New build. Any other suggestions?

Pimp

A good start but i would like to know your budget so i can give you some ideas.
I would say that you should wait untill Intel's new Nehlam chip comes out that then will lower the price of the C2D and also the Q9450 so i suggest you get that. As for motherboard well it depends on you budget, the P35 chipset is for mid range budget but if you have money to spend then get a X48. something like this:
Gigabyte GA-EP35-DS4 Intel P35 (Socket 775)

Gigabyte GA-X48-DQ6 Intel X48 (Socket 775)

Just one question what type of memory do you want DDR2 or DDR3????

I would say that the best manufacture of Hard Drives are Seagate, Western Digital and Samsung.

SATA2 is the new format that gives you faster speed of hard drive.

I would recommend that you get the ATi 4850 or if you have more cash get the 4870.


If you going to use a mid range card then i suggest you get a monitor from 17 - 20 inch any higher and the GPU will struggle. i would say that the best monitor manufacture out there is Samsung

i don't understand what you are asking.??

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nicky9499

Oh, I wasn't asking anything there. Just saying that heat, power consumption and noise are not being taken into consideration on this particular build. Sorry for any misunderstandings.

I'd put my budget somewhere around the 2000 US dollar mark.

Of the two, which is cheaper and which is of higher "quality"?
I've never really paid attention to memory. Is it better to have more memory or memory of higher quality? What's the difference between Kingston and Corsair, for example.

Okay. Will I have a noticeable difference between 5400rpm IDE and 7200rpm SATA/SATA2? Does the speed and complexity (lots of bells and whistles etcetera) affect the fragility of the drive (more prone to failures)? If so, with money not being a factor, should I get a faster SATA drive or a traditional IDE one?


Cheers,
nicky9499.

Pimp

I might have miss read it but o well no worries no harm done. But i gotta say that's a good budget.



DDR2 is much cheaper but it's older technology and soon everyone will have to switch to DDR3 as new mobos only take it. But for now it's still a good idea to get DDR2 as it's cheaper and you can put something like 8GB of memory without costing you to much. As for DDR3 well it's new technology so therefore a lot more expensive and faster so it depends on how it all fits in your budget, becuase then you need to buy a DDR3 compatible mobo which costs more so the costs do add up, so why not shop around and see which fits your budget better.


TBH i think IDE is rubbish you should stick with SATA2 all new mobos have it and IDE is fading away and people are forgetting about it.

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nicky9499

Alright, one more question.
I'm not really familiar with ATi's line of video cards. What are some of their mid to high end cards and what are their Nvidia counterparts of similar performance? Is there a comparism chart somewhere on the internet? If one of these cards can handle Grand Theft Auto IV for PC this November, I think it can pretty much do everything else.

Also, when buying a video card, what are the more important specs I should look out for and what are some of the technical terms (example shader pipelines, teraFLOP and GDDR memory, if it's related to mobo memory at all).

On a sidenote, I'm wondering if I should use XP or Vista (and 32-bit or 64-bit).
Having used Vista on my notebook for almost a year now, I'm still quite reluctant to switch any of my PCs to Vista because of all it's "general errors" and know-it-all-screw-it-all behaviour (also, it's harder to theme). The only reason I can think of is it's DirectX 10 advantages and some Vista-only GFW games.
Also, what are the pros and cons of 32 bit and 64 bit?

Cheers,
nicky9499

Edit:
Pimp, I assume you're referring to the ATi Radeon (what's with Sapphire?) HD4850 below?

nicky9499

Okay.

I've done my homework. And I've settled on the below components.
What I need now is for some kind (and hopefully patient) soul to help me chck for compatibility issues and parts that could be replaced with better ones for around the same price.

Also, it would be nice if someone can list other parts of immediate lower caliber (for example, 8600GT>8800GT>8800GTX) for the video cards, processor and mainboard.

Asus has considerable reputation on many forums and I've decided to go with it, albeit slightly more costly.

Multiple prices indicate different prices across different shops.
Here goes:

Cheers,
nicky9499

Swansen

I've put together some hardware for reference. I used newegg because it was simplest for me, but they should have competitive prices comparable for wherever you want to buy your hardware. I'm pretty sure everything here is within your budget.

