Gaming PC

Computer Forum New Build / Upgrade Advice
1

I am looking at geting a PC mainly for gaming, I will also be using it for Model making and photoshop ect…

I have found a configurable PC with these specs:

Motherboard
RD480-A939 ATI Xpress 200 ATX Skt939 4xDDR400 LAN or equivalent

Case
PowerXS Titanium Gaming Full-Tower Case with advanced cooling system

Power Supply
525W Performance ATX v2.0 Power Supply

Processor
AMD Athlon 64 FX57 Processor with 2000MHz HyperTransport Technology

Memory
2x 1GB (2GB) Dual DDR 400 (PC3200) Branded Memory

Graphics
512MB ATi Radeon X1900XT PCI Express Graphics

Crossfire Graphics (not sure what this is, It adds alot to the price)
none

Hard Disk
300GB Ultra-Fast SATA (150Mbps) Hard Disk Drive

Raid Configuration (not sure what this is)
None

Sound Card
SoundBlaster Audigy 4 7.1 8 Channel Surround Sound Audio

It also comes with:

16X Dual Layer Mutli-Format DVD +/-/RAM Rewriter
52X CD-Rom Drive
1.44MB 3.5’’ Floppy Drive
Ultra-fast 10/100/1000Mbit Gigabit Ethernet LAN (Broadband Ready)
Creative Labs Inspire P5800 5.1 Surround Sound Speakers
Microsoft Wireless Keyboard & Optical Mouse
Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition with Service Pack 2
Symantec Norton Internet Security 2006
Ahead Nero Express CD Burning Software v6
FREE 30day 24/7 Windows/Software Support Helpline
Gold PC Warranty (1 year onsite, 5 year RTB, 2 year parts)

The price is £1755.98 inc. VAT

I looking at getting one around that price but i would pay more if it would be worth it

Is this a good price? I want my pc to last a long time without it having to be upgraded and to be able to run games in years to come. I am not very computer literate so I dont know if the parts are new or not, if theres any parts that would be better that would make a big difference or a better place to buy a pc please let me know.

thanks.

2

That’ll be a nice system, but make sure the PSU is a named branded one as a bad PSU could turn all those nice shiney components into useless pieces of silicone…
Check out this thread for info on PSU’s.

Crossfire - ATi’s Multi-GPU Graphics solution - A technology from ATI graphics, allowing 2 PCIE graphics cards in the same computer system to be linked. The 2 cards are linked externaly by a DVI like connector. The cards then work together to render the image.
RAID - Check out this page for info on RAID

Your Description doesn’t include a monitor, just so your know (in case you need one)

What is your maximum budget, it may be that looking around you could get a better system for the same money. Where are you going to be ordering this from?

3

that would be a proper kick ass system, assumeing every thing works as it should, AMD is better, RAID is actually a good thing weather you run it either striping or mirroring (RAID 0 OR 1, not sure what 5 does, christ, you know you stuff Matt)

4

The PSU is Hiper, In that thread it is a recomended one.
I Might get this instead though.
580W Performance ATX v2.0 Sli/Crossfire Power Supply
That is Tagan which is still recomended one.

I am not getting crossfire it seems a bit expensive but the graphic card is crossfire compatable so I could update in the future.

As for RAID im not sure what is best,I have 3 options.

None
Install 2 Hard Disks as RAID0 (Stripe) configuration for Performance
Install 2 Hard Disks as RAID1 (Mirror) configuration for Data Integrity

They both add £5 to the price, so not very expensive at all.

I have also been recomended to get a better sound card, which I will probly get, it adds £56 to the price.
SoundBlaster X-Fi Xtreme Music 7.1 8 Channel Surround Sound Audio

I already have a monitor (thanks for pointing it out though, would be anoying if I ordered it and forgot the monitor lol )

Buget would be around £2000 and I am getting it from Cheap AriesPC.Com @ Savastore.com

5

RAID: Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks.

The con of RAID 0 is that if one drive fails, the data will be shot to hell. RAID 0 reads/writes equally to the drives in the same array. It may look like one big drive, but data is being written across two separate hard drives, and this is where you get the speed. Unfortunately, unlike every other level of RAID, there is no redundancy, and quite frankly, isn’t worth the risk given a main feature of RAID is the redundant part. Desktop-grade motherboards don’t come with true hardware RAID. True hardware RAID incorporates a separate processor for the RAID calculations. In all non server (and some server) motherboards, the RAID may have a basic hardware controller, but nothing with an actual processor on it, so the CPU does the work.
If you’ve ever had a drive fail in RAID 0, let me assure you it does suck (of course using a couple IBM 60GXP or 75GXP’s in RAID 0 was suicidal). Personally, I didn’t notice anything from it. This was an integrated Promise controller on a motherboard. I’m sure if I’d been using a setup with true hardware RAID, I’d have noticed a speed difference.
I’m not saying you won’t get any boost, but don’t come away thinking you’re getting something that will blow you away. You can always implement it later yourself for free, since just about any motherboard these days has RAID available.
RAID 1 copies the data to both drives at the same time. Whereas RAID 0 takes two 200GB drives and has them as one 400GB drive, RAID 1 will leave you with 200GB of space. However, if one drive fails, the other drive is ready to go. RAID 1 is truly redundant, albeit at the cost of speed. The same data is being written to both drives at the same time, not across as in RAID 0.

Both Tagan and Hiper are great choices. We’re not about brand whoring, but quite bluntly, a lot of PSU brands are garbage so we’re rather sensitive to what someone looks at for a PSU these days.

Right now, Crossfire’s implementation isn’t as mature or straightforward as nVidia’s SLI. However, SLI has been out for about a year longer than Crossfire.
For single-card performance, ATi wins in performance, but in multi-GPU technology, nVidia has the setup in the bag. If you don’t have the order down for installing the drivers, Catalyst Control Center, and video card installation, Crossfire won’t be available to you or alert you of issues. Granted, ATi is still working on this, but if you are interested in multi-GPU technology, I’d strongly recommend going with an nForce 4 SLI-based board instead of a RD480/RD580 one.

Audio: the X-Fi is supposed to be pretty good, however, if you’re a causual listener, it might be wasted money, particularly if you’re just going to use low-end speakers or headphones.

6

Thanks for all the info.

one last thing, somebody has recommended that i get this processor
AMD Athlon 64 4400+ X2 Dual Core Processor with 2000MHz HyperTransport Technology
Instead of
AMD Athlon 64 FX57 Processor with 2000MHz HyperTransport Technology

I just wondered what your views are on this

7

Well for pure speed the FX-57 will win, but for multi-tasking the X2 4400+ will win as it has 2 cores, meaning each core can work independantly of the other making running multiple applications a lot faster. It depends on what you want the system for really.

8

thanks for all the help and useful info

9

No problem, anything else, just ask!