Man, now I am really confused!

[4hours]

I am planning on building a computer over the next few weeks and after much reading on THG and other sites, I am just as confused as ever.

I will be using the computer to primarily do photoshop, illustrator, etc stuff with high rez photos as well as playing COD2, Doom3, etc.

My current computer can run COD2 on the lowest settings but Doom3 is just too much for my ancient ATI 64meg video card and P3 1ghz cpu. Photoshop takes a long time to load the amount of images I edit at one sitting and it takes even longer to run filters, levels changes, crops, resizes, etc. Time is money, and time is being wasted!


I know that i need a lot of ram, at least 1gb to start which will later turn into 2 or 4gb.


The only thing i have decided on so far is the new CPU, an AMD Athlon 64 3200+ Venice. I'll choos a hard drive and other things once i have a board picked out.

SLI? i dont need no stinkin SLI! It is added cost i dont need right now! I guess a choice of video card is also holding me up. PCI, PCIe or AGP? I am assuming, short of SLI, PCIe is the best choice for performance. The only requirement i have is that it is stable and easy to set up for a beginner. I probably wont do much overclocking, or any at all, mostly because I dont know how to do it and i think the CPU i chose will be plenty fast for me.

I am trying to build this for around $700. case, DVD drive/burner, floppy, etc included. is it possible?

 

[Vascular]

Here is a system if you live in the US

$359.00 eVGA 256-P2-N518 Geforce 7800GT 256MB 256-bit GDDR3 VIVO PCI Express x16 Video Card

$Free eVGA 133-K8-NF41 Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce4 SLI ATX AMD Motherboard
Free when you purchace the above video card.

$160 AMD Athlon 64 3200+ Venice 1GHz FSB 512KB L2 Cache Socket 939 Processor

$73 BUFFALO Major 1GB (2 x 512MB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM Unbuffered DDR 400

$51 Western Digital Caviar SE WD400JD 40GB 7200 RPM 8MB Cache Serial ATA150 Hard Drive

$8 MITSUMI Black 1.44MB 3.5" Internal Floppy Drive Model D359M3D/D359M3B

$54 ENERMAX Pandora CA3030-BS Black/Silver 0.6mm SECC ATX Mid Tower Computer Case Power UP 400W 24Pin
Comes with 400watt power supply.

$40 LITE-ON Black 16X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 8X DVD+R DL 16X DVD-R 6X DVD-RW 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-R 24X CD-RW 48X CD-ROM 2M Cache IDE DVD Burner

$743.68 Plus tax and shipping

Gotta love newegg.
No monitor, speakers, keyboard, or mouse.

 

[kitchenshark]

There are multitudes of opinions, others will post and won't be wrong in their views. These are my choices if I were to build the system for >$700.

Starting with your choice of processor.

AMD 3200+ Venice $160
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819103535

Gigabyte Motherboard $78 (socket 939)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813128268
(I've used many Gigabyte boards and after getting them configured *usually a pain* they run for years without problem)

Crucial 2x512=1Gb $85
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820146577

Zalman CPU cooler $45
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16835118119

Case $28
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16811212025
(I'm not into pretty cases, anything that gets the job done is good for me)

PSU 400Watt Silverstone $58
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817163030

HDD WD 120Gb SATA 8Mb 7200RPM $87
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822144414
(i would recommend a second storage drive)

DVD Burner NEC $45
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16827152058
(love the NEC drive, would also recommend a second ROM drive)

Floppy $12-15

Last: Video
XFX GeForce 6600GT 128Mb $130
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814150098

Total: $731

 

[4hours]

Thanks for the tips!

I guess a decent sli setup isnt that hard to attain after all!

As far as the heat sync that comes with the cpu, I noticed that kitchenshark suggested an upgrade unit from zilman, whereas vascular did not. How efficent is the heat sync that comes with the cpu sufficent for no or mild overclocking?

also, being that i have never built a computer, do i need to get a tube of thermal paste for the cpu/heatsync?

 

[Scout]

The stock heatsink is fine for these Athlon chips allowing you to get reasonable overclock without problems.

I always use paste, but I've heard the AMD pads work pretty well so you might want to try that and check the temps. If you feel they are too high, it's easy to pull it off and put the paste on later.

 

[frost_fenix]

im doing a 5% overclock with my standard amd heat sink and am well under threshold temps in fact im only running a few degrees celsius warmer.

29 C/84 F sitting idle granted the ambient tem is about.... 23 C/ 73 F

hope that helps some!

 

[Admiral_Cecil]

Haro,

Don't forget zipzoomfly.com. Zipzoomfly offers no tax and free 2nd day Fedex.

Newegg maybe more expensive since their shipping is no longer as cheap as it used to be and sales tax can inflate the price even higher. UPS is less expensive, but people complain poor handling vs. Fedex more expensive but better package handling while when deciding the shippping at Newegg.

 

[frost_fenix]

zipzoom only offers no tax if you are out of the state that it shipps from. the same holds true for all etailers. they cant charge you state sales tax if you are not in the state. i have had not problems with handling of products i have ordered with ups ground. its cheaper and even if the box is a little banged up everything works just fine.

 

[georgebeee]

I believe they can charge sales tax if they want to. circuit city charges sales tax on me and they don't have a store in iowa

 

[tenaciousleydead]

dude you guys are cheaping out to much, get a decent antec powersupply stick with the 3200 venice and get a 6800GS also that evga is not a good deal you see 7800GTs at lowest are 275.00 and i just looked on newegg. you can buy a better mobo with the extra money.

 

[apesoccer]

Don't knock em, till u've posted a system =P.

The cheapest non-refurb 7800GT is $300 on newegg. And you can't get a sli board too for as cheap as $59.

Vasc has the best deal on here, and by far the fastest system. The 7800 is around 2-3x faster then the 6600.

The only thing i'd say, wouldn't be a knock, it's just that it'd be worth it to you to look in to 2gb of ram for the extra money. Getting 2x512 could be a backwards step to your system, if you're ever planning on upgrading to 2gb (it's where alot of people are going to right now...4x512 hurts your performance...where 2x1024mb doesn't...basically any time you use 4 sticks you take a performance hit).