$1400 to spend.. first time builder, your 2cents please

Caps

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May 21, 2005
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I am building a new gaming pc for the first time. I think I have picked out everything I need but I'm just not positive. Any help would be great.

Buying-
Asus A8N SLI Deluxe nVidia Socket 939 ATX MotherBoard and an AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+ 2.20GHz Processor

Corsair 4 X 1024MB PC3200 DDR 400MHz Memory

BFG GeForce 7800 GT / 256MB GDDR3 / PCI Express / SLI / Dual DVI / VIVO / Video Card

Maxtor / DiamondMax 10 / 250GB / 7200 / 16MB / SATA-150 / OEM / RoHS Compliant / Hard Drive

600W SATA P/S

I plan on buying a second vid card in a couple of months. Can you guys think of anythign else I may need? Thanks for the help.
 

purelithium

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Say no to Maxtor. Get WD or Seagate. Much better quality, and the drives won't die on you 2 weeks after the warranty is done(happened 2 times).

Who makes that P/S? Make sure you get a reputable brand.
 

dvdpiddy

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ya case and optical drive and dude so what if your a noob noone will make fun of you here :D not like on some other forumz that shall remain nameless! ok dude first things first your mobo get the a8n-sli premium and the proc ok instead of the 4400 get the 165 and oc it that should be a great learning experience and btw get this harddrive its wd so it is bettter than maxtor and for the ram make sure you get low cas like 2.5 and the best peice of advice i can give you wait for m2 buy some ddr2 800 ram now for cheap cause it will go up like crazy when m2 is released! and how much is your budget you have 4 gigs of ram 8O damn you rich boy! ok so your choice buy now and feel screwed in a couple of months or wait and get m2 but buy the ram now
 

Caps

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Isnt maxor owned by seagate now? It comes with a 3yr warranty parts/labor.

The P/S came with the case I bought.. got it through a friend and I dont have it infront of me to look at.


Thanks for the input
 

Caps

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May 21, 2005
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Ok im confused? Deluxe vs premium I didnt see a huge difference. I also wanted to get the DDR2 ram but neither of these boards support it.

Memory for both boards.

Number of Slots
4
Number of Pins
184-Pin
Maximum Memory Supported
4GB
Memory Supported
DDR266 (PC2100)
DDR333 (PC2700)
DDR400 (PC3200)

Post sign " Please don't confuse the noob"


BTW what is M2
 

dvdpiddy

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look can you wait for m2 or not if you do then buy sdome ddr2 ram now before the prices goes up and dude if you cant wait and need the system now get the premium it has a heatpipe design and it has less of a chance of the chipset overheating its self to death ok and dude where did you get all this money from! and m2 is the new amd socket coming out it supports ddr2 800
 

Vascular

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I am building a new gaming pc for the first time. I think I have picked out everything I need but I'm just not positive. Any help would be great.

Buying-
Asus A8N SLI Deluxe nVidia Socket 939 ATX MotherBoard and an AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+ 2.20GHz Processor

Corsair 4 X 1024MB PC3200 DDR 400MHz Memory (2Gb is more than enough)
BFG GeForce 7800 GT / 256MB GDDR3 / PCI Express / SLI / Dual DVI / VIVO / Video Card

Maxtor / DiamondMax 10 / 250GB / 7200 / 16MB / SATA-150 / OEM / RoHS Compliant / Hard Drive (get a segate or wd even samsung)

600W SATA P/S (600w is a lot here is a calculator)

I plan on buying a second vid card in a couple of months. Can you guys think of anythign else I may need? Thanks for the help.

Honestly get 2Gb ram. Get an 1900xtx, even though I prefer nvidia ati has the fastest solution right now. Unless you are about bragging rights and to say you have SLi .
 

Caps

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Its a tax write off for next year... woohoo.

I just looked up the M2 and sounds good but I'm sure it will be very expensive when it comes out. Would be a good upgrade for "07" when the price drops some.

The reason I picked this mobo and chips was for the price. 939 socket from what I have read is pretty steady and 2x 4400 are good also. Plus I found it for 699.00
 

Caps

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May 21, 2005
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18,510
I am building a new gaming pc for the first time. I think I have picked out everything I need but I'm just not positive. Any help would be great.

Buying-
Asus A8N SLI Deluxe nVidia Socket 939 ATX MotherBoard and an AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+ 2.20GHz Processor

Corsair 4 X 1024MB PC3200 DDR 400MHz Memory (2Gb is more than enough)
BFG GeForce 7800 GT / 256MB GDDR3 / PCI Express / SLI / Dual DVI / VIVO / Video Card

Maxtor / DiamondMax 10 / 250GB / 7200 / 16MB / SATA-150 / OEM / RoHS Compliant / Hard Drive (get a segate or wd even samsung)

600W SATA P/S (600w is a lot here is a calculator)

I plan on buying a second vid card in a couple of months. Can you guys think of anythign else I may need? Thanks for the help.

