Ok, here's the system im planning...

[SDB100]

..tell me what you think, if this would be a viable gaming system (it's kinda pricey)

ALL components from newegg.com

Speakers:

Logitech THX Certified Z-680 5.1 Speaker 500Watt Silver Retail: $284.00


Processor:

AMD Athlon 64 3400+, 1MB L2 Cache, 64-bit Processor - Retail: $429.00

Motherboard:

Asus K8T800 Chipset Motherboard for AMD Socket 754 CPU, Model "K8V Deluxe" -RETAIL: $139.99

Video:

ASUS GeForce FX5900 ULTRA Video Card, 256MB DDR, 256-bit, DVI/VIVO, 8X AGP, Model "V9950 Ultra"

-RETAIL: $399.99

Memory:

Mushkin Blue Line 184 Pin 512MB DDR PC-3200 - Retail: $88x2 ($176.00) (going for 2x512 MB chips rather than a single 1GB chip for price sake)


Monitor:

ViewSonic P95F+ 19" PerfectFlat CRT Monitor –RETAIL: $279.00

Case:

Antec PLUS1080AMG Metallic Gray SOHO file server: $159.00

Hard Drive:

Western Digital Raptor 74GB 10,000RPM SATA Hard Drive, Model WD740GD, OEM Drive Only: $258.00

DVD Drive/CD-RW:


Sony Black 48x24x48x16 Combo Drive, Model CRX300E/B2, OEM: $44.99 (?? when did CDRW and DVD drives get so cheap??)


Floppy Drive:

SONY MPF920 Black 1.44MB 3.5INCH Floppy Disk Drive, OEM: $10.99

Sound Card:

Creative Labs Sound Blaster Audigy LS PCI Sound Card -RETAIL: $63.00

 

[gobeavers]

if you can spare the extra expense, see if you can go with an ATI 9800 XT (or pro) vid card. It may do better in DX 9 games than an Nvidia card, but shrouded in mystery it is (about what brand is better).

Anxiously awaiting yamhill....is it here yet?

 

[endyen]

Get the 9800xt bba or by asus. The asus has the theatre chip for video in, and they bothe come with a coupon for HL2.

 

[juin]

That a benchmark computer never you will need this power for any game

I dont like french test

 

[endyen]

...unless it has lots of ai and you like eye candy at high res. Maybe you want to play HL3 or Doom4. Looks like a great system to me. Dont buy it to smoke the P4EE though, inteliots will get nasty.

 

[nico3d]

personally, I would go for an Intel processor, not an AMD

the rest is ok.

Nico -- Nick

 

[HardWareBoss]

Looks good. Vid card buy 9800Pro or 9800XT. Better for the newer games. New Vid cards due March, May time frame.

 

[Cybercraig]

You might want to grab a Sony DRU-510 while they are so cheap. The CD/RW-DVD-ROM's are getting cheap because they are tough to sell when DVD-R/W combos are approaching 100 bucks. The Veritas Simple Backup program is so easy a monkey could run it. You may need to backup something some day. Cheers!


It is better to be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.

 

[Snorkius]

I would go for the 3000+ the difference in performance is not *that* big while the price is significantly lower. Then again, if you're spending so much money...

<b>wooooow <font color=red> Killer Klowns </font color=red> ... from <font color=blue>outer space</font color=blue>... HOLY SH¡T!</b>

 

[Carnivore]

I dont see that HD having much odf an impact on games. It costs a ton of money, I could be wrong, but I doubt the HD will have much of an impact on your rigs gaming capability. Just don't see the cost vs benefit on that HD being equal. I would get an 80GB Sata drive for about 80 Bukcs, and use the left over to buy a 9800 XT. Hell....with the left over you would be getting close to being able to buy a P220F Monitor too.

 

[Snaggle]

the asus radeon 9800pro is the same price;but has no software worth mentioning,the asus 9800xt is the best gpu now and has alot of SW bundled.

 

[Crashman]

According to OCWorkbench, the best A64 board is the Soyo K8USA.

<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>

 

[gothitbycar]

You should get two 36 gb raptors and put them in RAID 0, it will be faster then one 76 gb raptor and about 50 bucks cheaper to do so, just make sure the motherboard supports Serial Raid 0.

