Questions on building my first gaming PC...

[rustang351c]

Hello,
I don't have a particular question, guess I'm just kinda of apprehensive about trying it. or buying incompatable parts. I've printed alot of stuff from "mysupercomputer.com" (site now forsale) which kinda of walks you thru how to do it, but it was dated.

I'd come up with:
Antec Sonata II Case & PSU
Abit AN8 SLi mobo (socket 939)
AMD athlon 64 3700+, 1mb cache, 2000bus
WD Raptor 10,000rpm HD 37Gig
geForce 7800GT 256mb
onboard sound
1Gig ram / CD/RW / floppy / XP home (XP 64-bit wouldn't support anything right?)
thermal grease / cables?

wanted to stay around $1000 or less.
I've read use the nVidia Nforce4 chipset in the mobo, but most boards with that are for SLi, which is dual video cards? I just want to run 1 card. Is that a still a good board?
I wanted to get the socket 939 board for upgradability, although I've read the dual core CPU's aren't much faster than the socket 754's right now. Does the CPU bus speed have to be the same as the mobo bus speed? How important is buying a 1mb cache cpu over 512kb? I've read use a slower cpu (1.8-2 Ghz Newcastle) and it wouldn't be the bottleneck in gaming. That the video card is most important?
Antec says their 550w TruPower supplies are SLi ready, but if I'm running 1 card the 450w SmartPower that comes with the Sonata case is fine right?
The geForce 7800GT is the most expensive part. I'd read it's 20 pipelines, so it's worth the extra money right? I read ATi has faster clock speed out of the box, but nVidia overclocks better. Do mobo & video card instructions explain how to over clock? Is that just changing some jumpers?
Wanted a small-fast HD so the system is fast. I can add a second, bigger HD later for storage. Should the board use ATA, ATA II or SATA? I'm not familar with the different types of HD accessing.

mobo:
http://www.abit-usa.com/products/mb/techspec.php?categories=1&model=275

I use pricegrabber alot to try n see whats current.
Sorry this is so rambling, any hints appreciated.

 

[Rugger]

Save some money on the mobo and get the Epox 9NPA+ Ultra or the Abit AN8 Ultra. If you'r enot going SLi, then don't waste the money on the other mobo. Mobo will come with cables and the CPU will come with thermal grease. You can get better Thermal grease, it isn't really required.

If you go Raptor, then get the 74GB Raptor - there were significant speed improvements in the larger version. Another option - and I think better - is to go with a 16MB cache, 7200RPM HDD. They have eliminated a lot of the performance advantages of the Raptor, are more quiet and have more storage.

With your setup, the PSU in that case will probably be sufficient. It is not the best PSU that Antec makes (TruePower is their better PSU line). If you start having stability issues, then I would look at a better PSU.

Before you start building you should thoroughly read the manual and the FAQs in the motherboard, CPU, graphics card, memory and PSU forums. Take the build slow and have a plan. Rushing to do the build and slapping the parts together is a recipe for failure!

 

[rustang351c]

Thanks, will do.

couple more quick questions.

I like the Epox better (7.1 sound on-board) but it's a 1000FSB where the Abit is 2000 like the CPU. Does that mean it will perform noticablilty better? Do those BUS speeds have to match for it to work?

also, I can save $100 on the cpu with what the first reply said (3200+ over 3700+) , the L2 cache 512kb instead of 1mb. Will that be a noticeable difference?

Is the 7800GTX worth $150-200 more than the 7800GT? What are the good brands and bad brands. Like I know Gigabyte is good, XFX bad right? It had overheating problems with the 6600GT

Thanks

 

[rustang351c]

bump

 

[pickxx]

Thanks, will do.

couple more quick questions.

I like the Epox better (7.1 sound on-board) but it's a 1000FSB where the Abit is 2000 like the CPU. Does that mean it will perform noticablilty better? Do those BUS speeds have to match for it to work?

also, I can save $100 on the cpu with what the first reply said (3200+ over 3700+) , the L2 cache 512kb instead of 1mb. Will that be a noticeable difference?

Is the 7800GTX worth $150-200 more than the 7800GT? What are the good brands and bad brands. Like I know Gigabyte is good, XFX bad right? It had overheating problems with the 6600GT

Thanks

Get the 3700+, you arn't OCing so get the 3700+

Get the7800GT, save yourself some money....its not really worth 150bucks, take that money send 20bucks to me for some pizza.....and spend the rest on beer and hookers.


Personally the only card compnay i would purchase from would be BFG, but XFX and eVGA are good too....but any card you buy will be alright.

now send me my pizza money

 

[fishmahn]

Those bus speeds are all marketing BS.

Here's how they get to those speeds:

A64's use Hypertransport for their FSB. Hypertransport comes in 2 flavors - 800mhz & 1000mhz. Old systems used 800mhz, so almost everything you buy today will be 1000mhz. Hypertransport is a full duplex protocol, so it can send and receive at the same time at 1000mhz each way. Some places think that means 2000mhz.

Hypertransport is so robust that systems don't lose performance until the HT speed drops below 600mhz.

Mike.

 

[rustang351c]

ahhhh, that explains why you guys are recommending the Epox Ultra motherboard, even though it says 1000mhz bus. So they just didn't count the 2-way action, it's just as fast as any other board atm.