CPU
Newegg.com - AMD Athlon 64 X2 5400+ Brisbane 2.8GHz 2 x 512KB L2 Cache Socket AM2 65W Dual-Core black edition Processor - Processors - Desktops
Newegg.com - AMD Athlon X2 4850e 2.5GHz 2 x 512KB L2 Cache Socket AM2 45W Dual-Core Processor - Processors - Desktops

I would look for a processor on the cheap side, AMD is coming out with their Deneb processors in a couple months, and they are going to be compatible with AM2+ boards, so i think that will be a wanted upgrade. The processors i picked out here are a lot better than the 4600 you were looking at.

Main Board
Newegg.com - GIGABYTE GA-MA790GP-DS4H AM2+/AM2 AMD 790GX HDMI ATX AMD Motherboard - AMD Motherboards
Newegg.com - DFI LANPARTY DK 790GX-M2RS AM2+/AM2 AMD 790GX ATX AMD Motherboard - AMD Motherboards

I really like the layout of the DFI board, and i just like Gigabyte, they are a pretty good board maker. Your board is fine, but it seems a little outdated.

Memory
Newegg.com - OCZ Reaper HPC Edition 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory - Desktop Memory
Newegg.com - CORSAIR 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1066 (PC2 8500) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory - Desktop Memory

A lot of AM2+ boards like PC 1066 memory over PC 800, not that PC 800 won't work, their standards are usually PC1066. Also it would be better to have less faster memory than more slower memory. On ddr3 vs ddr2, there really haven't been any performance increases since ddr, they are just new standards, and to make memory work more efficiently with new processors.

Storage
Newegg.com - Western Digital Caviar Black WD7501AALS 750GB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - Internal Hard Drives
Newegg.com - Western Digital Caviar Black WD1001FALS 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - Internal Hard Drives
Newegg.com - Western Digital Caviar RE2 WD5000ABYS 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - Internal Hard Drives
Newegg.com - Western Digital RE3 WD3202ABYS 320GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - Internal Hard Drives

I like Western Digital, but pick whatever. However, you have to think of cost per gigabyte, and the cost per gigabyte with 750gb drive right now out prices every other size. Prices are like this.
750 = $5.35 per GB
1tb = $6.25 per GB
500 = $5 per GB
320 = $4 per GB

Graphics
Well, cards go like this (best at top, worst at bottom)
ATI --------Nvidia
4870 X2----GTX 280
4870-------GTX 260 (core 216)
4850-------GTX 260 - a little better (9800 GX2 around the same)
3870-------9800 GTX or 9800+ GTX or 8800 GTX (all better than 3870)
4670-------9600 GT (9600 is better, ATI just came out with a 4830, which is 9600s competition)

This is all fairly approximate but close enough

PSU
I am not a fan of modular power supplies, they increase resistance, which is a bad thing. If you want to go SLI or Crossfire, your going to need from 700 to 800 watts. I like OCZ, PC Power and Cooling, FSP, and thermaltake seems to make fairly decent units as well. If you don't want to go dual card, 600w will do you fine. I will probably never buy into a dual card set-up again, because you really don't get all that much out of your investment of a second card.

Display
A good resolution would be something like 1680x1050, its pretty much impossible in this day and age to find a display manufacturer who displays real performance numbers, but what can you do. You want a contrast ratio of at least 1000:1 and a response time of around 5ms. I like LG, because regardless of what their numbers are, they don't use TN panels, which i am a HUGE fan of. Panel types are REALLY hard to find, but a very important part of a displays capability. Basically, TN panels are cheap, and easy to make, so they are used often, but have silly trademark problems. Newegg.com - LG L226WTQ-BF Black 22" 2ms GTG Widescreen LCD Monitor 300 cd/m2 3000:1 DCR with HDCP Support - LCD Monitors thats my recommendation

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edgar

I am getting confused now and this thread is upto the point this seems a pertinent question. am planning a rig with q6600, 4850 and a P45 DS3 mobo crossfire compatible.

