ime to build a new system, looking for advice...

[eqmassa]

Well, it's been about a year since I kept up with hardware progressions and developments, and now I'm ready to build a new system. The last time I researched hardware, the Ti-4600 and A7V333 were top of the line. I really know nothing about any of the newer products, but I keep seeing more gamers with ATI cards instead of Nvidia ones, which is a change. Nforce motherboards seem all the rage, however.

I'll be using the powerful components primarily for gaming and possibly a little bit of presentation-building (but nothing heavy whatsoever, power point will probably be the extent of that). As for how much I'm willing to spend: I'm not necessarily worried about a specific price range (though $1800 including a monitor would be the absolute max) as the overall value and longevity. To elaborate, I don't think it's ever a good idea to purchase the number 1 graphics card available, simply because it will have dropped in price threefold by the times games have caught up to it. I'm not into overclocking, but I do want my games to perform very well.

I am familiar with most types of hardware, but I have never purchased monitors or speakers before. I don't really want to spend more than $35 on speakers, and the monitor just needs to be good enough to keep up with my gaming (so most likely a larger CRT). Due to this previous experience, I would like a bit of explanation with anyone's suggestions. Also, this needs to be built by September 10th, so if you feel I should wait a while to buy certain parts (price drops, of course) or for new models of products to come out, please say so. Thanks!

Gaming PC in progress, suggestions welcome

 

[pIII_Man]

intel will drop prices in october...

samsung makes good monitors (there are other good brands...but i have only tried samsung)...

Probably for that price you should be looking at 3 channel speaker set...

fortron makes nice cheep powersupplies...

intel has the perforamance crown...

ati and nvidia are tied for the performance crown...

nvidia makes the best amd chipset

the intel 865 (wit pat emulation) and the 875 chipsets are tied for performance...

Other than that i cannot say much...it is your system and i can only lead you in the right direction...


Proud owner of DOS 3.3

 

[Prof133]

Should be able to get an ATi 9800 non-pro version graphics card for about $250. Pair that up with an Intel Pentium4 2.6C (800MHz FSB) or 2.8C (800MHz FSB) processor and a motherboard with the springdale (i865pe) chipset. Two sticks of at least PC3200 memory in this case. These components will provide very fast performance without spending top-dollar for the components that are ahead of them by a small margin.

<b><font color=blue>Oh, I can shed light on that ...</font color=blue></b>

 

[Crashman]

nVidia chipsets are superior in every way to VIA. All the A7V's were crap because all used Via, hence the V in the name. A lot of guys build crap so they can have an unstable/incompatable system that goes fast for cheap, think of it like a riced out yugo.

<font color=blue>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to a hero as big as Crashman!</font color=blue>
<font color=red>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to an ego as large as Crashman's!</font color=red>

 

[HardWareBoss]

Viewsonic makes nice Monitor's.

 

[eqmassa]

Thanks sincerely for your help. Gonna try for a few more viewpoints; I’m knowledgeable enough to make decisions once viable options are presented, but I need the options and reasoning in order to do so.

Gaming PC in progress, suggestions welcome

 

[traviss187]

when buying components try www.pricewatch.com you can usually find just about the best prices around, just check a seller's ratings at resellerratings.com to make sure they're reliable, the intel cpu's are winning out in most benchmarks and the 2.6 or 2.8c will get you the best price/preformance ratio (also easily overclockable without much risk)
I'd go with asus or abit for your mb, good reliability, you can get a good built in sound card.
INtel is droping prices I think 20 or 30% so it's worth waiting. right now a 2.8 is under $270 retail
also you can watch
http://www.slickdeals.net
for your cd-rw, dvd rom, and hard drive, I've picked up a 52x lite-on for $20, and several maxtor hard drives w/8mb cache for well under online prices, and that way you can usualy get them from a large chain store so they're returnable if you have a problem
if you want to splurge a little on the the case go lian-li pc-60 is nice, otherwise just get something decent,
enermax/antec are the prefered psu's by many, nothing huge, maby 365 watt or so

if you do this stuff you can build a nice system that will kick some ass for WELL under 1800

 

[pIII_Man]

fortron also makes good psu's...


Proud owner of DOS 3.3

 

[Cloaked]

case+ps-->if you want a nice case, go for a good aluminum lian-li or cooler master. YOu can probably fit that into your budget
mobo-->i would go for an 865pe mobo, like the msi neo2, i hear that it is a good performer
proc-->an intel p4c 2.8 pr 2.6 ghz will be very good
vid-->if you can fit it into your budget, get a gf5900 ultra or radeon 9800 pro (128 MB version of each) the performance difference is negligable, so if you have a preference of a brand, (such as nvidia bc of their linux drivers, or ati because you think it is slightly better for the particular games you play,) just go for it. If you cant afford that i would get one of those, but the non pro/ultra version, or maybe a radeon 9700 pro.
ram-->2x256 400 mhz ddr. Go for some good corsair xms. I dont think that a cas level 2.0 has much (if any) performance difference than 2.5.
hdd-->I would get 2 7200 rpm pata drives, maybe 80-120 GB each, and have a raid 0 array. However, if you dont want to do that, one large pata drive would be fine.
drives-->most will be fine, get a dvd reader and cdrw drive, unless you feel the need for a dvd burner.

 

[greenjizz]

I'm getting ready to do the exact same thing. I was told the 2.6C will overclock to 3.2 but i'm not 100% sure on that. I have a post going right now asking about which CPU is the best bang for my $$. Just make sure you get a kickass heatsink, maybe a theralright slk-900-u. I'm getting the ASUA P4P800 thats got the Intel 865 chipset, Ati9800 pro, western digital 120GB wityh 8MB cache, and I'm still stuck on which RAM to get either dual channel or not. I'm leaning towards 1GB of single channel PC3500 RAM.

Have fun in your gaming cause Half-Life 2 and Doom3 look amazing

GJ.