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$2000 to fly through BF2

T

TheOne5533

n00b
Joined
Apr 18, 2005
Messages
30
I have $2000 to spend on a new computer and need help getting the some good specs together to put together a sweet gaming machine that can fly through BF2 and HL2. I am upgrading from a 5 year old socket a type amd thunderbird. It can still get up and go just with like 11 fps with low settings. So, I need some help to see if anyone can give me a good number of parts to buy. I will also need a new monitor, mouse, and keyboard...I have speakers(Klipshe 5.1 cost me $300 bucks and I want to put them to good use.) So, please someone help me I will be buying the parts tommorrow or sunday...so they are here before my birthday...buying myself a comp from my birthday:)
 
First of, are you overclocking, or willing to overclock? On the rev. e cores, it is safe, stable, fast, cool, and free. A 3200+ will do 2.4-2.8 with air cooling, that is prime stable.

I would get the following:

1x7800GTX (not worth the money for two, just wait until prices come down)
DFI SLI nf4 mobo
2x1gb crucial value (oc's ok, but oc'ing ram doesn't help memory performance much on the A64, it is stable ram as well)
939 3200+ overclocked, or a 3700+@ monarch for $290
RAID 0 HD setup, two 300GB caviars@newegg, can be had for a good price now, better to go large RAID, raptors don't have nearly as much space, and they aren't that much faster.
Ram drives will destroy them, which should be out in 4-8 weeks.
Seasonic S12 600, (~$130ish @ewiz, good price, awesome PSU, some of the best rails, for a good price, and silent).

If overclocking, buy a XP-120 (if it fits the DFI), or a XP-90C (if the 120 doesn't fit).
 
I agree with some of what you are saying.

Yes to the 7800. It's $507.70 shipped at Monarch.

yes to the mobo, or you can get a DFI nf4-DAGF for $89 shipped on Monarch.

Good choice to get Crucial Value 2x1GB. $110 now on Newegg.

If you are going to overclock, get a 3000+ for $120 shipped at eWiz.com. If not, get the 3200+ retail.

Bad choice on the HDDs. For one thing, newegg ships their hard drives in bubblewrap, which can get them damaged. NO major HDD manufac accepts RMAs wrapped in bubblewrap. You should get Maxtor DiamondMax 10 7k rpm 16mb cache drives. They are second in speed only to the raptors (much more expensive and have lots less capacity). Here's the 250gb version, and the best value at $114 shipped:
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=100718-5
I'd advise getting one of those and be done with it.

PSU, it depends. If you think you might get SLI later (and if you get the SLI-DR), then get the S12-600 for $130 (great price). If not (and if you get the DAGF), get the S12-500 for $105 at case-mod.com

I agree that if you are OCing, you should buy a Thermalright heatsink. However, check this one (XP-90) out for $28:
http://www.jab-tech.com/customer/product.php?productid=2921
You can add a panaflo fan (which you should get for your CPU cooler anyway, they are the best) AND Arctic Silver Ceramique for $39 total. VERY good deal. And the XP-90 cools within a few degrees of the XP-90c or XP-120 while being much cheaper and lighter (than the XP-90c, which can warp your mobo).
 
the heatpipes areused basically to try and negate copper's advantage over Al. That said the difference is still within the margin of error for most mobos.

I think if he's not oc'ing the 3200+ is a bit weak for a $2k setup. (though how nice a monitor you want to get may make me eat my words)
 
TheOne5533 said:
I have $2000 to spend on a new computer and need help getting the some good specs together to put together a sweet gaming machine that can fly through BF2 and HL2. I am upgrading from a 5 year old socket a type amd thunderbird. It can still get up and go just with like 11 fps with low settings. So, I need some help to see if anyone can give me a good number of parts to buy. I will also need a new monitor, mouse, and keyboard...I have speakers(Klipshe 5.1 cost me $300 bucks and I want to put them to good use.) So, please someone help me I will be buying the parts tommorrow or sunday...so they are here before my birthday...buying myself a comp from my birthday:)
Click to expand...


