Another "is this good for the value" thread

[loveme4whoiam]

Hi there, I'm obviously pretty new - I was brought to the site by the "cool your PC with cooking oil" article (what the hell...), and since I'm soon to be building a new PC, I thought I'd run it past you good people.

I'm building to a budget, £550 or thereabouts (inc. p&p, because I'm a tightwad student). It'll be used as a gaming rig, maybe a hint of modelling/photoshop work occasionally. And, of course, using Word 8). The most stressful thing this PC will be doing (I think) will be playing Battlefield 2, which I'm aware is a RAM-hungry swine.

I'm reusing my soundcard (Creative Soundblaster 24-bit Live!, nothing special), my DVD-RW for the time being, and all of my peripherals. Everything else is going to be shiny and new

I've got a mate who builds PC's for a semi-living helping me build, and hopefully will be doing some (not hardcore) overclocking, assuming we can keep it stable. Er, that's all the pre-system shpeel I can think of, let's get on with the specs :twisted:

Motherboard
Abit AN8 NForce4 S939 DDR400 PCI-E GbE Lan USB2/1394 5.1ch Audio 4 x SATA Raid
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/ProductInfo.asp?WebProductID=176393

CPU
AMD Athlon 64 3000 32/64Bit CPU S939 "Venice" 90nm *OEM* - (I've read that this is fairly good for overclocking, true?)
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/ProductInfo.asp?WebProductID=212077

Graphic Card
256MB Sapphire PCI-E ATI X800GTO GDDR3 VGA TV DVI Retail - (Decided with the ATI option since I've picked up the feeling that it's a wee bit better than the 6800)
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/ProductInfo.asp?WebProductID=277832

RAM
2 - 1Gb (2x512Mb) Corsair Value Select PC3200 non-ECC unbuffered CL2.5 Lifetime Warranty - (2Gb for BF2)
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/ProductInfo.asp?WebProductID=237278

Case
CoolerMaster Centurion 5 Silver Case Black Body (Silver Trimmings) w/o PSU
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/ProductInfo.asp?WebProductID=156451

PSU
480W XClio-SCF aPFC Super Silent (21Db) 12cm Fan 8/20/24 ATX2/2.01 12vEPS + SATA+PCI-E Hi-End
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/ProductInfo.asp?WebProductID=156689

Hard Drive
120Gb SATA300 Western Digital WD1200JS Caviar SE (7200rpm,8Mb) - NCQ
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/ProductInfo.asp?WebProductID=253983

So, what d'you think? I'm going to need some more fans, obviously. The case comes with one 120mm rear fan, but I'm looking at this Zalman one for the GPU, do you think any more will be required? :?: Perhaps a CPU one? I'm no good when it comes to this nitty-gritty stuff like this, so any advice is more than welcome.

Cheers in advance for the help

 

[bourgeoisdude]

Nice mobo, nice memory and nice hard drive. Don't know anything about your PSU (perhaps someone else will comment on that model). You are correct about overclocking the 3200+. I personally disagree with you about the X800 vs. 6800--the only 6800 that is slower than the ATI X800 is the 6800LE model. The X800 is a nice card though. I personally use mostly nvidia but I'm not a die-hard in-your-face NVIDIA "fanboy"...

 

[avatar3k]

One of you guys said 3000+, the other 3200+. Get the newer (CG) 3200+. The x800gto is good for overclocking. get 2x1GB instead of 4x512MB

 

[borandi]

All looks good to meh!

For OC 3200+ better than 3000+ - same architechture just more initial OOMPH

The X800 series oc's well - just got my *new* X800XL from 400/490 to 420/535 on air (2 fans in, one fan out).

Being el studiente too, money is a hassle!
*psst blew my january student loan on me new x2 4400+ rig*

If your budget fits a 3200+ then go with that.

 

[loveme4whoiam]

Cheers for the swift comments

After having consulted Scan, its only £25 more for the 3200 than the 3000, so I'll go with that one; my useful payment gap will let me gather the extra 8) Oddly enough, a search for this CG 3200 avatar3k mentions turns up the retail boxed edition of the same card, but its out of stock (dunno if the CG makes a difference, but it doesn't matter anyway).

The RAM is sold as 1Gb but apparently comes as two sticks - "1Gb (2x512Mb)" - I assume that's what that means?

This'll be the first time going with ATI (had Geforce2, then the woefully, lamentably, catastrophically shite FX5200), but from what I've read the general opinion was in favour of the X800.

borandi, how did you set up the fans? I'm going to get the guy who's helping me build judge fan stuff as I'm pretty rubbish with that kind of thing, but if I can tell him how you did it it'd be useful.

Cheers again for the advice

 

[borandi]

borandi, how did you set up the fans? I'm going to get the guy who's helping me build judge fan stuff as I'm pretty rubbish with that kind of thing, but if I can tell him how you did it it'd be useful.

I didnt set them up - custom setup built by a company The fans though are: the ones blowing in are in the back (2x120mm); the one blowing out is on the perspex side door (1x80mm) with the case having another vent in the front. I also have my summer fan (for when it gets hot in the UK summer) blowing on the case =D

 

[loveme4whoiam]

custom setup built by a company

Flash 8) Having looked closer at the case specs, I see there's an 80mm front intake fan (somewhere, can't see it on the pciture) and a 120mm rear one, along with the side vent. Hopefully with the GPU add-on one it should be enough, but if things get really hot I suppose I could do some amateur case modding or something 8O

Now all I have to do is buy and assemble the thing...