another PC building question (hope you're not sick of them)

[Handruin]

I'm helping my buddy put together a new system for gaming, he loves games. I'd like to keep a reasonable budget of under $1000, but at the same time, the less spent the better.

I know it's possible to build a good machine, but my question is, will I be shooting him in the foot by recommending a NForce3/K8T800 series solution on the 754 socket? He's interested in having it built in the next two weeks, so NForce4/K8T890 might not be a viable option even though December is right around the corner. What chipsets do you system builders recommend? I'm recommending the athlon 64 3200+ since it's about the same price as the athlon XP 3200+. (he's upgrading from an athlon t-bird 1 GHz)

So far I was considering:
Athlon 64 3200+ ($190)

Possible Boards:
Gigabyte GA-K8NS (754 non-pro) (roughly $73)
AOpen N250A-FR (roughly $109)
Abit KV8 Pro (754) (roughly $88)

Video:
ATI 9800 Pro (~$220?)

(newegg seems to be out of stock, are these phased out?)

Memory:
at least 512 MB PC3200 ($91)
maybe crucial? Corsair seems to be the trendy ram I see all over the place these days.

Drive:
Samsung 120GB or 160GB ($80 - $100)
Pioneer A08 DVD-R ($74)
LiteOn 16x DVD ($23)

Case:
Not sure yet, but maybe Antec's performance one case ($119).

Power Supply:
Antec TruPower 430 ($79)

Misc:
HSF ($20 - $30)
1x 120 mm case fan ($10-$15)

Does this seem like an outrageously bad idea? Should I have him wait for NForce4/K8T890 boards and go the 939 pin solution?

 

[Jimshady]

If he's on a budget then maybe he should consider waiting until after Christmas? Parts are cheaper then, right?

 

[Mercutio]

Case - clone of the Antec Performance case... at $35, even without a PSU, they're far, far better than the $100 Antec version.


CPU + HSF


Motherboard - there is no reason, NONE to go with the nforce3.


1GB RAM is an absolute minimum for game play. Anything less just sucks. This is a paired set of Cosair "Value" modules. They actually OC better than their premium grade stuff.


Dump the second drive and put that cash toward the 2nd 512MB. This is a LiteOn Dual Layer 16x unit.


PSU. It's an Enlight 350W. Nothing fancy, but it's functional and it's a couple steps up from a Generic cheapie.


Samsung 160GB SATA drive. There's nothing like having a drive that you have to feel to tell whether it's on.


ATI 9800 Pro AIW. Newegg is out of stock on almost everything ATI. Avoid the low-end Sapphire unit. It has a 128-bit memory path that kills performance.

... and there's a floppy drive in there that I'm not bothering to link to.

My total including shipping to MA was $943. $100 would comfortably put your friend in an X800, and for cost-savings, an A64/3000 isn't appreciably different from the 3200. A 9600XT might also be a good compromise graphics card as well.

 

[Handruin]

The case you mentioned is a helluva bargain. My last case was a chenming look-a-like antec, so I know they don't always make their cases, if any at all. One question I would ask is, what the heck is the white plastic thing down the back? I do have to laugh at this case, only becase it is $35, and newegg wants $15 to ship it...

Next, would you recommend using the stock HSF on an athlon 64 3200+? I fully realize it is rated to handle the chip, but I have no doubt it can be improved on. For the sake of money, I'm willing to leave it as the default option.

Next, the gigabyte board you recommended was one I researched, but found it not to offer anything over the NForce3 board. Have you had any personal experience with the GA-K8VT800?

Taken with a grain of salt, newegg's customer review of the Cosair (out of 90 people) has five stars. That, plus your recommendation gives me more comfort in their product.

The reason I added the liteon dvd-rom, was to the wear and tear of using the dvd-rw as the sole drive.

Have you used the enlight power supply for anything. Just curious if it would make this machine unstable at all.

No need to sell me on the samsung, I was planning on either the 120 or 160 SATA.

The ATI 9800 AIW is not a bad deal because it also comes with Half Life 2 ($55 value), something my friend does not have, but would like to own as soon as he has a machine to play the game.

