Just curious on what you guys think of these specs that will be my next comp. Thermaltake Xaser III 1000+ Super Tower Case Thermaltake Power Supply 420w TT-420APD Power Supply Intel Pentium 4 2.4C Processor with 800 MHz bus Thermaltake P4 Spark 7 Plus Cpu Fan Sony 16x DVD-ROM DDU161288 Sony 52x24x52 CD-RW Cd Burner Hercules Radeon 9600 pro 128mb Microsoft Multimedia Keyboard Microsoft Optical Wheel Mouse TDK Tremor 80W 2.1Ch Speakers Aopen AX4C Max Motherboard Corsair Twin-X 1024mb DDR400 RAM Western Digital Caviar SE SATA 120GB Feel free to tell me what you think is crap and not
You've got a good base for your system but I'd change a couple of things. First of all, the stock hsf will be enough for your cpu. I've never used P4s but I know that their stock cooler is very good, you can even oc pretty high. It's like day and night compared to amd's hsf. But if you really want a third party heatsink, I'd get a slk-800u, or even 900u, if you're willing to ditch out more money to get the absolute best. It's a great heatsink, you'll love it if you get it. with that you'll need a fan because they don'T come with one. I'd suggest a Thermaltake smart Fan II (your case comes with seven of those !) They're far from being ultra silent like thermaltake states, but they move a lot of air. Next, I wouldn't touch a GeForce FX with a ten foot pole if my life depended on it. And the extra 128mb of memory is useless right now, and even if it was of some use, the card wouldn't be powerfull enough to take advantage of it. Right now the Aopen FX5600 256mb is $138 at newegg. If you're willing to pay $150, you can get a Sapphire radeon 9600 Pro 128mb at newegg.com, which is way better than a GeForce FX5600. It has better DX9 support, and is faster. If not, you can get a Sapphire 9600 128mb for $122. Either card is a better choice imo. I'd go for the pro though, it's not much more expensive and it's worth every penny. As for the board, yours is currently $183 at newegg, but you can get the ABIT IC7-G for $186 which is a great board. It's extremely fast, highly overclockable and it has all the features you'll ever need. You won't be disapointed with a ABIT board. You can get the IC7-Max3 for $221 which has even more toys for you to play with. It's quite expensive though, the IC7-G should suffice. As for the rest, I don't see any problems. I don't know much about speakers. The advice I can give you is try to listen to them before buying them, because not everyone has the same tastes. Oh and for the power supply, I'd definately get a Antec TruePower 430w over a thermaltake power supply. Antec makes great power supplies. They're one of the top psu manufacturers.
For roughly the same price, you can get an ATi Radeon 9600 Pro instead of that FX5600 and get better performance and DX9 support. The Thermaltake Case and PSU are nice, but you can get a case that's probably a little cheaper (albeit not as flashy) for less. Something like an Antec or RaidMax case should do the same thing without the cost. Same for the PSU if you get a good brand like Antec, Sparkle... The thermaltake stuff isn't necessarily bad, but you can save yourself some money looking elsewhere. Here's a list of other i875P boards: http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduct.asp?submit=property&DEPA=1 You might also save a few bucks if you get a Springdale board (i865PE):http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduct.asp?submit=property&DEPA=1 i865PE boards from Asus, Abit, and Epox (epox is not recommended), have a BIOS which enables the PAT found on the more expensive Canterwood boards, like the one you listed above. As long as you get a a board that has the ICH5R chip with the i865/i875 chip, you'll have SATA, so you don't need to buy the most expensive motherboard out there just to have it. Abit's IS7 series of i865P boards has been one of the most popular, and their IS7-E runs for $99 over at Newegg. If you're buying the retail P4, you already have a good cooler. If the price between just the CPU and the retail boxed CPU is more than $20, then it's a good idea to buy the CPU and heatsink separately. Also, the stock P4 cooler is very good, and from what I've heard about the Spark 7, you'll actually be going down in cooling performance from the stock Intel cooler.
I will stay with Aopen on the motherboard because I know they make many motherboards for acer which are very stable and fast. Maybe not the fastest in the world but more of an all-rounder. I will however change the graphics card to a 9600 pro. Is there much difference between Sapphire and Hercules in speed? I want to use it for programs like Adobe Photoshop 7 rather than games. I'm looking towards a Hercules but its a bit more expensive than a sapphire and i want the total price of the comp less than $3000 ($1500) I am an Australian. As for the power supply I read a few reviews saying it was a good one so I'm happy with that. Do the boxed P4's come with a fan?? I didn't think they did. Are they better than Spark 7+? Thanx for the feedback
All boxed CPU's come with the heatsink and fan, and unless you want to show off, the Intel cooler is better than the Spark 7. If you're not gaming, you also might want to check out Matrox, like the G550, which would be cheaper than even the Radeon 9600 (at least it is here in the US). With Photoshop, it seems to be more intensive with the CPU and RAM rather than the video card. However, you still want a sharp display. nVidia has gotten better here, but ATi and Matrox are considered to be superior still.
It's actually a Spark 7+ (plus) sorry. It got rated better than stock intel cooler. I think I will get a Gigacube 9600 pro 128mb 256bit (400mhz core 600mhz memory at 2.88ns). Are you sure that 256mb with slower ram isn't better than 128mb with faster ram? I need more info on that. Any thoughts on the sony burner and dvdrom? Are they good? What's better for the same price?
The 9600 Pro has a 128bit memory bandwidth, not 256. Only 9800s have the 256bit architecture (among with the now discontinued 9500 Pro, 9700 non-pro and 9700 Pro). Like I said, no games use 256mb of video memory, it's wasted money. It's also a marketing gimmick imo.
Right now, the extra RAM isn't as useful, but if you're rendering stuff in 3D (non-Photoshop stuff...Maya and the like), the extra RAM will come in handy. Nothing wrong with Sony, but you might find something from Lite-ON to be just as good for less.
I'll be getting a Hercules Prophet 9600 Pro 128mb Heres a review link: http://www.ocprices.com/?rev_id=170
