Building my own PC - Here are the specs, please comment!

[Spaded]

Haven't upgraded my PC since May 02, and I am a games lover, so it is time to upgrade! I want to build my own PC instead of ordering from a company like Dell to save money and to feel proud of myself /images/graemlins/grin.gif

BUDGET: $3300 from bad beat jackpot. $2000 or so after taxes, have a couple grand more in savings. Not gonna touch savings.

Spaded's Rig:

Processor: AMD Athlon 64 4000+ San Diego (2.4GHz) 1GHz FSB, 1MB L2 cache Socket 939. Named after where i live, so i had to /images/graemlins/smirk.gif plus the next level up (+0.2GHz) costs almost double. $368

Mobo: ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe: Supposed to be good for AMD, and any processor upgrades i might make over next 2 yrs or so. Only problem is a fan i might have to replace cheaply. $164

Case: (http://images10.newegg.com/productimage/11-119-082-01.JPG) With 380W power supply. $80

Video Card: GeForce 7800GTX 256MB eVGA. The ONE item that I am splurging on. Can I be talked out of it? $579!!

Sound: SoundBlaster Audigy 2 ZSGamer. $121-$50 rebate

Hard Drive: Seagate Barracuda 7200 250GB. $111

DVD/CD drive, memory, floppy drive, Dell 1701FP monitor, speakers&woofer: Cannibalizing from old PC, the drive is only a few weeks old. Free?

Total price: $1500 at Newegg. The Dell equivalent is $2300 and the Alienware equivalent is $4800!

I'm going to upgrade my 5+ year old 1701FP someday. It only gets up to 1280x1024 and has no dead pixels. 2001FP for quad tabling might be good, but I play NL 6max, so maybe later.

Is this a good setup? I'm going to order before tuesday, when the $50 mail in rebate for the sound card expires.

[Terry]

I’d like to see a little bigger power supply ... be ready to add that second video card when the prices come down.

I know quite a few people who have removed their SoundBlaster in favor of the onboard sound on Asus boards. I did. SB tends to be quirky in quite a few games. You might want to think about passing on the sound card and spending the bucks on fast low latency RAM instead.

Just for fun, you might want to price it out on Monarch Computer (http://www.monarchcomputer.com/Merchant2/merchant.mv). Newegg is fine but I personally like Monarch just a bit better. Their custom build service is excellent.

[Spaded]

I got a tip from another forum that the MOBO is probably too much, because i'll probably never need SLI. I'm going with a little bit cheaper one.

And on the power supply, I'm going with an Antec 500W

I got a better deal on the vid card, saving about $150 or so

And for processor I've decided to go with the AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+ Manchester 1GHz FSB Socket 939 Dual Core Processor with the money I saved from giving the sound card the axe.

[Terry]

Sounds great. I'll mention one more thing that is much better than stock. http://www.thermalright.com/

[Spaded]

System update!

Processor: AMD athlon 64 X2 4200+ dual core
RAM: GeIL SDRAM DDR400 (PC3200) 2x1GB
Power: Antec SmartPower ATX 12V 500W
Video: GeForce 7800GTX 256MB
Mobo: ABIT socket 939 NVIDIA nForce4 ATX
HD: Seagate Barracuda 7200rpm 250GB

[Neuge]

If you're already buying a 7800GTX you might as well get this (http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=322727-246703).

[MyMindIsGoing]

The abit+athlon 64 combo is something I would never use. Abit beacuse it is very low quality and athlon beacuse of some nasty driver problems. Go with an intel mobo and cpu instead.

"The abit+athlon 64 combo is something I would never use. Abit beacuse it is very low quality and athlon beacuse of some nasty driver problems. Go with an intel mobo and cpu instead."

I respectfully disagree with both these points.

[MyMindIsGoing]

Sure you can, everyone can have their own opinion. I just seen (and had several myself) abit mobos, none were stable. Some of my closest friends also (we used to love abit) had abit mobos, the did not survive over time, some caps busted, some voltageregulators burned, and had to be replaced. I also have several friends who bought athlon 64 (even though I recomended against it), all of them have trouble of one kind or another, mostly driver related. They [according to one of them] also are very picky about memory if you want a stable system. I for sure will not buy an abit again, and I would never even consider an athlon again.

[Spaded]

Thanks everyone, i went with the specs in the "system update" post. Also, 90%+ of the customer reviews i read on newegg were positive on both the abit mobo and the athlon 64 X2. People tend to take the time to comment on their purchases only if they had a bad experience, so seeing all those positives and only a few negatives made me decide to go with it. And most of the people who put up negative reviews had driver problems that were only corrected after reading their instruction manuals and installing the latest drivers and/or flashing the BIOS. /images/graemlins/grin.gif

[Jordan]

one thing to keep in mind is that newegg purges negative reviews from their site.

[jasonHoldEm]

I second the recommendation for monarch over newegg. While newegg is probably cheaper I've found post-sale service (i.e. returns) to be dramatically better with monarch (and well, pretty much the service all around is dramatically better, but especially post sale). Unless the price is dramatically different, I'd be willing to pay a little more to know I'm going to have a competent person handling any problems I might encounter (I had a dvd drive burn out on my monarch system and had a replacement in hand in less than a week, with little to no effort on my part other than emailing them - once - and putting the drive in a box).

J

athlon cpus are great.

G.

[MyMindIsGoing]

[ QUOTE ]
athlon cpus are great.

G.

[/ QUOTE ]

In what way?

[Spaded]

IT WORKS!!!!

Booted up on the first try. Everything works, no crashes so far, and driver installation went flawlessly. Still haven't installed any games yet, but when I do it will be even better /images/graemlins/grin.gif /images/graemlins/spade.gif /images/graemlins/grin.gif

[MyMindIsGoing]

I never said it wouldn't work, just how good /images/graemlins/wink.gif And you will experience some flaws later.

[Terry]

[ QUOTE ]
IT WORKS!!!!

[/ QUOTE ]

Never doubted you for a minute ... a guy who asks for advice ... on multiple forums ... and takes it ... and ignores the irrational flamers.

So what kind of games? I’ve recently played Children of the Nile (fun for a couple weeks but kind of limited – was available real cheap on eBay), Silent Hunter III (lots of annoying crashes) and did the 30 day stint on Everquest II (no time for addictive MMORPGs). I need a new game.

By the way, I haven't had an Intel CPU since sometime in the 1980's.

[MyMindIsGoing]

Flamers lol, this is a discussion not a flamewar. For someone like you who writes "In other words, RTFM" you should think about what you are saying.