Get my sig and you will love BF2 more then your 2k riig
 
Errr I wouldn't waste the money on Raid 0 drives....A) if one fails your screwed B) your honestly not gonna see any difference in performance at the level your gonna be using them.
 
poison123 said:
Errr I wouldn't waste the money on Raid 0 drives....A) if one fails your screwed B) your honestly not gonna see any difference in performance at the level your gonna be using them.
Click to expand...

so in a single drive set up if one fails your screwed any way too and with HDD now thats not very likely(in the frist 5 years anyway) i take the extra speed of the higher MBF rate if a drive is going to die its going to die wheater its in a RAID 1, 0, 3 0+1 setup :rolleyes:
 
Elios said:
so in a single drive set up if one fails your screwed any way too and with HDD now thats not very likely(in the frist 5 years anyway) i take the extra speed of the higher MBF rate if a drive is going to die its going to die wheater its in a RAID 1, 0, 3 0+1 setup :rolleyes:
Click to expand...
bingo

And if newegg is such a shitty packager of hard drives, why do they sell so many? I think the bubblerap claim sounds sort of lame.
 
Elios said:
so in a single drive set up if one fails your screwed any way too and with HDD now thats not very likely(in the frist 5 years anyway) i take the extra speed of the higher MBF rate if a drive is going to die its going to die wheater its in a RAID 1, 0, 3 0+1 setup :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

If you believe in MBF ratings, you're a sucker born every minute. Western Digital, Maxtor, IBM/Hitachi, Seagate.....everyone's drives have failed, and not by any measure of MBF.

Also, its like taking two revolvers. The first revolver with two bullets in the chamber vs. the other with just one bullet. If you had to do it Russian Roulette-style, which one would you rather take your chances with?

Buying one hard is one thing, buying another one for RAID-0 increases your chances of failure. And if one fails, BOTH fail in that all the information is lost.

Personally, i'd rather keep the 2nd hard drive as a backup-only drive. Or, if i really need the performance i'd do a RAID-5 or something simliar in which a failure of one drive doesn't mean disaster....as well as have an external hard drive for backup.

Of course, if your data and time don't hold any value, by all means risk it.
 
Don't get too caught up in bickering about Raid or not. The man still needs a monitor! Cut corners and just get one HD, and invest the saved money in a sweet sweet monitor. The Dell 2405W imo. I'm dying to get one of those puppies if they go on sale again.
 
DogChainX said:
If you believe in MBF ratings, you're a sucker born every minute. Western Digital, Maxtor, IBM/Hitachi, Seagate.....everyone's drives have failed, and not by any measure of MBF.

Also, its like taking two revolvers. The first revolver with two bullets in the chamber vs. the other with just one bullet. If you had to do it Russian Roulette-style, which one would you rather take your chances with?

Buying one hard is one thing, buying another one for RAID-0 increases your chances of failure. And if one fails, BOTH fail in that all the information is lost.

Personally, i'd rather keep the 2nd hard drive as a backup-only drive. Or, if i really need the performance i'd do a RAID-5 or something simliar in which a failure of one drive doesn't mean disaster....as well as have an external hard drive for backup.

Of course, if your data and time don't hold any value, by all means risk it.
Click to expand...

thats just not a good use of space and if you back up to cd any way
and on top of that re-install windows every year its not an issue MBF is just MEAN TIME
thats the avg. not the time it will take and with drives now its not an issue i have 3 drives in my PC and there all fine + thats what SMART is for
RAID isnt any worce then haveing 1 drive like i siad that drive could fail just as easly and i back up to DVDs so no loss any way :rolleyes:
 
$2000 will get you an awesome computer, but:

I'm running a 2800+ Sempron, 1GB DDR400, 256MB 6800GT, and I can play through BF2 with everything at high, plus AA at 1280x1024 (hacked) without a lag.
 
personally, i wouldnt get 2 300gig hard drives, your wasting your money. theres no way u would need that space if your a casual gamer...just go with a 160gig. or even a 80.

and for $2000 i would go for the A64 4000 because it performs just like the FX-53 (or 51 i cant remember) but its a lot cheaper. then depending on if you want SLI or not and if u want to overclock would determine your motherboard but u can get a good mobo with 1 pci-e slot for under $100. then i would definitely get the 7800gtx and 1-2gigs of inexpensive ram. dont spend $130 on a PSU, thats insane. i wouldnt spend over $70, but i mean you have a $2000 budget and im cheap so you can do what you please lol.
 
for drive I would just get 1 maxtor 16MB 250gig drive for like $110 :eek: For cpu, I would get a a64 3000+ venice. For cooler an xp90, venices hit 2.8 on stock cooler, an xp90 is plenty. Also, you should be able to hit at least 2.4 on stock vcore. For mobo, I would go abit sli mobo. Videocard, A single 7800 should be plenty. And for ram, I would go dual 1GB sticks from ocz for $190.for psu, go either antec, ocz, fortron, enermax, or pcp&c.
 