-----------------------
[mind went blank]

 

[FireGenie]

Motherboard,I prefer nForce3 rather than K8T800. K8T800 takes a poor performance especially in disk system.

 

[SoDNighthawk]

I agree I am a GeForce fan from way back before the Wheel but on that new system I would get the ATI card instead.

I saw some minor problems posted by benchmarks and a few other web-page documents that said the new FX cards were not working to expectation. They have not as yet gone past the 53.03 driver download yet either and as I am running a FX card in my main game box I am waiting to see that go to a 54.0 driver download.

I have had no problems with my current rig but I could have had some better scores in the Performance Test benchy at normal operating levels as it was I had to pop some hurt onto the card in overclocking to get the numbers to read better.

That always makes me wonder when reviewers say they test cards at stock speeds for different games I think they are full of [-peep-] and overclock the crap out of the whole test system!! Their numbers are always higher then everyone else's that run a clean system.

Barton 3200+ 400MHz
A7N8X Deluxe
Liquid 12 Celsius
2x512 Crucial DDR 400 PC3200
GeForce FX5900
Two Maxtor 40Gig 8MB cach 7200rpm
SONY RW 52x/24x/52x
SONY DVD 16x/40x

 

[Parhelia]

good choice, but u can change some parts: for example get the A64 3200+ it costs less and u can easily get the 3400+ performance with little overcklocking.
For the board: get the MSI K8T800 Neo, its a verry good board, with dinamic overcklocking, and cool and quiet enabled (the only board with cool and quiet enabled).
Than get the radeon 9800 pro (if u can find them) or the XT (pro is bearly equal to XT performance and cheaper).
For the screen i don't like the p95f+, i tried it, its disapointing, verry disapointing, go for samsung crt's for low price, or for sony trinitron for high price.

 

[SDB100]

Well, i dont much like overclocking, i like to make sure my components have as much longevity as I can.

Ive been looking over both the ASUS and MSI boards, both are very good, but ive used ASUS in the last 4 computers ive built. Also, ASUS K8V does have Cool and quiet on it.

Ive been a big nVidia fan for a long time. I would try an ASUS 9800XT or Pro, but I play EverQuest and ive heard there is a problem with ATI drivers in that game.

Hmm, whats it is with the p95f? Ive read great reviews about it. Also, I currently own a viewsonic a75f 17" perfectflat monitor, and its' really nice.

I may check out some of the other monitors, but i dont really want to be buying a $350-$500 monitor. This one is a 19" PerfectFlat monitor for $279, seemed like a good deal to me

 

[Zoron]

I would try an ASUS 9800XT or Pro, but I play EverQuest and ive heard there is a problem with ATI drivers in that game.

First of all... get rid of that virus known as EverQuest.



I played it for 3 years... on 4 different vid cards. Matrox Marvel G200TV, Voodoo 3, ATi Radeon (the very first Radeon), and ATi Radeon 8500. Never had an issue playing it with ANY of those cards. The Radeon cards played it just as well as any other comparable card at the time. If there are problems (I have a couple friends that play using Radeon cards), they must be new... I haven't heard any complaints. One is using a Radeon 9500Pro, another uses a Radeon 7500, and yet another is using a Radeon 9600Pro.

You should get two 36 gb raptors and put them in RAID 0, it will be faster then one 76 gb raptor and about 50 bucks cheaper to do so, just make sure the motherboard supports Serial Raid 0.

If you can afford it, two 74GB Raptors in RAID 0 is even FASTER than the 36GB setup. Pricey, sure... but with average transfer rates equalling BUSRT rates of regular drives, you can't go wrong.

<font color=red> If you design software that is fool-proof, only a fool will want to use it. </font color=red>

 

[Carnivore]

FYI....I to was a huge EQ junky until anbout 5 months ago. Kicking that disease was hard. But back to the point. I to heard the rumors abotu driver issues and EQ, yet I never had a single hitch with my ATI card. In fact...it's ran EQ much bette rthan any NVIDIA card had.

EQ always runs into driver bugs...with just abotu everything. They always get em fixed, and Norrath rolls on. The ATI is definately teh better choice.