Need help with computer parts

[ShankerXV]

I plan to build a new computer solely for gaming/music. I already know I will be getting the AMD FX-60, x1900 xtx and atleast 2gb ram. Please recommend me the rest of my pc. I would also like a SLI so I can upgrade to the next nvidia card. I have a 5000 dollar budget, so please remember to include the parts i listed into the price as well.

 

[godlyatheist]

with 5 grand you can build any computer you want, here are some suggestions:

scratch the FX-60 and get Opteron 180, same performance for less

Yes the 1900XTX with the crossfire master card is the king right now, but the mobo for them are not quite as supportive (the Xpress200 chipsets getting replaced by xpress300 in june) so if you want absolute best performance you wanna either wait for new mobo OR buy one right now and the get a another one later.

DFI LANParty UT RDX200 CF-DR or Asus A8R-MVP for right now

While I talk about waiting, in june the M2's are coming out too with a theoritical 65% increase in performance. Plus the M2 can use DDR2

OCZ DDR600 1xgb http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820227217

HDD: 2x raptors or 2x sataII in raid 0

PSU: Antec TruePower 600W with dual GPU support, or any other good brand: Enermax, FSP, Coolermaster, etc..

YOu can consider modular PSU too to remove cable mess

THis is the meat of the system, the rest are up to you.

CAse's should look good to you, sturdy, and have good airflow

FAns: ultra-quite ones, 120 mm preferred

CPU HSF: if you oC, Xp-120 or SI-120 with panaflo 30dba 120mm fan (forgot the part number, but monarch has them for $23 each) OR water cooling solution

Opticals and floppy: doesn't mater the brand, as long as they do what you need them to do

Oh, monitors: Dells are popular, but ask somebody else for other suggestion

5 grand will do for this thing, but you can probably get the same performance for a lot less.....

 

[chuckshissle]

$5000! That should be well enough to get a high performance PC. Sure, X1900 XTX is great but as you might have known, the 7900 series are coming out end of this spring or summer. It's Nvidias answer to ATI and I'm positive that its gonna kick ass. I'm not saying that there is something wrong with the X1900 XTX, I have read some reviews about and it has high remarks. But 7900 is gonna have more feature like shader 4.0 and some even say that it could surpass an SLI 7800 gtx 256 with one card. But it's all up to you if its' worth waiting for.

For the ram I suggest the Corsair XMS dimm. Fast and overclockable with stability. 2 Gb for maximum gaming performance.

You should go for water cooling as well.

Man I my pc right now is around $3000 and pretty amazing but I surely can improve if I got 2 more grand.

Your a lucky bastard. Good Luck.

 

[Maxiius]

With 5 grand you can build any computer you want 8)
Unless you want like diamonds lining the outside of your case or some shit. Maybe get the whole thing 24k gold plated too. Some liquid nitrogen cooling... yummy

Anyways, my setup was around ~4k give or take. Setup in sig. Just to give ya some ideas.

 

[mdd1963]

"While I talk about waiting, in june the M2's are coming out too with a theoritical 65% increase in performance. "

LOL!

65% 'performance increase' in .....what??? Latency?

Surely this is not a reference to DDR2 "667" vs DDR "400", implying that with equivalently clocked socket M2 processors using DDR2 we can expect a 65% performance increase?????

 

[mdd1963]

"But 7900 is gonna have more feature like shader 4.0 and some even say that it could surpass an SLI 7800 gtx 256 with one card."

The 1900XTX is already sometimes surpassing SLI'd gtx256 cards in some games...

Now if a single 7900 can keep up with SLI'd gtx512's, I'll be impressed!

 

[godlyatheist]

you're right, the 7900 would be the choice if he waits. Just a correction, X1900XTX in Xfire smokes not only 256GTX Sli, but the 512mb GTX SLi too

as for the M2 performance increase comment, it's not about the DDR2. Note i said theoritical, but theoritically doesn't mean anything. Benchmark is needed to see the result, but I would think AMD will increase the performance by a noticeable margin so they don repeat what intel did with the prescott.

