Greetings all. This is my first post to the forum. I've really enjoyed and benefited from TH Guides, and I look forward to the same from the forum. I have recently purchased components from tigerdirect to replace my aging system, and I am wanting some feedback / opinions on my new setup. I am bracing myself for a variety of hot opinions here, but before responding, please keep a couple of things in mind:
1. My pockets are not bottomless. I didn't want to spend over $1000 on this, yet I still wanted to get a solid, respectable gaming system (I realize "respectable" depends on your viewpoint).
2. My old system is pretty out of date, so far as gaming goes. So I am assuming that, while the new components I purchased may not be bleeding edge, I will see a great performance increase in comparison to my old system. My old specs...
MSI K7N2 Delta MS-6570 Motherboard (nForce2 chipset)
Athlon XP 2400+
2 x 256MB DDR PC2700 RAM in Dual Channel Mode
nVidia geForce 6800 LE 128MB
Maxtor DiamondMax 10 / 160 GB / 7200 / 16MB / ATA-133
Sony DVD-ROM DDU1621
Sony DVD-RW DRU-700A (Dual Layer)
Sound Blaster Live! Platinum
Generic 350-watt power supply (having probs powering my video card due to poor amperage on 12V rail I think)
19" Hyundai Imagequest L90D+
Components I am keeping for my new system (for budget reasons, and b/c I still think they will serve my purposes very well):
- the hard drive (yes SATA and/or a RAID 0 setup would be nice, but I believe this Maxtor will be good for now. Plenty of capacity for me and the 16MB cache is nice)
- the Sony DVD-RW drive (I plan on using this for everything in the new system; the CD-ROM read speed may be a bit less than the SONY DDU1621, but I am thinking it won't make that much difference)
- the monitor (a great 8ms monitor w/ favorable reviews from THG and elsewhere)
Ok...so in addition to those three components above I plan on transferring over, here are the new components I bought for about $1050 total (price includes shipping but subtracts rebates):
Power Up Black ATX Mid-Tower Case with Front USB and Audio Ports and Touch-Sensitive Controls (not a modder's case, but I think it looks nice enough and should go w/ the color scheme of other components; comes with 3 fans)
eVGA nForce4 SLI 133-K8-NF41 Sckt 939 motherboard (gives me SATA, SLI, and 4GB memory upgradability...and a very reasonable price tag at $79.99)
Ultra X-Finity 500-Watt PSU / SATA & SLI-ready / 16A on rail1 and 18A on rail2 (nvidia's website certifies this PSU as SLI-capable)
Athlon 64 3500+ (Venice core)
Ultra 2GB PC3200 DDR 400MHz (2 x 1GB sticks for Dual Channel) (I think the CAS latency on these is 3...not the best, but for my budget, I think it was a good deal at $139...I'm looking forward to going from 512MB to 2GB!)
XFX 7900 GT / 256MB / 520/1500 (had $30 rebate on this...got it at $269, admittedly, the most I've ever spent on a video card)
SoundBlaster Audigy 2-ZS
Logitch X-530 5.1 speakers (my first 5.1 setup!)
Microsoft Comfort Curve Keyboard 2000
Logitech G5 Laser Mouse
also bought some Arctic Silver 5 for my thermal grease
So what do you think? Solid components for around $1000? Any major blunders or oversights? Would you agree this should be a major improvement in comparison to my old system? If it helps to know, I don't really plan on doing any overclocking.
Thanks for any responses! Feel free to be exhuberant in your encouragment and gentle in your criticism.
1. My pockets are not bottomless. I didn't want to spend over $1000 on this, yet I still wanted to get a solid, respectable gaming system (I realize "respectable" depends on your viewpoint).
2. My old system is pretty out of date, so far as gaming goes. So I am assuming that, while the new components I purchased may not be bleeding edge, I will see a great performance increase in comparison to my old system. My old specs...
MSI K7N2 Delta MS-6570 Motherboard (nForce2 chipset)
Athlon XP 2400+
2 x 256MB DDR PC2700 RAM in Dual Channel Mode
nVidia geForce 6800 LE 128MB
Maxtor DiamondMax 10 / 160 GB / 7200 / 16MB / ATA-133
Sony DVD-ROM DDU1621
Sony DVD-RW DRU-700A (Dual Layer)
Sound Blaster Live! Platinum
Generic 350-watt power supply (having probs powering my video card due to poor amperage on 12V rail I think)
19" Hyundai Imagequest L90D+
Components I am keeping for my new system (for budget reasons, and b/c I still think they will serve my purposes very well):
- the hard drive (yes SATA and/or a RAID 0 setup would be nice, but I believe this Maxtor will be good for now. Plenty of capacity for me and the 16MB cache is nice)
- the Sony DVD-RW drive (I plan on using this for everything in the new system; the CD-ROM read speed may be a bit less than the SONY DDU1621, but I am thinking it won't make that much difference)
- the monitor (a great 8ms monitor w/ favorable reviews from THG and elsewhere)
Ok...so in addition to those three components above I plan on transferring over, here are the new components I bought for about $1050 total (price includes shipping but subtracts rebates):
Power Up Black ATX Mid-Tower Case with Front USB and Audio Ports and Touch-Sensitive Controls (not a modder's case, but I think it looks nice enough and should go w/ the color scheme of other components; comes with 3 fans)
eVGA nForce4 SLI 133-K8-NF41 Sckt 939 motherboard (gives me SATA, SLI, and 4GB memory upgradability...and a very reasonable price tag at $79.99)
Ultra X-Finity 500-Watt PSU / SATA & SLI-ready / 16A on rail1 and 18A on rail2 (nvidia's website certifies this PSU as SLI-capable)
Athlon 64 3500+ (Venice core)
Ultra 2GB PC3200 DDR 400MHz (2 x 1GB sticks for Dual Channel) (I think the CAS latency on these is 3...not the best, but for my budget, I think it was a good deal at $139...I'm looking forward to going from 512MB to 2GB!)
XFX 7900 GT / 256MB / 520/1500 (had $30 rebate on this...got it at $269, admittedly, the most I've ever spent on a video card)
SoundBlaster Audigy 2-ZS
Logitch X-530 5.1 speakers (my first 5.1 setup!)
Microsoft Comfort Curve Keyboard 2000
Logitech G5 Laser Mouse
also bought some Arctic Silver 5 for my thermal grease
So what do you think? Solid components for around $1000? Any major blunders or oversights? Would you agree this should be a major improvement in comparison to my old system? If it helps to know, I don't really plan on doing any overclocking.
Thanks for any responses! Feel free to be exhuberant in your encouragment and gentle in your criticism.