The 200GB SATA Diamond Max 10 w/ 16MB buffer has dropped in price again - it's only $96.75 on ZZF. That drive will outperform the 36GB Raptor and come closer to the 73GB Raptor than any other 7200RPM drive for a fantastic price.

RAID-0 is a mixed bag at best. It will accelerate some tasks (bootup, content creation) significantly, give a small boost to some games, and show no benefits in still other games. As others have pointed out, it also has significant drawbacks, including:
- Increased driver complexity
- Reduced reliability
- Less flexibility in storage application and allocation
- More vulnerability to corruption, viruses, and user error that causes data loss than two drives with separate file systems

My point? Spending the $100 from a second 7200RPM drive or $180 on a second Raptor is a very poor investment. An extra gig of RAM, faster CPU or video card, better power supply, etc will all give more benefit to a user than RAID-0 will. Also any of those upgrades are 100% positive, unlike using RAID-0 with the drawbacks listed above.

As for HDD shipping, I don't want to start a war over it. The HDD makers themselves speak pretty clearly on this matter. Three of the four say specifically not to ship HDDs in bubble wrap, and all four (HGST, Maxtor, Seagate, and WD) specifically say not to use peanuts. Take a look at hard drive retail packaging or RMA replacement packing to get an idea on how hard drives should be shipped. You will notice a common theme - firm packaging that makes the drive and box one unit, while creating enough space between the box walls and the drive itself to prevent the drive from being damaged if the box is crushed or punctured. The drive and box moving as a unit is the key concept to understand. Foam peanuts allow the drive to slide around in the box, which exposes the drive to unnecessary shock.
 
DougLite said:
RAID-0 is a mixed bag at best. It will accelerate some tasks (bootup, content creation) significantly, give a small boost to some games, and show no benefits in still other games. As others have pointed out, it also has significant drawbacks, including:
- Increased driver complexity
- Reduced reliability
- Less flexibility in storage application and allocation
- More vulnerability to corruption, viruses, and user error that causes data loss than two drives with separate file systems
Click to expand...

ok frist point not an issue any more as most new mobos have this in the BIOS as part of the chipset
2. maybe but if a single drive fails your still in the same boat no worce then useing 2 drives independently just you lose all in stead of 1/2 but you should be backing up any way right :p
3. how just use more then one partion
4. same as 3 i do this anyway so that i can always re-install windows on a clean drive with out losing my other data
:eek:
 
Elios said:
ok frist point not an issue any more as most new mobos have this in the BIOS as part of the chipset
2. maybe but if a single drive fails your still in the same boat no worce then useing 2 drives independently just you lose all in stead of 1/2 but you should be backing up any way right :p
3. how just use more then one partion
4. same as 3 i do this anyway so that i can always re-install windows on a clean drive with out losing my other data
:eek:
Click to expand...

no, with using 2 drives the chances for a failing drive are higher. Pretty simple to understand. The more you have of something, (anything), the higher your chances are for having a defective product.
 
sabrewolf732 said:
no, with using 2 drives the chances for a failing drive are higher. Pretty simple to understand. The more you have of something, (anything), the higher your chances are for having a defective product.
Click to expand...

dont know what drives your useing be i havent had one drive die on me yet
yes i know it happens but with modern HDDs the chance if a random drive just failing is very low even then its going to ether fail in frist few months or at the end of its life span

by your logic is bad to have more then 1 HDD in your PC un less all your other drives are back ups >.> whats the point
i have 3 HDDs in my PC if 2 were in a RAID0 thats still the same chance one will fail any way
so i lose bit more data IF one does meh thats why you backup stuff

show me some thing that says as soon as i put 2 drives in RAID 0 that it rases the fail rate more then just 2 drives in the same PC
 