 

[Cinder]

ASUS A8N32-SLI Deluxe ATX AMD Motherboard – Retail $235.00
AMD Athlon 64 FX60 1GHz FSB Socket 939 Dual Core Processor – Retail $1024.00
ZALMAN CNPS7700-CU 120mm 2 Ball Cooling Fan with Copper Heatsink – Retail $56.00
ATI Radeon X1900XTX 100-435805 Video Card – Retail $656.00
Creative SOUND BLASTER X-Fi Platinum Sound Card – Retail $191.00
Turtle Beach Ear Force X-51 Surround Sound Headphones – Retail $51.00
OCZ 2GB (2 x 1GB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM Dual Channel Platinum System Memory – Retail $243.00
2 Western Digital Raptor 150GB 3.5" Serial ATA150 Hard Drive – OEM $582.00
*SONY SDM-P234/B Black (bezel) and Silver (back and stand) 23" 16ms LCD Monitor – Retail $1130.00
COOLER MASTER CM Stacker STC-T01-UW Black/ Silver Computer Case – Retail $181.00
2 VANTEC SF12025L 120mm 2 Ball Case Cooling Fan – Retail $34.00
ENERMAX Liberty ELT620AWT 620W Power Supply – Retail $175.00
2 HP Black IDE DVD Burner With LightScribe Model DVD740vi – Retail $232.00
inland Black Wired Keyboard – Retail $34.00
Razer Copperhead Tempest Blue Gaming Mouse – Retail $69.00

Total Retail Price $4893.00

*NOTE The monitor I've chosen might not be a good choice with a single video card because its native resolution is 1920 X 1200. That resolution would probably produce unplayable framerates with many games and the fastest video card available. Once you got the new Nvidia 7900 SLI cards you're looking forward to then the screen resolution might not be such a problem.

What I might do instead is buy the ASUS Dual Geforce 7800GT EN7800GT DUAL/2DHTV/512M Video Card – Retail $824.00 instead of the X1900XTX.
The ASUS has two 7800GT video processors and 512MB of DDR3 and would help improve your frame rates, but it would put you over budget by $61.00. You could always buy the 7900 SLI cards you want when they come out.

 

[purelithium]

Why a sony? With sony stuff, all you are paying for is the name. You can find a much better stuff for about the same price.

 

[godlyatheist]

ASUS A8N32-SLI Deluxe ATX AMD Motherboard – Retail $235.00
AMD Athlon 64 FX60 1GHz FSB Socket 939 Dual Core Processor – Retail $1024.00
ZALMAN CNPS7700-CU 120mm 2 Ball Cooling Fan with Copper Heatsink – Retail $56.00
ATI Radeon X1900XTX 100-435805 Video Card – Retail $656.00
Creative SOUND BLASTER X-Fi Platinum Sound Card – Retail $191.00
Turtle Beach Ear Force X-51 Surround Sound Headphones – Retail $51.00
OCZ 2GB (2 x 1GB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM Dual Channel Platinum System Memory – Retail $243.00
2 Western Digital Raptor 150GB 3.5" Serial ATA150 Hard Drive – OEM $582.00
*SONY SDM-P234/B Black (bezel) and Silver (back and stand) 23" 16ms LCD Monitor – Retail $1130.00
COOLER MASTER CM Stacker STC-T01-UW Black/ Silver Computer Case – Retail $181.00
2 VANTEC SF12025L 120mm 2 Ball Case Cooling Fan – Retail $34.00
ENERMAX Liberty ELT620AWT 620W Power Supply – Retail $175.00
2 HP Black IDE DVD Burner With LightScribe Model DVD740vi – Retail $232.00
inland Black Wired Keyboard – Retail $34.00
Razer Copperhead Tempest Blue Gaming Mouse – Retail $69.00

Total Retail Price $4893.00

*NOTE The monitor I've chosen might not be a good choice with a single video card because its native resolution is 1920 X 1200. That resolution would probably produce unplayable framerates with many games and the fastest video card available. Once you got the new Nvidia 7900 SLI cards you're looking forward to then the screen resolution might not be such a problem.