Thanks for the feedback, I'll run this by him to see what he thinks so far.

 

[blakerwry]

I've had better luck with my enlight PSUs than my Antec solution series.. I'm Zero for 2 Antec solutions while I have had maybe 1 Enlight PSU fail out of 40 in twice as many years...


If you want something better than Enlight go with an FSP (sold at newegg under fortron or sparkle, just search for "FSP"). Known for having quiet PSUs that perform well, yet are easy on the wallet.

 

[Clocker]

1GB RAM Minimum? That seems a little high for me. What games actually play better with large amounts of RAM like that?

 

[Mercutio]

Every current-generation MMO needs 1GB RAM to be genuinely tolerable.
UT2004, Farcry, Doom3 and HL2 are all VASTLY better if experienced on 1GB RAM. A lot of new games are listing 256MB as a minimum supported configuration.

I'd say anyone who describes himself as a gamer is going to want the very real improvement that comes from that second DIMM. I'd even sacrifice a midrange video card for a low end one to get it.

For the rest:
Doug, the stock HSF on an Athlon64 works just fine. The fan is not loud, the chip is not hot. If you're into overclocking, OK, fine. I suspect the retail fan will still be fine. On a costrained budget system like this, I don't think there's a reason to find out.

nForce2s I have had problems with. They're fussy about RAM. Their sound does weird things. Their IDE drivers are a kiss of death. The couple nForce3 boards I've tried, I stopped at "fussy about RAM" and bought another Via board instead. Via boards WORK. They're about as exciting as a cement block, but they're well-behaved and reliable. And usually cost a little less than the nforce3, so they're a win all around in my opinion. Yes, I've used Gigabyte's Via boards. And Albatron (which I like, when they don't explode or whatever). And MSI. And DFI. And Soltek. All were good choices IMO.

Enlight PSUs: Enlight has been around for YEARS. I don't much care for their cases but I can't fault their power supplies for anything. I rank them with AGI/HEC, Premier and Sparkle as quality mid-range choices.

No DVD-ROM: DVD writers will be $50 by January. Are you really worried about wear and tear at this point?

 

[sechs]

A gig makes a difference. I have several previous generation games -- Battlfield (both 1942 and Vietnam) and Call of Duty, for example -- wherein there is a marked difference in single player with 512MB vs. 1GB of RAM. While you can turn down graphics options, you can't decrease the size of the code.

 

[Bozo]

The white thing on the rear of the case is a storage area for screws and the PCI slot covers.

Bozo :mrgrn:

 

[Clocker]

RE: 1GB RAM

Thanks for the info. Good to know as I have not been gaming much. Next system will have 1GB or more I guess. :wink:

C

 

[CougTek]

IMO, you should opt for a 90µm Athlon 64 like the socket 939 3200+. The 90µm A64 eat considerably less current than their 130µm siblings. And their overclocking potential is quite high. Reaching 2.6GHz with them with standard cooling isn't exceptional.

I also disagree with Merc's affirmation that "there's no reason to go with a nForce3 motherboard". There are still a few KT800-based motherboards on which the AGP/PCI lock is broken, unlike nForce3 250's iterations. I don't know about the GigaByte board mentioned by Indiana Geek. Needless to say, forget overclocking without AGP/PCI lock. My choice would go on MSI's K8N Neo2 Platinum, as it seems to be one of the most optimized nForce3 boards out there. The GigaByte nForce4 is even better according to what I read, if it becomes available before Christmas.

To cool down the CPU, I highly recommend the Thermaltake Silent Boost. I've used it several times and I've never been disapointed. Efficient and relatively quiet.

Going for a 90µm Athlon 64 shouldn't bust your 1000$ budget, I think.

 

[CraigLC]

Doug, I am usually asking questions rather then answerring them so this is especially exciting to me. I currently own an ati 9800 Pro card. When my machine was having issues I was pretty sure initially that my card may have been an issue. As it turned out it wasnt but it seems that it does have issues with some games. Noteably Halo. It seems many and by many I mean thousands of people cant play Halo on the PC because they own ATI cards. ATI has done tons of revisions to drivers and software and still many cant play halo as well as a few other games, the names of which escape me at the moment. I love my 9800 pro but havent truely tested it yet. I have been playing return to castle wolfenstein online lately and had no issues.