Elios said:
dont know what drives your useing be i havent had one drive die on me yet
yes i know it happens but with modern HDDs the chance if a random drive just failing is very low even then its going to ether fail in frist few months or at the end of its life span

by your logic is bad to have more then 1 HDD in your PC un less all your other drives are back ups >.> whats the point
i have 3 HDDs in my PC if 2 were in a RAID0 thats still the same chance one will fail any way
so i lose bit more data IF one does meh thats why you backup stuff

show me some thing that says as soon as i put 2 drives in RAID 0 that it rases the fail rate more then just 2 drives in the same PC
Click to expand...

It is like lotto tickets. You buy 2, you have better chances of winning than buying 1.......
 
sabrewolf732 said:
It is like lotto tickets. You buy 2, you have better chances of winning than buying 1.......
Click to expand...

lol but your chance of winning is still 1 in some REAL REALY BIG number
 
Elios said:
lol but your chance of winning is still 1 in some REAL REALY BIG number
Click to expand...

so? the point is, by buying two drives the chance of receiving a deffective drive is higher. With raid 0, if one drive fails there goes all your data.
 
sabrewolf732 said:
so? the point is, by buying two drives the chance of receiving a deffective drive is higher. With raid 0, if one drive fails there goes all your data.
Click to expand...
well you should be backing up to some like CD or DVD any way

this is a gaming PC were talking about here not a mission critical server i mean the worst that can happen is you lose some work for school/job that you should have a back up of any way yes having drive fail is pain but even if you have 2 drives that arnt in RAID you still could have one die so then you lose what 1/2 your data you still lose one way or the other
theres nothing on my drives i can re-down load or dont have backed up for what i cant and i have a drive image for my OS install if i had my drives in RAID and one did fail id just have to get a new drive short of that id be back running in 1/2 a day
 
mikelz85 said:
bingo

And if newegg is such a shitty packager of hard drives, why do they sell so many? I think the bubblerap claim sounds sort of lame.
Click to expand...

I bought one of my Raptors from Newegg. Works great. It was packaged fine.
 
Elios said:
thats just not a good use of space and if you back up to cd any way
and on top of that re-install windows every year its not an issue MBF is just MEAN TIME
thats the avg. not the time it will take and with drives now its not an issue i have 3 drives in my PC and there all fine + thats what SMART is for
RAID isnt any worce then haveing 1 drive like i siad that drive could fail just as easly and i back up to DVDs so no loss any way :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

Lets start from the begining.

First, MBF, or at least its MTBF, is mean time between failures. Its an estimated time, not a "Guarantee" of when they'll fail. That means they could last forever, or fail within the 1st week of using them, when something like burn in brings out the defects of the drive. So you don't know when i drive will fail.

Second, when you add a 2nd drive and put it it RAID-0, that means you have two times the likely hood of a drive failing...thats just the physical drives. What if something happens to the array, and rebuilding doesn't work? Data corruption does occur. Would you take a chance with having one bullet in the revolver, or two? If you don't understand that, then don't do a RAID-0.

If you believe in SMART you're not doing yourself a favor. It helps, true, but doesn't help when a drive immediately failes, which DOES HAPPEN.

Third, not a good use of space? Who backups their 250GB drives to CD or DVD? Thats a waste of time!

So, you don't know when a drive will fail, having two drives acting as one with no redundancy increases your chances (regardless of SMART or anything else) of lossing your data, and backing up data to CD's is just a waste of time with 250+ gb worth of data.

If you're going to invest in a RAID system that actually DOES redundancy, then do RAID-5 or something similiar where your data will be safe as well as having a performance increase. OR do a RAID-0 then have an external HDD to backup data to as well.

All of this is presuming that your data actually means something to you. RAID-0 is more risky than you might think.
 
sabrewolf732 said:
It is like lotto tickets. You buy 2, you have better chances of winning than buying 1.......
Click to expand...

