion minded wife, which is fine by me.
I don't think I really have the money to invest in Athlon 64 or PCI Express rightnow, but as I said, by the time I have any money, maybe they'll be more affordable.
Please critique and advise- let it be known that the majority or use for this machine is playing an online MMORPG, heavy duty graphics intensive game, Dark Age of Camelot. Thanks for your help!