 

[Handruin]

Coug, if I were to suggest him going with the 939 3200+ (and if I was, it would be the 90 nm), should I have him hold out for nForce4 over NForce3?

Even though I've read numerous positive reviews of the MSI Neo2, I can't bear to make myself buy another board from that company. I had so many stupid issue, topped off with a bum set of capacitors, that I don't foresee an MSI board in my future. If you've read about Mercutio's hate for Sony...I'm about half way there for MSI.

Craig, I've not yet played Halo for the PC, but every video card review indicates horrible performance. I finished halo on the xbox, so I'm not inclined to buy it for the pc. I currently have a 9500 Pro, and I suspect the 9800 isn't going to be much different in terms of compatibility. I've been very happy with my 9500 Pro so far, and I've not heard many negatives about the 9800 pro. I can only hope that ATI fixed whatever issues they had with faulty D-SUB connections. I've yet to return my 9500 pro for the weird interference I get using the D-SUB connection. I've posted extensively about it in another thread many moons ago.

 

[Buck]

I guess we'll just go back to using more nVidia based cards. :wink:

 

[ddrueding]

Just a comment about the commentary regarding the reputation of various companies and/or products. It seems every company out there has had a reason to be hated and a reason to be loved. The reasons to be loved are immediatly visible and the resons to be hated may take months/years to surface.

Every computer opinion I've read/heard goes something like this:

"You need to stop holding a gruge against company X; they've made fine products for A generations."

While at the same time, including something like:

"Don't use products from company Y; B generations ago I used their product and had a bad experience."

It seems that in most cases, the amount of time represented by A or B reflects the amount of time between system builds fo the individual making the comment.

Me? I like nForce3, and had good experiences with nForce2, but I respect the opionions of the higher-volume system builders like Tannin and Merc; and couldn't agree more with Merc on his other comments here.

 

[LiamC]

VIA and working AGP/PCI lock.

From my researching, it appears that the the K8T800 based boards have the broken AGP/PCI lock. There have been a few reviews claiming that it is fixed/can be fixed by a BIOS update, but I've seen nothing confirmed.

The K8T800 Pro has a working AGP/PCI lock. I run my KV8 Pro at up to 270 MHz core clock--so at least Abit have the AGP/PCI lock worked out.

I can also recommend the Zalman 7000B AlCu heatsink. Thanks Jan!

 

[The JoJo]

Just a comment about the commentary regarding the reputation of various companies and/or products. It seems every company out there has had a reason to be hated and a reason to be loved. The reasons to be loved are immediatly visible and the resons to be hated may take months/years to surface.

Have to agree with this, but also say it's too few a years ago that I had trouble with MSI and caps blowing. I might check them out in a year or so again....

 

[Fushigi]

Have to agree with this, but also say it's too few a years ago that I had trouble with MSI and caps blowing. I might check them out in a year or so again....

I agree as well. I'm not a volume person when it comes to buying PC upgrades, though, so once a company burns me I avoid them for a long time. There are plenty of other companies with equivalent products to use as alternatives. Once they've burned me ( :lol: ) I'll give the first one another go. I do the same with cars; Ford/Mercury, Mazda, and Toyota are currently on my s__t list.

 

[CougTek]

Coug, if I were to suggest him going with the 939 3200+ (and if I was, it would be the 90 nm), should I have him hold out for nForce4 over NForce3?

Well, the review of the GigaByte nForce4 board at Anandtech was very positive, but it is rumored that nForce 4 Ultra and SLI versions are only going to be used on ­­­­­­+150U$ boards. The Neo2 Platinum (or similar socket-939 mainboards) are sold at around 135$. The difference in performances between an nForce 4 board and an nforce 3 board should be under 3-4%. Oh, almost forgot it, but the nForce 4 comes with a PCI-E slot for the graphics card, so it's quite a bit more future-proof for a gaming box if your friend wants to upgrade its graphic card later on.

