Help from the gods

Computer Forum General Hardware
1

Hello all. I am in the process of building a new system for myself. Its been a long time since I have, current system is a 500mhz. I was told the the system listed below was OK. I would like to hear any ideas that you all my have on this.

Thank you

Turbo X-Infinity 420W Case
AMD Athlon XP-2500+
ASUS A7N8X-E DELUXE nVidia nForce-2 ULTRA 400FSB SATA AGP8X W/ USB2, LAN, IEEE, & AUDIO
512MB (256MBx2) PC3200 DDR400 Dual Channel
MAXTOR 40GB 7200 RPM ATA 133 HARD DRIVE
ATI RADEON 9250 8X AGP 128MB DDR W/ CRT & TV-OUT
SONY 16X DVD-ROM
SONY CDRW 52X32X52 EIDE
3D WAVE ON-BOARD 5.1 SOUND CARD

2

That all depends on what you’re going to do with it. I don’t see any compatibility issues off your list. I would suggest going with a good brand of RAM, like Kingston, Samsung, Corsair, Mushkin or Crucial as far as brands go. You also might want to consider getting a larger hard drive, since you can get an 80GB drive for around $60 or so on-line.

Beyond that, it looks good. Again, I don’t know what you want to do with this machine, so I can’t say if this the best option for you.

3

I’m not sure how much the 9250 costs but its likely you can get a similar priced card wthat will give you better performance. Try www.savastore.com . They have some weird pricing errors on sometimes. Some cards are way better than othes yet they’re cheaper. Thats where i got my 5900nu from. Half price.

4

As BigB suggest i would go for well known branded memory, i would also like to add to his suggestion that Geil would be a good choice, their range tends to be very expensive (as do most overcocking / performance memory chips) however if you go for their “Golden Value Range” their Value range actually out-performs the Corsair gaming memory chips, in terms of overclocking capability and stability.

I have 512mb Geil Golden Value PC3200 400mhz and i can overclock it with no extra cooling to 265mhz stable thats 533mhz (almost PC4000 or PC4400) and its very cheap, check out www.overclockers.co.uk for examples on memory..

Your graphics card should really be higher, if ur just using ur pc for internet / applications / music / videos e.t.c then thats fine, however i doubt you would be building a pc of that caliber (spec wise) ie a barton chip and that motherboard without the intention of some atleast mild gaming..

If u r into gaming, go for atleast a 9600XT (£80+), and i wouldn’t go with that Powersupply, i have used them before and they did not like my 2500+ Barton, i then switched to a 480Watt ThermalTake and it was fine :smiley:

Powersupplies i suggest: 400Watt or more from either: Antec, ThermalTake, Enermax, OCZ

And your hard drive is fine, however you can pick up a SATA (Serial ATA) version of it for maybe £3-8 more, and SATA is alot better than IDE / UIDE.

I think most people would agree on these changes:
PowerSupply/Case: 400W or more Enermax (Very Cheap But Very Good PSU’s) Or.. An Antec Case with Powersupply such as: SLB3700 comes with a powersupply 400W i think (i have an older one with a 350W running a P3 [email protected]/512mbSD133ram/6x50gb hard drives + 2 optical drives, and a graphics card)

Memory: From a well known brand or GEIL Golden Value range (cant recommend enough)

Graphics: 9250 is fine for older games, or standard applications, however if gaming i would look at getting a 9600XT 128mb, minimum really (u’d be fine with this), if possible a 9800SE (bout £8 more) or a 9800Pro / Standard

So you really should only see a price change because of the graphics card.. then u ahve a very nice system :good: