Another noob wanting system config advise ..

S

S1nn3r

n00b
Joined
Feb 27, 2005
Messages
25
Am thinking about building a budgetish system and so far ive gotten this setup.
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Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe nFORCE4

AMD Athlon 64 3000+ s939 Retail

MSI 6600GT 128MB PCIe Gfx Card

Hitachi DeskStar 7K250 160GB SATA HD

LiteOn SOHW-1673S Dual Layer 16x16 DVD±RW ReWriter

AOpen H500A Midi Tower Case

Antec TruePower 430 Watt Power Supply
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Now there is of corse one thing missing from this setup and that is memory, which im totaly stumped on as I cant work out what to get and still keep within my budget, which for memory with the above system in mind is £80 or less. Anyone have any sugestions on this ?

Im not after insane OC ability with this system, but would like to squeeze a little more then stock out of it.

Also in case you wondering also why ive gone for a SLI NF4 s939 board in a budget system well its becuse decant AGP GF 6600 GT's are upto £50 or more then the PCI express ones here which pretty much wipes out the price advanage of a AGP/Socket 754 based system. The A64 3000+ is pretty much the same price in ether 939 or 754 flavours to further compounding this.
 
Whats wrong with the A8N ? reviews ive read so far are positive and the price cant be beaten for a board like that spec wise from what ive seen.
 
It just has problems because it was rushed into production. Why do you think it's price is low?
 
S1nn3r said:
Also in case you wondering also why ive gone for a SLI NF4 s939 board in a budget system well its becuse decant AGP GF 6600 GT's are upto £50 or more then the PCI express ones here which pretty much wipes out the price advanage of a AGP/Socket 754 based system. The A64 3000+ is pretty much the same price in ether 939 or 754 flavours to further compounding this.
Click to expand...

There are plenty of non-SLI AMD motherboards that still support PCI express.

My recommendation:
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=241158
 
The 3 boards i can find that are £100 or under are the ASUS A8V-E Deluxe,Foxconn NF4UK8AA-8EKRS and the MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum(this is around £107 so its just pushing the limit a little) most of the others are around £130 or more and i cant go that high as im struggling to budget in some decant memory as it is.
 
Snatch that K8N Neo4. The Asus isn't worth it, and I can't say what the Foxconn is worth. I'd buy the Foxconn over the Asus.
 
What about the non SLI Asus NF4 ,that got the same problems as the SLI one ?

As for the memory issue. Ive worked out that for me to get nice overclockable memory i can realy only stretch to 512MB at the moment, probably in the form of a dual channel kit from OCZ or G.Skill. I assume that if i got another matching dual channel 512MB kit later on that there wouldnt be to much of a problem ? or at least less of a problem then trying to get another matching 512MB stick if i got a single 512MB stick now ?
 
I think you would be better off getting 1 512 stick, because I think there might be memory controller issues with those boards. Issues like 3 DIMM slots = memory only running at low speed. But that might only be on the nForce 3 boards. Double check that, since you're buying the stuff.

I personally would not buy ANY Asus board. The reason is: their support blows goat cheese chunks, and that means horrible driver updates and BIOS updates that won't fix any prblems you run into. Get the K8N Neo4 it is definately a fine machine. I want one... :)
 
Well i may have found a solution to the memory issue at least.

G.Skill has come out with a 1GB dual channel "value" kit which looks rather nice (http://www.gskill.com/pc3200-2-3-3-6-dc.html) Not going to get insane OC out of it but the price is good(£130) and ive heard nothing but good things about G.Skill in general.

Still rather confused about the mobo situation though, basicly flip flopping between MSI and Asus but also thinking maybe stretching the budget to one of the DFI NF4 boards.
 
I dunno, charles sounds like he's biased or had a bad ASUS experience, which is understandable. Although in all fairness ASUS isn't infamous for support that "blows goat cheese chunks" or horrible boards that were rushed into production and therefore should be tagged with "do not use" signs. That's not to say that ASUS is the best choice, but rather that it's not quite as bad as those comments might suggest.
 
Haveing had a few days to look and think though things ive slightly revised(and added to) my proposed system to the following -

Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe

AMD Athlon 64 3000+ 1.8GHz 939 Socket Boxed

Leadtek WinFast PX6600 GT TDH PCIE

G.Skill 1Gb ZX PC3200 2-3-3-6 Dual Channel Kit

Hitachi DeskStar 7K250 160GB SATA HD

LiteOn SOHW-1673S Dual Layer 16x16 DVD±RW ReWriter

AOpen H500A Midi Tower

Enermax Noisetaker 600W SLI PSU
 
Oh yes, the mobo isnt a dead cert yet, im still looking at all the options and getting myself rather confused in the process :confused: :rolleyes:
 
A little update ..

After a few days of going though lots of options including going Intel ive come up with this pretty close to final setup...

MSI K8N NEO4 Platinum

AMD Athlon 64 3000+

MSI NX6600GT - TD128E GeForce 6600 GT

G.Skill 1Gb LE PC4400(DDR550) 2.5-3-3-7 PC3200 2-2-2-5 Dual channel kit

Maxtor DiamondMAX 10 250Gb OEM SATA 16MB

LiteOn SOHW-1673S Dual Layer 16x16 DVD±RW ReWriter

Enermax EG475AX-VE(G)SFMA 470W ATX Retail Boxed (Version 2.0)


Havent decided on a case yet, still working on that and still not to sure about cooling ether.
 
:) That thing is gonna scream! I'm trying to get a 6600GT and good memory like that for my DFI nF3.

some criticism:
I'd get the BenQ DVD burner or an MSI refurb or retail from Newegg. That LiteOn is no good.

I think everyone should have a NeoPower480. Definately a must havem and it's not too expensive. :p
 
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