Building my first computer (need help)

[Resident]

Hey everyone. I only just found this forum a couple of days ago so im new around here. Anyway im building my first computer and i want to know if you guys think it is any good and what i should change about it..

AMD Athlon - XP 2100+ Palamino
ASUS A7v333 Raid
Leadtech - Winfast A250 TD G4 Ti 4400
Creative Labs - Sound Blaster Audigy Digital Entertainment
512 DDR ram pc 2700 (not sure, please advise (i hear kingston isnt compatible with my motherboard))
MAXTOR 60gig HD ATA133 7200rpm X 2 (maybe 80gig WD 8mb???)
Mitsubishi 19" Diamond Plus 92 Diamondtron NF Natural FLAT
LITEON 40x12x48 CDRW Retail Version
Pioneer DVD-106S
Aopen HQ08-P4 Full Tower (300w)
ThermalTake Volcano 7
Sony 1.44 Floppy Drive
Surecom EP-320X-R 10/100 PCI
Creative Inspire 5.1 5300 Dolby 5.1 Speakers
Logitech Cordless Freedom Optical

Please advise on whats good and whats not.
My budget is around AUD$4000 and what i have listed comes to about that.

I will be using it for games mainly.

Thanks in advance.

<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by resident on 06/16/02 06:56 AM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[upec]

I also read the Kingston will have problem with your mb. I would avoid it. I think your system is going to be great.

 

[dpaige]

Pretty sweet system! The only major change would be the memory because of the reason you explained. Personally I would change the Leadtech - Winfast A250 TD G4 Ti 4400 and get a Gainward GeForce4 PackPack! Ultra/750XP because it has better preforcement and comes with a Firewire card. I would also change the Creative Inspire 5.1 5300 Dolby 5.1 Speakers and go for Klipsch's Promedia 5.1 THX speakers. I don't know what your current total is but the 2 adjustments I memtioned will had almost $800 to your total. The Gainward card should only be a consideration if you planning to use the firewire card otherwise your card should be more than enough.

 

[upec]

He already have a firewire port from Audigy.

 

[dpaige]

I forgot about the audigy. But the gainward card is better.

 

[cakecake]

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Swap out that mouse if you're serious about games. I'm a gamer too and I've been using a cordless for a while. It just doesn't cut it when the going gets tough. If you play FPS games, which can be really competitive, you'll start to notice that the mouse doesn't match up completely with the game. The 'smooth mouse' feature available in many games doesn't help much unfortunately. Seriously, when you hit 80FPS in your games, most people won't notice it, but hardcore gamers will be quick to get a corded mouse instead, like the famed logitech dual optical. Here are advantages and disadvantages:

-obviously the corded mouse has cords... how much this affects you is up to you, but in my own experience it doesn't affect games much at all, I know this because over the past few weeks I've been switching on and off between a corded and a cordless. A controversial thing for me to say is that I think corded mice actually help you do better at games, because the cord prevents you from making rapid, freehand movements that make you overshoot or puts too much acceleration into your aim, which has been my experience with my cordless mouse. The sheer amount of freedom causes your hands to move too quickly in many areas and makes precision hand movements (under tense situations) harder. At first when I got my cordless I thought it was just that I was too used to a corded mouse, but I still notice it happening after all this time (I'm using an everglide mousepad btw). On the other hand my cordless mouse is a easier to use in a windows environment compared to a corded one

+Corded mouse can refresh faster. If you are using USB it will refresh fast enough already, but if you're using PS2 download PS2Rate (freeware) and set your mouse to 80Hz, and you will have a near perfect movement response when moving your mouse.
+The dual optical will have near perfect response and will be able to refresh fast enough for you to be able get enough Hz for your high framerate games. The problem lies in the fact that a cordless may only refresh at 40Hz but if you have a game at 80fps, it's only 40 mouse updates for 80 frames, meaning you will notice some desynchronization.
+No need to replace batteries. I typically replace batteries once every other month, not too often, but still it's nice not to have to rush to your battery drawer to have to replace your batteries in the middle of a big firefight (which has happened to me more than once)

Overall I think you would be much happier as a gamer with the logitech dual optical. If you just use normal windows and word processing and web surfing you would love wireless, but as a gamer you will really want the most accurate mouse so you can aim better in FPS games and click on tiny icons faster in RTS games.

Censorship makes us so much more creative.