Honestly get 2Gb ram. Get an 1900xtx, even though I prefer nvidia ati has the fastest solution right now. Unless you are about bragging rights and to say you have SLi .


I like the GTX better than the GT but it was like 200 more.

Not really looking for bragging rights, I just really liked BFG's warranty and have heard nothing but good things about their cards.

Thanks for the input, I'll look into it
 

chuckshissle

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Feb 2, 2006
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The 4Gb is kind of overkill, 2Gb of ram should be fine. I have 2Gb and plays the most demanding games like FEAR and BF2 with no problem. Good choice on the 7800GT, more bang for the bucks. Like others said get the Western Digital caviar se for storage and the raptor for gaming.
 

pcrig

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Feb 3, 2006
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I am building a new gaming pc for the first time. I think I have picked out everything I need but I'm just not positive. Any help would be great.

Buying-
Asus A8N SLI Deluxe nVidia Socket 939 ATX MotherBoard and an AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+ 2.20GHz Processor

Corsair 4 X 1024MB PC3200 DDR 400MHz Memory

BFG GeForce 7800 GT / 256MB GDDR3 / PCI Express / SLI / Dual DVI / VIVO / Video Card

Maxtor / DiamondMax 10 / 250GB / 7200 / 16MB / SATA-150 / OEM / RoHS Compliant / Hard Drive

600W SATA P/S

I plan on buying a second vid card in a couple of months. Can you guys think of anythign else I may need? Thanks for the help.


here I would if possinle wait until the SOCKET AM2 be available as it might be more attractive on long run.

SWAP:

Asus A8N SLI Deluxe nVidia Socket 939 with A8N SLI "PREMIUM" (fanless!) nVidia Socket 939 ATX MotherBoard to and any AMD (Athlon 64 X2 4400+ 2.20GHz Processor ) is better than over publicized sexless Intel P4 !!!

Any AMD 64 bit at least dual core (DUAL DUAL CORE!) is good enouff (Multitasking!)!

PS: Enermax EG 701 600 Watts!

Seagate BOUGHT RECENTLY MAXTOR but MAXTORS are not yet segates.

I still like HITACHI (IBM) HDD!

Be aware OEM drives have diferent warranty - shorter - usually 1 year.

As far as HDD it is better to buy retail BOX, as first of all you get a chance buy them dirty cheap with rebates!

I will look for SATA 10 300 MB/s with NCQ and 16 MB Cache!

Buying GE 7800 GT at this time is a waste of money as the card is way overpriced.

I would however be shure taht you have DIGITAL dual link cable for monitor!
I see no need for such graphic cards as I doubt you will be counting flees on the screen.
It is nice to have 4 GB RAM but unless you go VISTA that RAM wouldn't be really well utilized, over 2 GB. CORSAIR is a very good brand, you also have OCZ and Mushkin.

good outlet for components is eWiz

PS..
To bad Dick Channey is such a poor shooter!
 

INeedCache

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Dec 15, 2005
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Maxtor's drives did go through a rather bad period fairly recently, but they have been doing a bit better of late, at least from what we've seen. I'd still opt for a Seagate or Samsung, but I'd go with a Maxtor before a Hitachi (formerly IBM), which is still too close to the Deathstar days for me. We've had some bad luck recently with WD, and it's starting to get me a little concerned. Some of the new Maxtor drives have a 5 year warranty I do believe.
 

linux_0

Splendid
4gb of RAM is a serious overkill, 2gb is more than enough. Windows might not even read 3gb, so 4gb is totally pointless. Also, people seem to have bad luck with MAxtor, so go for Seagate or Western Digital.


This is true for socket 939. 4 sticks will slow you down a bit, because the CPU can only address 2 sticks in Dual Channel.

In socket 940 however 4 sticks would actually increase performance because each CPU has it's own dedicated RAM so you could actually use 2 pairs of memory sticks ( 4 total ) at full speed in Dual channel :D

2 CPUs with 4 sticks have 2 times the memory bandwidth

4 CPUs with 8 sticks have 4 times the memory bandwidth

8 CPUs with 16 sticks have 8 times the memory bandwidth

This is the beauty of the AMD64 SMP architecture :D

H8501_Diagram_Large2.jpg
 

Caps

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May 21, 2005
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Well I took everyones advise and got a WD instead of the maxor. Same size and still had the 16mb buffer. Thanks again to everyone and I repost after I'm done let you guys know how bad a screwed things up. Thanks all