BF2S Forums My first homebuilt computer

If you are going to want to upgrade this system, then I would recommend that you get a PCI-E motherboard and video card.  If you build an AGP system right now, it is going to be extremely outdated in a couple months.  But hey, that is just my opinion.

Can you suggest a motherboard and where I could find one? That would be helpful.

Also, is this a good SATA controller: StarTech.com Dual Channel Serial ATA PCI Express Controller Card

And Twist, what you said about CAS2, what is that? Sorry I'm new to this whole thing...

I've found a good video card (I think) for PCIE----"Diamond Multimedia Viper x1300 Video Card, PCI Express, 512MB DDR2"  what's your take on it?

Is this a better CPU than the Pentium 4 HT:

AMD Athlon 64 3500+, 2.2 GHz, 2.0 GHz FSB, Socket 939

I'm on a budget remember

Also, do I need a SATA card?

cyborg_ninja-117 wrote:

Daysniper wrote:

Is this a better CPU than the Pentium 4 HT:

AMD Athlon 64 3500+, 2.2 GHz, 2.0 GHz FSB, Socket 939

yes....

wait till july 27th when conroe is out... intel is handing out a major price cuts on all cpus. i would suggest a socket 775 system since its more to date, and ddr2 ram. is 800 bucks including a case and psu? scrap the SCSI card, totally worthless unless you buy an SCSI hard drive (which i doubt a lot)

heres what i would get for 800 bucks

this ram
7600gt
this mobo
intel E6300 conroe (when its released, its aroudn 200usd)
this hard drive

If you're going to wait for the Conroe, you might as well hold off for an NVIDIA G80 video card.

Last edited by unnamednewbie13 (2006-07-23 10:35:58)

will the mobo you suggested support the conroe? it doesn't look like it.

Since you're not looking at a dual core CPU to being with, I recommend:

opteron 146 (look for deals on fatwallet, monarch has been selling them for under $150)
DFI nforce 4 ultra D mobo (check newegg)
2 gigs of DDR500 ram (newegg again)
7900GT
pick your case, but unless it's a good name brand (like Antec) the power supply will probably be junk.

Get a Western Digital Raptor 10000 rpm drive for your OS and games and that slower 250GB one u mentioned above for storage, itll help cut down loading times.


EDIT:

Oh, as for the SATA card, its not likly u'll need one, any motherboard worth buying generally has 2 - 4 SATA ports on it already but check first as its not  100% standard just yet.

Last edited by TheEternalPessimist (2006-07-24 06:03:37)

just get a X-Fi gamer card

or audigy 2 , doesnt really matter. the xi-fi has built on memory though, so slight increase in performance overall

get a robust powersupply. i would recommend the ocz 600w gamextreme so your prepared for future upgrades

and no u dont need the RAID card, unless your running raid. and to be honest u dont need it even then. most decent mobos have built in RAID ports for up to 4 sata drives

although the performance of a add in card is always better with raid. i wouldnt go with that starforce brand though. just forget it all together and use the mobo ports

Last edited by beerface702 (2006-07-24 15:16:43)

It all looks fine... But if you want to stay on budget.... I'd recommend going for less CPU. In a couple of days Intel will slash prices across the board. Get an "old" CPU (not conroe) and a decent Mobo to go with it, and you can save enough to possibly get a GF7800 GPU or something a little better than a "default" 7600. You may need to strech the budget a couple of bucks.. but really.. if you're smart, theres nothing wrong with buying used if need be... Loads of people are replacing their 78-7900 cards for the 7950, you can easily save 30-40% off retail prices by gettign a card with a couple of months of age on it... and that wont make the card an worse.
Also forget about crossfire and Sli and what have you.. Unless you know for SURE you're going to need it, get a Mobo without all the hazzles of weird things you wont need... It's cheaper, and usually has less bugs when it has less features.
Oh.. And I couldn't find any information about your chosen memory.. So there's noway I can tell what CAS lefel it is... But generally, ask the seller.. lower CAS is better. so if your choice is 2 1 gig blocks at CAS2.5 or 4 512MB blocks at CAS2... Go for the 4 blocks... It's a lot faster (if you configure the PC to use the mem correctly). CAS is the.. ahm.. in liu of a better term... "the way" memory is written and read. Normally, memory is read in blocks and verified before being sent to the requesting IRQ/channel/device/whatever. And while the process of SENDING the data is done on the bus frequency, the process of RETRIEVING or STORING the data in the memory block itself is done with some delay totally unrelated to the bus frequency, this is the CAS LATENCY. So you generally want this delay (latency) to be as short as the memory will handle. thus lower CAS = Good.

And in general. Ask yourself if you want to UPGRADE this PC in the (near) future, or get rid of it and buy a new one... Generally, if you dont buy to upgrade, you get more "bang for the buck" here and now, but you will often find the need to replace the PC faster, thus costing you more money in the long run. If you want to upgrade, you might find that buying 4 512MB blocks will be stupid because in a couple of years, you'll need 4 GB, so if you have all of your memory slots taken, you will need to replace ALL of your memory... This gets more expensive than just adding in. Same thing goes for the GPU, CPU, PSU etc. etc. The less you need to replace during an upgrade, the cheaper the upgrade will be. So if you plan to upgrade, buy parts that can/will last longer, either by virtue of being better parts, or more powerfull ones (or ideally, both).

As for a DVD drive.. I prefer the NEC series, they're cheap, resonably silent and I have had no problems with any of the 3 I've had so far... Only real downside is that they dont make a lightscribe version (or at least they didn't when I upgraded a couple of months ago). I bought my last DVD-RW NEC drive for roughly $30, but this was a while ago... they may even be cheaper now. At any rate, dont go buy a madly expensive one, it's basically the same unit you buy, no matter the brand name. It's OK to pay a couple of bucks more to get a decent DVD writer software (like Nero) with the drive.. But other than that... Just get a cheap one.

RAM: Go for sticks from our friends at OCZ. I run the platnium, and love it.
GPU: My suggestion is to make this the last item you pick. Spend your remaining budget on it, and then when you want a new video card in 2 months, you have the least invested in this one item.
Burner: Man, I live for Plextor, but they're not a good solution for those on a budget. I've installed, literally, a ton of Lite-On drives, and they have as few problems as everyone else out there.
Sound: Go for an Audigy 2 gamer, unless you're a budding musician, in which case blow the bank and get a Pro.

leetkyle wrote:

Get S939 or SAM2, 478 / 775 is oldddd.

Yes but the board he is buying supports core duo 2 so he can upgrade later.......but i would get the asus 975 mobo instead : http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a … 6813131025

and toms hardwares mobo review : http://www.tomshardware.com/2006/05/22/ … _tomorrow/