HELP! building new rig for 2 grand

[tom10167]

ill admit that 2 gigs of ram is overkill, but i dont think i can be talked out of it

now i need a good mobo for the athlon 64 3200+...
the chaintechs look very nice, but also very pricey (for the top model) and only 3 slots for ram which means i would have to change to 1 gig sticks which means even more money

anyone know of a nice athlon 64 mobo under 150, with 4 slots for ram and onboard ethernet?

The difference between 1 gigabyte and two gigabytes is SIGNIFICANTLY LESS than the difference between a 7,200RPM SATA drive and a Raptor. Significantly.

 

[fatccrunner]

The difference between 1 gigabyte and two gigabytes is SIGNIFICANTLY LESS than the difference between a 7,200RPM SATA drive and a Raptor. Significantly.

i have to agree... when i bought my system from dell, i got 512mb of ram in it and about 6 months later i decided to pay the extra $100 for another stick and i noticed ZERO performance difference (shhh dont tell my parents) there probably was a little increase but not too significant at all

i think the 2 gigs of ram is overkill also... i would spend your money on another raptor or even the bigger raptor because you will notice the performance increase there... i can almost gurantee that... my money would go to the raptors if it was me

 

[ares350]

2gigs of photoshop work? thats... alot.

Im not totally up on it. but lets assume your using high res photos, how much you thinking? 10mb? that would be one HELL of an image, I dont think an 8mp photo is that big but anyway. with 1gig, you could have a lot of layers open if every layer took 10mb...

am I misunderstanding how that works? seems like you could never fill 1gig with photos, let alone 2. and its only PC3200 too. wont an A64 system take faster ram?

 

[tom10167]

Someone who has Photoshop(I don't feel like installing it for this) run it and just do whatever it takes and see if you can max out a gig of memory. Seriously, it's wasteful overkill, especially considering everything else isn't top of the line, PLEASE don't get two gigs.

 

[LoN]

ok how about this

athlon 64 3200+
an nforce 3 250 mobo
and since these seem to only come with 3 slots for ram, i get only 1.5 gigs
take the money saved from eliminating a stick of ram (132 bucks) and upgrade the 36 gig raptor to the faster 80 gig raptor

opinions?

i know my desire for tons of ram doesnt seem to be popular but anyone who uses photoshop or adobe premier especially knows that these things eat ram like its nothing. then factor in that at the moment my games of choice are the battlefield series (their ram requirements literally know no bounds, people see load times dramatically decrease on large maps when going from 1 gig to 2 gigs of ram).

again i appreciate the opinions and help

 

[LoN]

also i have a question, i was looking at getting faster ram but i have literally seen no motherboards taht say they suport faster than pc-3200/ddr 400. newbish question, but can you just put faster ram on any motherboard ?

ok tornado sirens are going off so i need to go ti the basement i suppose...

 

[tom10167]

3200speed ram will be suitable, you aren't going to get any huge overclocks out of an A-64 anyways. I like the idea of only getting 1.5 gigs and getting a big Raptor. Seriously, let me know if you use more than 1 gig, I've never seen or heard of it.

 

[LoN]

opinions on these boards?

chaintech CHAINTECH VNF3-250
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=13-152-043&depa=0

gigabyte GA-K8NS PRO
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=13-128-241&depa=0

they both use the nforce3 250 chipset and are in my pricerange.

 

[ares350]

if you do go 2gigs by some insane reason, I think youd want 2x1gig. as dont the A64s run dual channel too? I thought that was the gimmick to the Nforce series.

perhaps you buy 1 gig(single stick) and try it out. see if you can ever max it out. and if so, pick up the second stick.

 

[Kbird]

Get this board

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=13-152-042&depa=0

and just buy one gig stick, and later this year if you feel you need the upgrade buy another gig stick and run two gigs in dual mode.

then you get a great board and save some money

sorry ares350 I just noticed you had the same idea yesterday