I have read 2x4850 is slightly better than a GTX280 and leaning towards a crossfire board with this in mind for the future. I have also read on a review of that board that upon crossfire the ram performance suffers, but I think this was when it was maxed out clockwise in the first place so had to be dialed back (I didn't really understand the details however). I was hoping to afford 2x2gb 1066 but still undecided on this.

I have also read about crossfire setups powered by 600+ PSU's and was therefore thinking of a corsair TX 650 to accomodate the potential for future crossfire.

All this seems a bit counter to what you (the ninj) have said, but I am a total noob so cringe before your towering geekness....

edgar

Sorry just realised 2x4850 as good or better than GTX260 not 280, still seems a good deal for an upgrade if only current cash for x1 ok card

Swansen

Yeah 4850 are pretty power efficient, so i think you should be good with around 600w, but that would be the minimum though. According to this thread, 2 HD4850s are faster than a GTX 280.

---edit---
Alternatively, you could run a 4870 and 4850 in crossfire as well.

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nicky9499

Thank you Swansen, that was most helpful. I initially thought of getting a couple of cheap cards such as the HD3450 and running them in CrossFire, but I realized the extra power and heat (albeit not being a major consideration) would go over the roof anyway, so I'm sticking to a simple, one-card solution.

As for motherboards, Gigabyte would be just fine since I've been using nothing but their motherboards up till now.

Given a choice, I would prefer modular power supplies because they cause less clutter inside the case. Despite much effort tidying up, I still find extra molex plugs irritating and obstruct airflow. Switching to SATA would also produce the desired result, since I never mastered the art of IDE cable folding.

Apart from the lower cost, I'm switching to AMD stuff because of their higher overall performance over an Intel of similar cost. Reason being perhaps cause AMDs process more stuff for the same number of clock cycles (AMD clears pipeline very 2, Intel every 4). Good for 3d apps, but not so much for word processing or vector graphic programs.

Cheers,
nicky9499

----------------------------------------
Edit---I'd settle on the 3850 or the 3870. But now we've got another problem. I've got a variety of different memory types that rival that of toothbrushes in a Walmart store. Let's see:

ASUS HD3450 256MB DDR2
ASUS HD3650 256MB TOP DDR2
ASUS HD3850 256MB GDDR3
ASUS HD3870 512MB GDDR4
ASUS HD3870 TOP 512MB GDDR4
GIGABYTE HD3850 256MB GDDR3
GIGABYTE HD3870 512MB GDDR4
POWER COLOR HD3650 1GB DDR2
POWER COLOR HD3850 256MB GDDR3
POWER COLOR HD3870 512MB GDDR4
SAPPHIRE HD3450 512MB DDR2
SAPPHIRE HD3850 256MB GDDR3
SAPPHIRE HD3850 512MB GDDR3
SAPPHIRE HD3870 512MB GDDR4

Jesus, talk about being spoilt for choice?

I'm particularly interested in the Powercolor 1GB, but then again, specs are not my forte so you helpful people are going to have to help me out a little.

In a rather unrelated incident, can anyone suggest how I would go about washing a Razer Mantis Control mat? (yes, those giant mousepads).

nicky9499

600W the bare minimum for a 4850? (I bought a 512GDDR3 btw) I'm intending to run up to 4 or 5 hard drives and 4 120mm case fans, would I need something higher than that? I bought a 450W guess I'm gonna have to bring it back to the store.

Swansen

HDDs use like 15-20 watts of power, optical drives use around 20w, mobos use like 40-60, then whatever your CPU is rated for. I think the 4850s use something like 150w ?? but i can't remember if thats idle power or under load. However, your would probably be able to get away with a 500w unit, HD4850s are rated for using a 450w PSU.

just found it http://www.bigbruin.com/2008/sapphire4850_8

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nicky9499

Thanks Swansen. I've got one more question:

Now that I've got the AMD Athlon64 X2 5400+ processor (pretty boxed one), what's the best motherboard I can get out there for the below $200 range? I'm looking at the Asus M3A AMD 770 Socket AM2+ here but I'm not completely sure if they're compatible because a quarter of the specifications sound like gibberish to me.

Cheerio,
Nicholas.

Swansen

yes, that will work fine, an alternative is THIS board, i like a couple feature it has over the Asus board, and more back panel connectors. Ether way though, they are both look like solid boards.

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