Another New Build Question

[Just1more?]

Hello Folfs,

I've been reading the board for about 1 week now and decided to register and get some guidance on a new system I'm putting together. I've got to say this forum is excellent and thanks to the many contributors (Saphalline and others. Yes, I have read your guide-awesome). My head is spinning :confused: with all the permutations for hardware. I have replaced components but this would be my first build from scratch.

Ok, here are my guidelines(subject to change as I'm convinced otherwise :) ).

Budget:approx $1000 U.S. Budget just changed after I ordered the PS & case. I was buying component by component due to my budget. Better tax return than I thought ! I'm looking for a gaming machine on-line gaming, massive multiplayer.

I would like to stay with Intel CPU, Abit mobo, GeForce card PCI-express, over-clocked from supplier?(256mb?). I can be convinced and I have read about AMD being superior to Intel for gaming with 64 bit etc. Also, I'm concerned about stability (I'm comfortable with Intel, GeForce, and Abit from previous experience). I don't have a lot of time to trouble shoot and repair.

I have already for components :

HD- Maxtor Diamond Max Plus 120GB, 7200rpm(I got from brother-in-law unopened $30-Thank-you) http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822144232

PS&Case -Antec LifeStyle SONATA II http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16811129155


Thank-you for your help !

[Deagle]

HELLO! I notice that you want this to be a gaming machine so I'd say go AMD. If you had looked at SAP's sticky (http://www.pcguide.com/vb/showthread.php?t=39018) , you must know he picked the 3200+ Venice for the midrange and I agreed. As for the motherboard, I'm comfortable with Asus for reliability and DFI for full OC'ing potential but if you insist on Abit then by all means. Graphics card...I would say 7800GT if you have the $. I seem to remember eVGA offering a combo deal with both a mobo capable of SLi and a 7800GT. Here's the linky linky (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814130238). Well that's all I know, the others here can help you with more. ;) :D

[Just1more?]

Thanks Deagle,

and I believe it was 'Folks' not 'Folfs'...lol

I did do a bit of reading before as I mentioned but wanted to see what the expert thoughts were out there before I embarrassed myself(noob). I have just enough info to be dangerous around a PC. So, here's my shot and some questions to boot:

AMD based system:
Athlon64 3200+ Venice $166
eVGA 256-P2-N518 Geforce 7800GT 256MB mobo combo (eVGA 133-K8-NF41 Socket 939 ) $359.00
Corsair XMS 2GB kit (2 x 1GB) PC4000 DDR500 $232
NEC Black IDE DVD Burner Model ND-3550A $42.99
MITSUMI Black 1.44MB 3.5" Internal 8 in 1 Floppy Drive - OEM $ 21.99

Total- $ 742.97

Intel based system:
Pentium4 630 Prescott-2M $172
ABIT NI8-SLI Socket T (LGA 775) Nvidia nForce 4 SLI $ 158.99
eVGA 256-P2-N516 Geforce 7800GT 256MB GDDR3 $270.00
CORSAIR ValueSelect 2GB (2 x 1GB) DDR 400 $152.99
NEC Black IDE DVD Burner Model ND-3550A $42.99
MITSUMI Black 1.44MB 3.5" Internal 8 in 1 Floppy Drive - OEM $ 21.99

Is Dual channel ram available for Intel as well? Should I consider ram timing and CAS latency for either system when looking at ram? No idea? I’m kinda foggy on how the whole PC3200, PC4000, etc. fits into board structure and what will work for each board (noob).

Total- $ 818.96

Comments and suggestions would be appreciated.

[saphalline]

AMD will give you tons more gaming performance per dollar spent. The P4 600 series is good, but not as good as the Socket 939 A64's. Not only that, but you'll probably be more comfortable installing a Socket 939 CPU than an LGA 775 CPU - the socket/pin configuration is more conventional.

I don't know that I would really recommend an eVGA mobo. They make great vid cards, but their mobo's are out-classed by the big boys - like Asus, Abit, MSI, etc. Also, FYI about the RAM - AMD CPU's can't really take advantage of faster DDR RAM (ie DDR400 is plenty for them unless you'll be doing extensive OC'ing) and Intel uses DDR2 now. Don't worry about the timings for now, just buy the RAM we tell you to buy. :p It's easier that way. I think 2GB is a good amount for online gaming, too. That was a great deal on that hard drive, but in the future you'll want a SATA hard drive. They really are a lot better, and we get further into the SATA era, the performance disparity just keeps on increasing.

What else do you need? Any peripherals? Monitor? Anything like that?

[Just1more?]

Thanks for the feedback. Here are my choices for revisions thus far keeping in mind this is for MMORPG:

3 possible board choices to replace the evga board:

DFI LANPARTY UT nF4 SLI-DR Expert Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce4 SLI ATX AMD $189.00
Abit KN8 SLI (NForce4 SLI) Socket 939 $113
Asus A8N-SLI Premium (NForce4 SLI) Socket 939 $170.00

Do I need to concern myself with vid card and mobo stability with any of these choices as a pair?

and ram change as well:

CORSAIR ValueSelect 2GB (2 x 1GB) DDR 400 $152.99

And yes I would need monitor, keyboard and mouse:

I'm just guessing here for monitor and for the rest I don't want to get too extreme($$). I wondered about latency with wireless keyboard and mouse ? Would like monitor suggestion. I really would love LCD but concerned about latency vs. CRT. The wife would love to have a panel since the comp is in our living room...lol

ViewSonic VA902b Black 19" 8ms LCD Monitor $270.

Thanks again

[saphalline]

Ooh, ouch! You're really eating into your budget right now and you haven't even gotten to the vid card! More than any other part, the vid card will determine your gaming performance. DO NOT squeeze it out by spending too much on the other parts.

About SLI: You do know what that is, right? And are you absolutely certain that you can buy a second vid card within a year? If not, skip SLI. You'd be better off just upgrading a single vid card normally, especially considering the new GPU's/VPU's that are coming later this year.

As for the monitor, a 19" LCD is waaaay outside your price range for this system. $1000 for a MMORPG gaming machine including the monitor is pushing it. We may have to drop you down to just a gig of RAM. You can get some good deals on 17" LCD monitors these days, or perhaps a 17"-19" CRT, but anything more than that will cost too much. And don't worry about LCD monitors being slow to respond. The best deals on LCD monitors these days are in the 12 or 8ms range, which is plenty fast for gaming.

Unless you spend around $50+ for an actual gaming-oriented wireless mouse, I would skip that idea. Most wireless mice (and keyboards for that matter) make for poor excuses in gaming. They just don't have the response or battery life to make it worth it. The best wireless gaming mouse to date is the eminent Logitech G7. If you aren't prepared to spend that much for a wireless mouse, then go for a traditional wired mouse. You'll get good gaming performance for a fraction of the cost.

[Just1more?]

It's a good thing today is a holiday. Here's what I have to sum it up so far and you probably right about the $1000 so $1200 it is(waffle,waffle):

AMD based system:
Athlon64 3200+ Venice $166
eVGA 256-P2-N516 Geforce 7800GT 256MB GDDR3 $270.00
Abit KN8 SLI (NForce4 SLI) Socket 939 $113
CORSAIR ValueSelect 2GB (2 x 1GB) DDR 400 $152.99
NEC Black IDE DVD Burner Model ND-3550A $42.99
MITSUMI Black 1.44MB 3.5" Internal 8 in 1 Floppy Drive - OEM $ 21.99

Total: $766.97( need keyboard/mouse & monitor for $433.03)

Already have:
HD- Maxtor Diamond Max Plus 120GB, 7200rpm Ultra-ATA

PS&Case -Antec LifeStyle SONATA II 450Watt SmartPower 2.0 ATX

I did see that it is SLI and I wanted some ability to upgrade down the road. Can I do it this year later? Sure. Do I want to? Don't know. If I recall correctly(and I may not because my head is swimming with info) the jury is still out on SLI vs single card. I just don't want to go with a bargain board and regret it down the line. Is the Abit KN8 SLI a good choice or is there a better one for this set-up?


Yeeeehaa , getting closer.

[Deagle]

In my opinion SLi is a good concept but it's not worth it. Let's say that you will get one 7800 now and maybe another in 9-12 months. By then there maybe a newer generation of nvidia cards that can outperform 2x7800 in SLi. Take for example the 2x6800GT favorite of last year. 1x7800 demolished them in benchmarks now and is cheaper. Just my humble opinion. :D

[Just1more?]

Thanks Deagle and Saphalline. Good thoughts regarding SLI. What board would you both reccommend then thats a good match ?

In my opinion SLi is a good concept but it's not worth it. Let's say that you will get one 7800 now and maybe another in 9-12 months. By then there maybe a newer generation of nvidia cards that can outperform 2x7800 in SLi. Take for example the 2x6800GT favorite of last year. 1x7800 demolished them in benchmarks now and is cheaper. Just my humble opinion. :D

[saphalline]

The Abit KN8 Ultra (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813127222) is a good solid choice for under $100. On the higher-end, there's the Asus A8N-E (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813131530) or the DFI LanParty UT nF4 Ultra-D (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813136152). Take a look - those are some pretty awesome mobo's.

[Just1more?]

Hello,

As it stands now, what is this sytems bottle neck(where could I tweak to get more performance)? And if you mind explaining why, I would appreciate it. And maybe options to 'fix' it even if it might be slighly out of my price range.

