big jump NEED HELP!!

[Stormfury]

I'm making a huge jump from my current system to a new one and I need some help picking out a case and monitor, or any other recommendations that are needed.

My current system was still usuable up till I had to quit Jedi Knights II because I couldn't stand the lag anymore. It's just getting pathetic now. *Sigh* hate to say it but here it is :

500mhz K6-2
Trinity S1598
Riva TNT 2
320 MB SDRAM

Here is the new system that I'm going to get.

2800+ XP
ATI 9700 Pro
Asus a7n8x Deluxe
512 MB Corsair Memory XMS PC2700C2 (Going to get another stick later.)
Lite-On DVD Drive
Altec Lansing 251 5.1 6 piece system
Case ????
Monitor ????

I'm going to use my 20.5 GB Fireball Hard Drive and HP cd-writer. I'm not really sure what kind of monitor I want, I can't decide on either getting the 17" or 19". I have a budget of about $1500. Any suggestions would help a lot, thanks.

 

[peter21]

I will be buying a monitor soon also i decided on the Samsung SyncMaster 957mb - 19 inch. here is a link to some reviews of monitors.

http://www.pcworld.com/reviews/article/0,aid,105095,00.asp


As for a case i'm not sure what you want to spend but Kingwin cases are nice. Heres a link to a review.

http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.html?i=1744









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The only thing i know...

is that i know nothing at all.

 

[HolyShiznit]

<font color=blue>500mhz K6-2
Trinity S1598
Riva TNT 2
320 MB SDRAM</font color=blue>

I am in the process of upgrading my K6-2 500. Good in Windows but woefully slow in gaming. Congrats on actually finding JKII even playable.

<font color=blue>
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Guns kill people just like spoons make Rosie O'Donnell fat.
<font color=blue>

 

[Spitfire_x86]

Is your HDD 7200 rpm? For gaming, your older HDD may be OK, but for audio/video editing and video encoding, you will be better with a faster HDD.

Let us know <A HREF="http://forumz.tomshardware.com/community/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&p=25703#25703" target="_new"> What File compression format you use? </A>

 

[andlcs]

I recommend a new HD, the Western Digital with 8Mb cache. And PC3200 Corsair XMS running at PC2700 (if you upgrade to a 200MHz CPU in future).
The Antec Plus 1080AMG is expensive but comes with 430W True Power PSU and it is a good case. My friend has the 19" monitor from Sony it is very good but expensive too.

 

[halkebul]

A7N8X Deluxe is the best AMD Athlon board available! And a new super memory module is available from OCZ. With the respect to the XP 2800+, you could get a XP 2600+ to outperform a 2800+ simply by increasing the FSB a little in the BIOS - whole process would take about 30 seconds (also set "AGP Frequency" to 66MHz and "memory frequency" to "sync"). You could use the money you save by going with the 2600+ to go towards the purchase of another 512MB memory module.

My recommendation:

2600+ XP Processor <b>(333MHz FSB)</b> RETAIL
ATI 9700 Pro
Asus a7n8x Deluxe
Two <A HREF="http://www.coldconcept.com/default.php/cPath/39_42/osCsid/bacb71282522ff2370ab505db85302d5" target="_new">512MB OCZ PC3500 Enhanced Latency (EL) memory modules</A>
Lite-On DVD Drive
Logitech Z640 5.1 Speakers
Chieftec Case
Enermax EG465P-VE(FMA) 431W Power Supply
Hitachi CM721F 19" Flat CRT monitor

<A HREF="http://forumz.tomshardware.com/hardware/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&p=527833#527833" target="_new">Official A7N8X Thread</A>

<i>It's your world kid!!!</i>

 

[Stormfury]

Hey thanks a lot I will check out those links. JKII was horrible when I looked at the mountains and stuff, sometimes I would look at the ground and run backwards so there wouldn't be so much lag. I will probably go with the 2600+ now and save myself some money. As for Spitfire_x86's question it's 7200 RPM 2MB. What's special about the 512MB OCZ PC3500 Enhanced Latency (EL) memory modules? Thanks a lot again.

 

[Stormfury]

I was looking at the OCZ memory and it's PC-3500, where the motherboard takes PC-3200. Will the OCZ memory work with the a7n8x??

 

[Stormfury]

Nevermind. I just read a review saying that they used XMS 3500 just fine. I think I'm going with the antec plus 1080AMG case. Still debating on a monitor though. What should I look out for when buying a monitor? The last monitor I bought was over ebay and I had bought the first monitor I saw for a cheap price . Thanks.

 

[halkebul]

What's special about the 512MB OCZ PC3500 Enhanced Latency (EL) memory modules?

The OCZ Enhanced Latency (EL) memory modules are engineered with High Dual-Channlel DDR performance as the main goal and they're reasonably priced.

<A HREF="http://www.thetechzone.com/display.php?i=215&p=1" target="_new">Review 1</A>
<A HREF="http://www.ocprices.com/index.php?rev_id=104&page=8&action=reviews>" target="_new">Review 2</A>

<i>It's your world kid!!!</i>

 

[halkebul]

Will the OCZ memory work with the a7n8x??

Yes.

<i>It's your world kid!!!</i>

 

[halkebul]

What should I look out for when buying a monitor?

A quality Flat Screen 19" CRT monitor will serve you well. I recommend the Hitachi CM721F 19" Flat CRT monitor.

<i>It's your world kid!!!</i>

 

[f4shionablecha0s]

I'd recommend getting a new hard drive. Using old parts on new computers never works out well. I've found that IBM hard drives are quite reliable, and I would recommend getting one of those, however WD and Maxtor do make pretty good products. 20.5 gigs is a bit small for a gamer.

 

[Stormfury]

I think I'll get a new HD now. I wasn't sure if I should but since two people recomended it, I'll go ahead and get one. Also I'm leaning towards the Hitachi CM721F 19" Flat CRT monitor.

 

[the_Prisoner]

You can still use the old hard drive. Install it and make it the slave. Plus it will be alot faster and easier to transfer the files from your old computer.

Any good quality 19" flat screen CRT will work well. Hitachi, Sony, Samsung and etc. If you got the money go for a 22"!

the Prisoner

I'm not a number, I'm a free man!