buying new comp 1000 gbp budget

[mrtwing]

wich of these 2 is better?

amd 4000+
ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe Motherboard
Pine Technology XFX GeForce 7800 GTX, (256 MB) Graphic Card
Kingston 400MHz 1 GB PC3200 DDR RAM (kvr400x64c3a/1g)
Western Digital Caviar WD2000JB Special Edition 200 GB Hard Drive
Antec Sonata II ATX case
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INTEL P4 6XX (BX80547PG3600F) 3.6GHZ SKT775 660 800FSB 2MB EMT64 RETAIL BOX
ASUS P5AD2-E Premium Motherboard
Pine Technology XFX GeForce 7800 GTX, (256 MB) Graphic Card
Crucial Technology 1 GB PC2-4200 DDR2 RAM (ct12864aa53e)
Western Digital Caviar WD2000JB Special Edition 200 GB Hard Drive
Antec Sonata II ATX Mini-Tower Case

both these systems cost about 1000 gbp
bit of a nooby so if anything is not compatible please tell and should i wait a couple of months for the x1800
how difficult/risky is it installing these proccesers as ive never done it before and dont want to send 350 gbp down the ****ter

[hockey man]

Welcome mrtwing! If your going to game go AMD, if your are planning for some editing go Intel. Now the only compatibility issues I sea is with your Hard Drive. You chose an Ultra ATA. You want to get SATA II (3.0). Here is a nice 160GB Hitachi (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822145088). It is at the same price as the one you chose. Also, with a system like that you are going to want a better PSU. Why spend more than a grand and have it go down the trap due to a poor PSU? Check out this ENERMAX 485Watt (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817103458) PSU for $123. For Video cards, don't wait for the newest, becasue there will always be one! The 7800 GTX spanks butt; I'd get it! My only suggestion is that I've never heard of Pine Technologies before. Here is a MSI one (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814127187). Also, for the Intel MOBO look at this ABIT (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813127213).

[mrtwing]

thanks hockey
is that the rong hdd for both?

[hockey man]

Yep. Ultra-ATA is out. SATA (Serial ATA) 1.5 is what most budget MOBOs use. SATA II is the newer nad faster one that high end MOBOs use.

[mrtwing]

the antec has a SmartPower2.0 450 power supply is that not enough if not will this do? http://www.xcase.co.uk/acatalog/Raidmax_Ninja.html
as im buying all these parts seperate will i need to buy any cables? is there any way i can i put my old MAXTOR 6Y200PO 200GB 7200RPM ATA133 8MB IDE on the amd mobo

[deddard]

Saphalline's sticky is a great place to start for knowing what to buy.
With a £1000 I'd sit carefully and figure how long I wanted the machine to last - if it's more than a couple of years without major upgrades, then get a good quality case and PSU. I recently installed an antec Truepower2 supply in a coolermaster case, both of which I was impressed with (and the customer has got nothing but praise, so there's a good start!)
SATA 2 drives are definitely the way to go. Many motherboards now sport built in RAID controllers , so this is also a possiblity if you want really fast access.
I now have a policy of installing 2 HDDs on any PC I build - the first one doesn't need to be monstrous as it is for the OS and those apps which like to reside on the 'C' drive, and the other for everything else including user files. The second disk also houses Ghost images of the OS, and I always include a DVDRW so that the My documents etc can also be backed up easily.

You can probably gather from this that my first priority is reliability - absolutely no point in getting an all singing all dancing machine and having it unservicable because you didn't back up, or have to reinstall your OS and apps every time from scratch when it goes wrong (and it will go wrong!)

I'd certainly look at the stuff on the sticky - I've used it myself as a guide.
I'd also allow some of the budget for the extras you will need - a copy of Norton Ghost (get the 2003 version if possible, it is less hassle than the newer ones) a good firewall, good AV (I include 3 years of NOD32 with my systems now) and also remember to leave enough money for a router if you are on broadband (assuming you don't have one already) - even if you only have one PC. Let a £40 router do the work of filtering the pings and other basic security issues, rather than use a £1000 machine running a software firewall.

As for brands, MSI and Gigabyte are my current favourite Mobos, and I tend to run AMDs because of the price/performance.
Antec PSUs are good, and there are others which are at least their equal, some with customisable cables.
Stick with the big names for SATA. Seagate and Western Digital get my vote - I've had some of the lesser brands (if you can include Excelstor - formerly IBM disks) as lesser play havoc, so I tend to give them a miss.

[hockey man]

I'd also allow some of the budget for the extras you will need - a copy of Norton Ghost (get the 2003 version if possible, it is less hassle than the newer ones) a good firewall, good AV (I include 3 years of NOD32 with my systems now) and also remember to leave enough money for a router if you are on broadband (assuming you don't have one already) - even if you only have one PC. Let a £40 router do the work of filtering the pings and other basic security issues, rather than use a £1000 machine running a software firewall.


For software the bigest expendse is an Operating system. Try to find an OEM version of XP-it will save you some major money! For the other software, you can now protect you pc resonably for free. You can use AVG Free edition for you anti-virus, ZoneAlarm's free personal firewall, and get Ad-Aware Personal (Free). That is a pretty good free setup! (I have heard that even with a hardware firewall, you should still have a software one!)

Now back to hardware. You could use your old HD. It would be slower though-but not too substantially. I'd second deddard's case and PSU recomendations.

[rond36]

My only suggestion is that I've never heard of Pine Technologies before.

PINE Technology has been marketing video cards for years.

I had a Pine GeForce 2 MX400 card.

In Europe they still use the Pine brand name but over here they use the XFX brand name.

XFX and BFG are tied for the fastest GeForce 7800GTX with a core clock @ 490MHz and memory clock @ 1300MHz

IMO the XFX GeForce 7800GTX (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814150105) is one of the best nVidia 7800GTX cards on the market

The Western Digital Caviar SE WD2000JS 200GB 7200 RPM 8MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb would be a better choice then the Western Digital Caviar WD2000JB Special Edition 200 GB Hard Drive

The ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe supports 4 SATA 1.5GB (SATA I) and 4 SATA 3.0GB (SATA II)

The ASUS P5AD2-E Premium supports 8 SATA 1.5GB (SATA I)

May I suggest the ASUS P5ND2-SLI Deluxe with support for SATA 3.0GB and 2 PCI-E X16 slots for SLI if you choose to add another XFX GeForce 7800GTX at a later date. The nVidia nForce 4 Intel Edition is the fastest chip set for the P4.


Both motherboards come with all of the cables that you will need, plus some that you won't need.

The only cables that you may want to buy are rounded IDE and floppy drive cables, the boards come with flat cables.

Both systems would be very good, and you would not be able to tell the difference without benchmark software.