my build

[mallard]

I am a first time poster on the forum, hello everyone.

I am a gamer. I play World of warcraft and have 3 level 60 chars. I can barely play the game and i cannot do anything pvp because my Dell 4100 is way to slow to do anything. i would upgrade but this thing is still using Rdram lol so why bother. I want to play sweet games like bf2 and eq2 so i am looking at building my first computer. Ive searched aroudn on the internet and it doesnt look like its any harder than assembling a pool table. I messed around on newegg and came up with this build. Please tell me of any changes I should make, id like to get the price to around a grand but i doubt i can get it lower than this if i want this rig to last a long time. please put in some input

ATRIX CSCI-G8022C-C43 Black Zinc plated treatment,S.E.C.C.steel sheeting FCC class CB&CE approved ATX Mid Tower Computer Case 480W Power Supply - Retail

GIGABYTE GA-K8N Pro-SLI Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce4 SLI ATX AMD Motherboard - Retail

eVGA 256-P2-N516 Geforce 7800GT 256MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16 Video Card - Retail

AMD Athlon 64 3500+ Venice 1GHz FSB Socket 939 Processor Model ADA3500BPBOX - Retail

CORSAIR ValueSelect 2GB (2 x 1GB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM DDR 400 (PC 3200) Unbuffered System Memory Model VS2GBKIT400C3 - Retail

Western Digital Caviar SE WD2500JD 250GB 7200 RPM Serial ATA150 Hard Drive - OEM

CTX S792A Black 17" 12ms LCD Monitor, RoHS and WEEE compliant - Retail

NEC Beige IDE DVD Burner Model ND-3550A - OEM

Microsoft Windows XP Professional X64 Edition 1 package - OEM
Model #: ZAT-00007

It all comes to 1330 off of newegg, sorry about the first post my bad

 

[endyen]

If you are only getting one gfx card, dont spend on a Sli mobo. The Abit AN8 ultra is a great board, as is the Asus A8R-MVP.
They are also great OCing boards, in case you ever get that itch.

 

[godlyatheist]

give us your budget first!!! well, i guess you can pay for all you listed

the 3500 is not the best price/performance cpu. downgrade to 3200+ or have more power with the 3700+

never heard of Atrix cases, can't comment. Just make sure the PSU on the case in a good brand(FSP, Antec, enermax,etc.) and not a cheap one. my personal favorite is the thermaltake tr 2.0 430w. It is quite, powerful, cheap, lots of cable, and pretty good quality. everything elz is pretty good.

 

[pickxx]

give us your budget first!!!

You need to calm down. Stop being a nazi about things.

Take it down a notch....The sticky is how to get a quick and comprehensive reply....if you dont like the formatting dont reply.

my sticky doesn't contain rules....it contains guidlines for ME PERSONALLY to help them. You want something different let the people know.

Dont yell at n00bs like that. Calm yourself and stop saying stupid stuff.

 

[mallard]

ok. You are probably right about the mobo, ill pick out one that isnt sli save myself a few bucks. If i downgrade to 3200 would i still have enough to support everything that is going to be playable in the future?

 

[amd_guru]

one note on the case....check the PSU voltages. For the 3.3, 5, and 12 volt rails i was always told to make sure they were all 25 amps or higher so your mobo, cpu, and graphics card get the proper amount of voltage at all times. Also make sure its 400 - 450 watt as well.

 

[Hameedo]

you know what ?...my personal opinion is to keep the SLI mother board .....why?......it could give you an excellent opportunity to upgrade your GPU system by another 7800GT card ...instead of throwing the old one and buy a more advanced one !....

 

[Mills]

I think what the previous poster mentioned about the processer is pretty much dead on. I also recently built myself a new rig and was looking at the 3500+. Its really not worth it. Either save yourself some money and go with the 3200+ (oc it if you feel it necessary) or throw in a bit more cash and upgrade to the 3700+. The 3700+ would be a large step up from the 3500+ compared to 3200+ to 3500+.

Also, it really confuses me why people are willing to spend 700 dollars or more on a video card and skimp out on a processor. Wouldn't it make more sense to not buy the top of the line video card and put the 400 dollars you save elsewhere... maybe into your processor?

 

[EntityAnomly]

The only problem with waiting to do an SLI upgrade in the future is that by the time you save up to get the second 7800GT Nvidia might come out with a new GPU that blows the 7800 out of the water.

An example would be if you got a SLI motherboard with a single 6600GT a year or two ago and waited until now to buy a second 6600GT. You're not gaining too much because two 6600GTs in SLI mode runs slower than a single 7800GTX.

 

[EntityAnomly]

The reason people spend more on the GPU rather than the CPU is because in a lot of games that are out right now the limiting factor is the video card and not the processor. Most FPS games are very video card dependent.