What I might do instead is buy the ASUS Dual Geforce 7800GT EN7800GT DUAL/2DHTV/512M Video Card – Retail $824.00 instead of the X1900XTX.
The ASUS has two 7800GT video processors and 512MB of DDR3 and would help improve your frame rates, but it would put you over budget by $61.00. You could always buy the 7900 SLI cards you want when they come out.

The two 7800GT Dual core will get smoked by the 1900XTX for alot less.

I still say opteron 180 for $800 and some OC action

I concur that the monitor you chose needs Sli or Xfire, but he won't want any gigantic monitors unless he changes his GPU every 3 month. So IMO a 19' or 20' will be good enough.

He only needs the Zalman if he choose to OC with the Opteron

What speed is that OCZ ram? He can afford some DDR600

No need for two DVD-RW is there? Change to one BenQ or Lite-On for around $50 and just use a DVD-ROm ($30) for reading. Beter yet, ask if he really needs all this bling-bling. Having five grand doesn't mean spending for stuff he can't use.

Why just a surround sound headphone??? get some speakers for true surround sound.

 

[tenaciousleydead]

haha where are you getting your reviewx from? at most the SLI 7800GTX lost 20 frames over FEAR with 6xAA 16xAF 1600x1200 i dont see that as smokeing, but yeah id wait until the new stuff comes out because we are due for another platform at this rate. plus itll burn the 5k much faster

 

[godlyatheist]

I'm saying the Dual GT get smoked by X1900XTX, not the GTX. Although the X1900XTX does do a heck lot better in FEAR than any GT or GTX.

 

[Cinder]

The Sony is quite well reviewed here.

I don't really know why I included the Sony in my "Dream Machine." It's probably because I'd like to have a nice large LCD monitor but can't afford a good one.

If I where going to build a new computer I'd buy another 21" CRT. The only problem I have with my monitor is that it is so heavy that it bows my computer desk.

When LCD monitor technology is comparable to or better than CRT technology I'll buy an LCD monitor.

 

[Cinder]

Ok ok, I did go overboard a little bit on the DVD-RWs, so instead of the HPs I'd go with:

LG Black IDE DVD Burner With 5X DVD-RAM Write Model GSA-4167B BK – OEM $44.00 with no lightscribe on this one because the disks are so expensive. I know this is a good drive because I have one.

LITE-ON Black ATAPI/E-IDE Combo Drive Model SOHC-5236V BK – OEM $33.00. Once apon a time, I had LITE-ON DVD burners but many unwatchable (not coasters but unwatchable) DVDs later recordered on some of the best (Tiayo Yuden) DVD+Rs available, I no longer do.

I'd keep the Zalman because it's quiet and pretty and would cool the northbridge, southbridge pasive cooler and the memory. I'd also not worry about buying the Sony LCD monitor right now. I'd purchase a quality 21" CRT and be happy with it for several years.

As far as overclockable memory goes mushkin eXtreme Performance 2GB (2 x 1GB) 184-Pin DDR 500 SDRAM Dual Channel Kit System Memory 3328 – Retail $335.00 might do. I couldn't find any DDR 600 in a 1GB dim.

If I were thinking about building a new computer now, I'd wait until:

AMD came out with the AM2 CPU socket type
ATI came out with their newest XFire northbridge

THEN I'd build.

 

[sprite]

Buy one of those 32" Samsung TV's that can be used as a monitor and some decent speakers (not sure what best make is) oh and an Audigy 2 ZS, then just turn up the volume and get fragging

 

[zoridon]

If your living set up is right I'd get a projector and have a 120 inch screen with a wireless speaker and video set up. That will burn about $2500 fast and give you a home theatre at the same time that would be the envy of every tech junky in the neighborhood. (and sports junky for that matter). If you like to watch the superbowl with no compromises etc... and have a frag fight were the enemy is life size