Guess you're the one who'll have to decide if it's worth the wait or not.

 

[Handruin]

Just a comment about the commentary regarding the reputation of various companies and/or products. It seems every company out there has had a reason to be hated and a reason to be loved. The reasons to be loved are immediatly visible and the resons to be hated may take months/years to surface.

Have to agree with this, but also say it's too few a years ago that I had trouble with MSI and caps blowing. I might check them out in a year or so again....

I don't consciously say it, but I also agree. MSI pissed me off enough where it will be several years before I buy/support them. I bought that board after numerous positive comments from the SR crowd, but since their db is gone, I can't reference it.

Not only was it capacitors, but their BIOS was ultra buggy. I had numerous difficulties with my scsi card, along with video performance. Once I found a BIOS that worked, I didn't touch it for a very long time...not until the board began to freeze up.

Coug, I had no doubt I would have to decide, I just wanted to get someone else take on waiting for the latest and greatest. I normally don't wait, or recommend waiting, but since it's so close I'm debating. I'm definitely going to buy one for myself when they arrive, but I was flipping back and forth about it for my friend. Getting him into PCI Express would offer a longer life time, provided the board doesn't die. Buying an A64 3200+ 90nm would offer a decent amount of growth since I'm under the impression the boards will support the athlon FX. Two years down the road, an Athlon FX 55 might be at a decent price.

 

[time]

Motherboard - there is no reason, NONE to go with the nforce3.

How about working gigabit ethernet?

 

[The JoJo]

Motherboard - there is no reason, NONE to go with the nforce3.

How about working gigabit ethernet?

Doh, this is the main reason why I'm thinking about going with an nforde3 mobo instead of the k8t800pro variants. At linuxhardware they have had horrible results with the via gige solutions.

 

[Mercutio]

My opinion on the GigE issue: Most of *US* (let alone an average person) don't have the kind of pristine network environment that would let GigE shine. I did my own cabling in my house, used cat6 cables, minimum-distance runs etc.

... and GBoC is still kind of a let-down even with the Intel PCI NICs I'm using.
Oh, sure, it's faster, but it's nothing like the move from 10Mbit to 100Mbit.

WRT to MSI, the Neowhatever board seemed decent enough for my purposes when I had to use one a few months ago. I'm not an MSI fan by any stretch of the imagination but it was a solid step up from ECS or Biostar.

 

[mubs]

This thread got me interested in the options out there.

On the Boy Wonder's site here, they claim they were able to:

* OC the 90nm A64 3500+ (default 2.2GHz) to 2.6 GHz (290*9); 18.6% OC

* OC the 90nm A64 3000+ (default 1.8GHz) to 2.6 GHz (290*9); 45% OC

The MB they used was the MSI K8N Neo2 (nForce3 Ultra) (goes for ~ $140). RAM was 2 x 512Mb OCZ 3200 Platinum Rev. 2.

From what I know, once OCed, these two chips are then identical to the FX-55, except for cache (these two have 0.5MB, FX-55 has 1MB) and die-size (FX-55 is 130nm). The FX-55 is ~ $890; the 3000+ 90nm is ~ $140.

Don't know how easy it is to take that MB that high. YMMV on the chip of course. If this can be done without losing all of one's hair, OCing the 3000+ 90nm seems like one heck of a bang for the buck - close to the magnificence of the Celery 300A.

 

[The JoJo]

My opinion on the GigE issue: Most of *US* (let alone an average person) don't have the kind of pristine network environment that would let GigE shine. I did my own cabling in my house, used cat6 cables, minimum-distance runs etc.

... and GBoC is still kind of a let-down even with the Intel PCI NICs I'm using.
Oh, sure, it's faster, but it's nothing like the move from 10Mbit to 100Mbit.

What NIC's do you have? I've got 2 Intel 1000MT NICs, which were a let down. Going CSA did the trick, but I only have it on one computer, going to upgrade another one soon.

 

[Mercutio]

Yes, that's the same model I have on my PCs. I have one 3C2000 as well.