Your gaming experience is going to be way better with last years processor and this years video card.

 

[Mills]

I agree, however IMO video cards are highly surpassing the needs of an average gamer. Even the hardest of hardcore gamers won't notice a huge performance boost by spending 2 grand getting two of the TOP OF THE LINE cards and using SLI.

 

[EntityAnomly]

That is true, but why bother getting an SLI MB with the possibility of doing SLI someday when you can just buy a better single card and a cheaper motherboard that doesn't have SLI.

 

[pickxx]

Wouldn't it make more sense to not buy the top of the line video card and put the 400 dollars you save elsewhere... maybe into your processor?

Actually no....it wouldn't

A 7800GTX, with a 3000+ and 1GB of value RAM on a VAlue board will cost you about $700. and would be MUCH faster then a

6800GS with an FX57, 2Gb fastst ram known to man, and the best mobo possible all overclocked....and this setup costs $1800.


Which would you rather have a system twice as fast for about 35% of the money? or a system that is MUCH slower for more?



Having a 7800GTX and buying a 3200+ isn't skimping....its spending money on whats important and not spending money on things that wont matter as much.

 

[pickxx]

I agree, however IMO video cards are highly surpassing the needs of an average gamer.

Correct, and you will NEVER see me reccomend SLI to the average consumer....they dont need SLI, its not an upgrade solution.

Even the hardest of hardcore gamers won't notice a huge performance boost by spending 2 grand getting two of the TOP OF THE LINE cards and using SLI.

Well the best two cvards right now dont cost $2000, but i see your point and actually even regualr consumers wuld notice the difference. If i showed you a system with two 7800GTX 512's and sat it next to a system with just a 7800GT in it....you would notice a difference in a heartbeat.

Dont make stupid claims, hardcore gamers can actually tell the differenc betwen 2aa and 4aa....so lets not say they can't tell a 250% increase in gamplay.

 

[zoridon]

if your not going sli and drop to single card solution 7800 gtx is a thought. I would mention that DFI had non sli socket 939 mb for around $85. The infinity series. I'd use the money saved to go with 3700 as mentioned before and go with a 7800 gt or reverse it and 3200 and 7800 gtx. The gtx is only really about 10-15 percent faster than the gt though. comes down to your preference and what games you play. You can always hit the 7800 gtx now and A643200 and when multi threaded games come out get the x2 at a "next year" cheap price . A 3200 and gtx and two gigs or ram should get you in the 1280x1024 range on BF2.

 

[pickxx]

With a 7800GTX you dont really need 2GB of ram....taking that extra $80-$100 and putting that into a better cpu would pay MUCH MUCH MUCH better results.

GPU->cpu->mobo->ram

Thats the order money should be spent....ram at BEST gives a 1-3% increase and the other can yeidl MUCH higher results.

 

[EntityAnomly]

You should make mention however that you still should have 1GB at a minimum for most current games.

If you go from 1GB down to 512MB you will notice a significant performance drag.

If you go from 2GB down to 1GB, at this time you will not see much of a performance drop.

 

[Mills]

Dont make stupid claims, hardcore gamers can actually tell the differenc betwen 2aa and 4aa....so lets not say they can't tell a 250% increase in gamplay.

You sound like you are an Nvidia salesman. I'm saying that talking gamers into spending more than half of thier budget on a video card is the wrong way to go about things.

I am a hardcore gamer myself and when I first started building basically followed your theory of GPU > all... and I wasted a lot of money. Its like buying a brand new car... why go and spend top of the line price to have the absolute best newest awesomest car just to say you have it. Compared to a model only one before it, the differences are not that major.

All i'm saying is this.. follow the rule of thumb. Buy technology that is ~6 months old if you want to get the most out of your money for those of us on a budget.

 

[Hameedo]

that's actually true ....two 6600Gt in SLI mode run slower than a single 7800GT ....that's right ...and that's logical ..why ?

6600Gt has 8 pipline pixels ...that's 16 pipline pixels if we're using SLI ..
a single 7800Gt has 20 pipline pixels !....

two 6600GT can't smoke a single 7800Gt ..but at least they can keep up with 6800GT ...

now let's see... 7800GT will last for the next 18 months ..then it will take the same position of 6600GT right now ....!..
adding another 7800GT will make GPU system last for another year
you see ...it will be 40pipline pixels ...!!!...that's more than we could imagine ....and above all ...7800GT will be more cheaper ..you will spend less money and you'll increase your power from 50 to 75 %

 

[RichPLS]

You want quality and speed, get a X1800XT and overclock it!
The 7800's run too hot and quality and features and monthly driver updates are not there! Plus nVidia wants to sell you their software enhancements, fock that! That puts the X1800XT in the champions corner...