Thanks again !

[saphalline]

Well, you've got a decent CPU there, so in this case (and in most cases of a gaming-oriented system) the bottleneck is going to be the vid card.

A 7800 GT is darn powerful, but not powerful enough to run any game at max settings at 1600 x 1200. Actually, no vid card is that powerful, but there are many that are closer than the 7800 GT. The X1900 XT comes to mind, as well as the new GPU's/VPU's that are coming later this year (late spring/early summer). Of particular interest these days in graphical processor design is the ratio between ROP's and shader units as well as hardware acceleration of reduced run-time efficiency algorithms in the areas of micro-tile-based AA (much like the fragment AA that Matrox uses) and better-than-anisotropic filtering methods (which involves proprietary driver-based interruption of API instruction calls to divert common texture filtering to the pixel shaders). Also, with the development of the R500-series of VPU's, ATI has laid down the gauntlet to NVidia and started what I've been calling "The Great Shader Wars". And let us also not forget that neither NVidia nor ATI have given up on the concept of Bezier curves in the modern rendering process. Both M$ DirectX and the OpenGL ARB are planning some implementation of curved surface rendering support in their next major API version. Hardware acceleration of curved surface rendering power could be the next big thing! ;)

As for the CPU end of things, that's the next most likely weak spot in 3D rendering speed. In this case, I refer to next month's release of Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. This will be the first PC game to fully utilize dual-core (and most likely multi-core) CPU's. This will be a huge advancement for gamers everywhere, because both Intel and AMD are going exclusively dual-core for their next wave of mid-range and high-end CPU's. The emphasis is being taken off pure speed and being moved over to multiple CPU cores, so we'll see a total rout of the modern computing landscape with CPU's that are technically slower in clock speed but have more potential performance because of the added core(s). Only the low-end value CPU's will remain single-core for 2007 (and not all of them!) but these will be kept well behind their more expensive brethren in terms of clock speed, cache amounts, FSB/HT Link bandwidth, etc. Intel's new Core microarchitecture is also going in a new direction. Intel is removing the focus on clock speed and putting it on performance-per-Watt and overall processor TDP (thermal design power). As such, this year's CPU's from both Intel and AMD will be much cooler and have relatively low clock speeds. 64-bit execution is also here to stay and will be prominent in every new CPU released this year, as well as a few other nifty technologies.

In terms of gaming performance, the vid card and CPU play some interesting roles. The vid card determines the maximum frame rate, and the CPU determines the minimum frame rate. I'll stop there and let you think about that. :D

[Just1more?]

Greetings,

Here it is(maybe, I'll look at the vid card again) with one question: Ok, how do I know if my LCD monitor will be compatible with my video card? Sounds noobish I know. Maybe because its all kinda mashing together from days/weeks of looking at specs. I hope you guys are happy. You converted me to AMD on this system.


AMD based system:
Athlon64 3700+ San Diego $230
eVGA 256-P2-N516 Geforce 7800GT 256MB GDDR3 $270.00
Abit KN8 SLI (NForce4 SLI) Socket 939 $113
CORSAIR ValueSelect 2GB (2 x 1GB) DDR 400 $152.99
NEC Black IDE DVD Burner Model ND-3550A $42.99
Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 9 250GB 7200 RPM 8MB Cache SATA150 $90
MITSUMI Black 1.44MB 3.5" Internal 8 in 1 Floppy Drive - OEM $ 21.99
SAMSUNG 740B Black 17" 8ms LCD Monitor $235.00
Saitek PM12A USB Optical 1600dpi Gaming Mouse $18.99
Saitek PZ30AU Black USB Wired Standard Eclipse Keyboard $46.95

Total: $1230.91

Thanks again for all the support it's been great !

[saphalline]

how do I know if my LCD monitor will be compatible with my video card?They will most likely be compatible. To be sure, just check the inputs/outputs on the parts. The shorter blue output on the vid card is called "VGA" and the longer white output is called "DVI". Just make sure that whatever monitor you pick has one or both of whatever your vid card has. Some vid cards come with two DVI outputs and a DVI-to-VGA dongle, so watch for that. CRT monitors are only capable of VGA, while LCD monitors are capable of either or both.

[rond36]

The video card has 2 DVI ports and 2 DVI to VGA adapters.

The monitor has 1 DVI and 1 VGA port but the monitor does not come with a DVI cable so if you want to use the DVI port on the monitor you will need to buy a DVI cable (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16812189047) or use the VGA cable that comes with the monitor.

[Just1more?]

Thanks for all the help. This forum is a wealth of info. I can't say how many searches I did along with valuable input from members. I didn't have to use too many life-lines.

See sig for final answer. :D :D :D

Just1More?