BF2S Forums building a machine....any input on components?

Again the post about fatwallet <--great site dude.

But WHY must everyone always say get this get that the XTX cards etc he is trying to do this for under 600 bucks... spending 300 on a video card isn't reasonable when your skimping.

Do yourself a favor and get a 939 board. I don't like ESC board either but it's tough to beat the price. Anything nvida is also pretty stable pretty tough to screw-up manufacturing a nforce4 board. Everything "important" is built in to the northbridge or CPU and are not made by ESC anyways.

Might want to skim on that processor go for the oppie as suggested above or try to get a 3200 they are selling for around 100 bucks now or less.

If your into overclocking and you choose the right board you could also do something decent with a 805 pentium.

I won't go into the specifics......but the key to building a machine you'll be happy with (even if its NOT filled with the top of the line components just yet).......is to make sure you get components that allow for good upgradeability in the future.

For instance.......so you don't think you'll run more than one gfx card right now.........but what about in the future....you come across some more cash, and you want to drop in an extra vid card?  Well, it would be better to be able to just buy the vid card and plop it in......instead of having to buy an SLi motherboard as well.

Also.......the one place you should absolutely, never, EVER cheap out on is the power supply (TRUST ME......please dear God trust me on this......I've learned the hard way, many times).  Get a GOOD name brand power supply.  Preferrably 550 watts or more.  Basically any power supply that has achieved "SLi certification" is gonna be pretty decent (even if you don't plan on running SLi).  Even if you don't know it yet, you WANT to spend the money here (it will save you money, time, headaches, and bloody knuckles in the future).

KiL

KingLou wrote:

I won't go into the specifics......but the key to building a machine you'll be happy with (even if its NOT filled with the top of the line components just yet).......is to make sure you get components that allow for good upgradeability in the future.

For instance.......so you don't think you'll run more than one gfx card right now.........but what about in the future....you come across some more cash, and you want to drop in an extra vid card?  Well, it would be better to be able to just buy the vid card and plop it in......instead of having to buy an SLi motherboard as well.

Also.......the one place you should absolutely, never, EVER cheap out on is the power supply (TRUST ME......please dear God trust me on this......I've learned the hard way, many times).  Get a GOOD name brand power supply.  Preferrably 550 watts or more.  Basically any power supply that has achieved "SLi certification" is gonna be pretty decent (even if you don't plan on running SLi).  Even if you don't know it yet, you WANT to spend the money here (it will save you money, time, headaches, and bloody knuckles in the future).

KiL

KingLou,
Agreed on everything including the "name brand PS", but 550 is total overkill for most people.  Yes a PS needs to provide more power than your system draws, but a good 350 is enough for 90% of the people in here.  I think the #s on retail power supplies have climbed because of the average joe dumb thinking a garbage 600w is better than a good 350.  OP buy one of the antec slk1650s at fry's right now for $15 after $40 mail in rebate.  It comes with an antec 350w PS.