New Comp Specs/Parts Recommendations

[h4x5k8]

So im selling my old rig, Im keeping my ram, optical drives and hard drives, so all I need is a mobo, gfx card, PS, CPU, and Case.

With my new rig ill be gaming and web browsing mostly. I play mostly source engine stuff, so the graphics arnt extremly demanding (like fear is), Im mainly sticking with the 7800GT, I just dont know which one to get (looking at EVGA and Gigabytes models) Im going to be dual booting Mandriva and XP(sp2) doing all my gaming on windows and everything else on linux.

Im looking to spend AROUND $1000 and no more than $1200. I have a few ideas on cases, I was lookin at Lian-Li but most of there shit is so expensive. For a mobo i was checkin out ASUS's new boards for the 64bits, but ive heard a lot of people complaining about the reliability on those.


CPU = AMD Athlon 64 3700+ 1GHz FSB Socket 939

PS = Antec TRUEPOWERII TPII-550

GFX = eVGA Geforce 7800GT 256-P2-N518
or should I get somthing other than EVGA (i like the free mobo on this just to have extra parts, prolly wont use the EVGA mobo.)

CASE = Rosewill TU-155 Black - This one has good reviews, cheap, and has a nice hole in the side for the CPU. But any other recomendations would be nice. Im looking to build a relativley quite rig, (mine now is like a vacum cleaner.)

As for the mobo i have no idea, i was lookin at these
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813131517
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813131540
but the reviews are questionable and people are talking trash on ASUS and AMD. All i want is a nice AMD64 mobo, one thats reliable.

Thanks to all who help out, im hopin to order this this weekend and have it ready by next weekend for a big LAN.

 

[HumbleGod]

For the love of god, do NOT get the A8N SLI Deluxe. I hear nothing but bad things about them. If you want an ASUS board, the Premium is the way to go.

 

[avatar3k]

get the a8nsli premium. wouldn't you rather have the antec neohe? don't get the evga w/ the mobo. can you still find the evga deal w/quake? evga >> gigabyte. i recommend the centurion 5 (coolermaster), rosewills suck. do you have 2gb of ram, yes? if not, get more.

 

[h4x5k8]

Thanks a lot for the advice! Ill definitly stay away from the deluxe.

To answer your question I currently have 1gb of ram, this right here. Should I just buy another gb of that? or is there some other ram you reccomend.

The only reason i chose that PS is cause im getting a deal on it when i buy the CPU. Ill look into finding EVGA with quake but since the mobo is free it cant hurt, all i wanna know is if its a good card or not. I saw on the benchmarks here that the gigabyte did pretty well, ran cool, and ran quiet. Yea i figured rosewills sucked, all I want is a quiet case but still good airflow.

 

[h4x5k8]

Alright well ive pretty much changed my order around quite a bit. After I heard you could do a mad overclock on the Opteron 165, i took avatar3k's advice that he gave other people, and im going to go with the dual core 2x1mb cache. Here is my spec list so far.

CPU = AMD Opteron 165 1GHz FSB Socket 939 Dual Core Processor

I didnt know what kind of fan to get, Im looking for somthign really quiet. So im just gonna go with the zalman unless anybody has a better idea.
FAN = ZALMAN CNPS9500

PS = Antec TRUEPOWERII TPII-550

MOBO = ASUS A8N-E
Ive decided to go with the A8N-E since im not goin SLI

GFX = eVGA Geforce 7800GT 256-P2-N518

CASE = COOLER MASTER Centurion 5


I still dont know what kind of memory to get, i already have that 2x512's OCZ in there, should i get 2 more and have 4 sticks? By the way is that zalman fan loud at all?

 

[avatar3k]

it's pretty quiet, you can control the speeds so it depends. i sometimes have fun turning the fan on it off and just watching temps climb...

it's all subjective, so ... ask people who've used other hsfs

 

[h4x5k8]

any recomendations on the RAM? Also is it pretty easy to OC that opteron?

 

[HumbleGod]

any recomendations on the RAM? Also is it pretty easy to OC that opteron?

I hope so, since I'll probably be buying one in the next 24 hours, and that's a big selling point for me. Your mobo will be a bigger factor in the actual ease of overclocking, and from what I hear that A8N-E doesn't make it too easy. Consider sticking with the A8N SLI, if not for the ease of OCing then also for the extra features (additional SATA, heatpipe instead of fan, firewire).

With a system like that, you could probably use 2 GB of RAM. I haven't been researching 2x512's for my upcoming purchase, so I can't help you there.

 

[h4x5k8]

any recomendations on the RAM? Also is it pretty easy to OC that opteron?

I hope so, since I'll probably be buying one in the next 24 hours, and that's a big selling point for me. Your mobo will be a bigger factor in the actual ease of overclocking, and from what I hear that A8N-E doesn't make it too easy. Consider sticking with the A8N SLI, if not for the ease of OCing then also for the extra features (additional SATA, heatpipe instead of fan, firewire).

With a system like that, you could probably use 2 GB of RAM. I haven't been researching 2x512's for my upcoming purchase, so I can't help you there.
alright will do with the SLI premium then. What 2x1gb's would you reccomend?

 

[avatar3k]

you dont have to go crazy buying expensive ram, as long as you have enough of it 2x1GB and at least CAS2.5. Corsair Valueselect or XMS or OCZ Platinum/revised/etc - all cheap enough (under 250 for the 2x1g).

a8n-sli premium has many great features, but the silicon image sata controllers are c*ap. if this thing really did have 8 sata connectors that can run raid 0/1/0+1/5, you'd find alot more supporters for it

the heatpipe is pretty good - the heat goes to the left of your cpu fan

 

[avatar3k]

still not a good bet, or we would see less complaints and more suggestions to update drivers.

either way, you can always try whatever you see fit, and if it works, it works, and if it doesn't, the 4 other sata connectors that do work very well should be enough