Sabrewolf732, i reread this thread. They don't understand the concept. I think we're flogging a dead horse on this one. Ignorance wins out again! :rolleyes:
 
Elios said:
show me some thing that says as soon as i put 2 drives in RAID 0 that it rases the fail rate more then just 2 drives in the same PC
Click to expand...
The point isn't that it's more likely to fail, because it's not. The point is that if it fails, you lose everything instead of just some stuff. I personally backup important documents and logs between the hard drives on my computer, so if one fails, I only lose worthless stuff like my Windows installation, music, or movies that I could easily get back.

Anywho, to reply to the OP, I recommend going with
3700+ (1mb cache= happy gaming)
DFI nf4 ultra (modable to SLI if you eventually buy another vid card)
7800 GTX
2x 512mb Twinmos SP (many other good choices, but this one is dirt cheap)
550w fortron PSU (stable, and not horribly expensive)
250gb maxtor
dell 2005fpw monitor should fit within the price if you find a nice coupon for it. They occasionally dip below $400. Go with something else if you don't want widescreen gaming.
 
DogChainX said:
Sabrewolf732, i reread this thread. They don't understand the concept. I think we're flogging a dead horse on this one. Ignorance wins out again! :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

Hey if they want a higher chance to potentially screw themselves over with data loss for a minimal (at best) performance gain, by all means let them do it! And yes I have tried RAID0 with a couple of raptors and WD JB drives. It is a complete waste of time and space for a performance gain I never even noticed.
 
DogChainX said:
All of this is presuming that your data actually means something to you. RAID-0 is more risky than you might think.
Click to expand...

thats kinda what i was trying to say i mean realy how much data do you have that you would be fucked if you lost i have may be 4 txt files and there back up to a CD as of my anime and MP3s there on DVD and my OS image is on a DVD i dont going backing up the full drives >.> just what i need to
 
Elios said:
thats kinda what i was trying to say i mean realy how much data do you have that you would be fucked if you lost i have may be 4 txt files and there back up to a CD as of my anime and MP3s there on DVD and my OS image is on a DVD i dont going backing up the full drives >.> just what i need to
Click to expand...


Ah...see, i have a 250gb drive thats almost full of photo archives (old scans, new photos), advertisements, layouts, reports, work documents, training documents etc....basically that entire 250GB is what i need backed up. I have some of the most critical data backed up to DVD, but i have a 300gb external hard drive thats mirrored to my data drive. I have a raptor 74gb as my "speedy" OS drive, and thats a lot better than any RAID-0 setup i ever did (older 80/120 gb ATA drives a few years ago).

Like i said, if your data means next to nothing to you, by all means go RAID-0. You can always backup your small bits of data to CD/DVD. Just don't be suprised that when one drive fails, your entire array is lost, as well as a very small perceivable performance increase (unless you're doing a lot of video editing)
 
I hate it when guys here try to scare people away from Raid-0. If you understand the risks and are cool with it, go for it. Like me, i keep my os and games on my stripe, and all my archive stuff (mp3's,vids,ect) on a bigger single disk.
 
TheToE! said:
I hate it when guys here try to scare people away from Raid-0. If you understand the risks and are cool with it, go for it. Like me, i keep my os and games on my stripe, and all my archive stuff (mp3's,vids,ect) on a bigger single disk.
Click to expand...

Well, if you DO understand the risks and are ok with it, i'm all for it. Its when those who DON'T understand the risks fully that I feel the need to educate them. I don't consider that scaring people out of RAID-0, just educating them. :cool:
 
Your right bro, they should definately know what they're getting into before doing it. There for, knowing the risk of a stripe , they should design there storage strategy with some sort of redundancy, whether it be disc backup or otherwise. No hostility intended! :)
 
Striping is over-RAIDED Haha! just had to say that.

Seriously, I found that creating a usable image with my raid 0 setup (raptors) was futile even with Ghost 9.0 I recently was forced to reformat and decided to use one of the Raptors for OS, sold the other and bought a Maxtor Diamond for storage and I can not tell the difference between both raptors in raid 0 and my current config. Now I dont do any video editing as this is suppose to make the raid 0/raptors shine, I simply game. Raid should not even be your concern (for the thread starter) it has no significant positive impact for what you want. Focus on your CPU, GPU, RAM and power supply. It's all you need for what you want.

Keep it simple and keep its logical.
 
Little impact on gaming? Your right, theres not much. Can I tell a difference in other things ( installing, load times, boot up time,) definately.
 
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