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Building Comp for friend, input?

T

todlerix

2[H]4U
Joined
Apr 25, 2003
Messages
2,244
Basically I am looking for input thoughts and input. Is the video card worth it? He was looking to spend around a grand maybe a little more. Thanks.

Case and Power Supply Enermax Black Mid-Tower ATX Case With 350W Power Supply,Model:CS-3151L-B3A,Retail.
Price: $59.00


Video Card SAPPHIRE RADEON 9800XT Video Card, 256MB DDR, 256-bit, DVI/TV-Out, 8X AGP -Retail
Price: $452.00


Mother Board Asus nForce2 Ultra 400 Chipset Motherboard for AMD Socket A CPU, Model "A7N8X-E Deluxe" -RETAIL
Price: $119.99


Proccessor AMD Athlon XP 2500+ "Barton", 333 FSB, 512K Cache Processor - Retail
Price: $90.00


RAM Geil Golden Dragon 184 Pin 256MB DDR PC-3200 - Retail
Price: $51.00 two of these


Floppy SAMSUNG SFD321B/LBL1 Black 1.44MB 3.5inch Floppy Disk Drive, OEM Driver Only
Price: $5.99


Hard Drive Maxtor 60GB 7200RPM SATA Hard Drive, Model 6Y060M0, OEM Drive Only
Price: $78.00


CD-R CD-RW DVD COMBO DRIVE Lite On Black 48x24x48x16 Combo Drive, Model LTC48161H BK -OEM
Price: $49.99 ~ $53.00


About 960 No shipping no tax included.
 
i refuse to go to all the links outside of this thread. edit your post and put in wtf each component is. I.E.:

"AMD Athlon 2500 $84.00 www.linkytonewegg.com"

i'm sick and tired of clicking outside the forums like that.
 
Are you planning to OC the 2500+? If so, that retail HSF ain't going to cut it for you.
 
Also, the PSU on that Case, how good is that? Never heard of Powerup. I suggest switching to a case with a nicer PSU. An Antec maybe? Not sure if your friend likes the way they look, but I love Antec PSUs. Just a suggestion.
 
Minus the ati radeon xt and plus a radeon 9800 pro 256 + better cooling + OC.

~Adam

PS I own stock in ATI so if you want to go XT and not mess with OCing, that'd be fine with me :D. But I think it'd be cheaper for you for comparable performance with the pro. Hell if the AIW 9800 pro is cheaper than the XT I'd check that out, nothing like tv in fun.
 
looks good, but another vote against the 9800xt. $452? shiiiiiiat. do what the guy above said, and then get a bigger hardrive or more ram. or both even.

and if i were you id ditch the floppy and get mouse skatez instead. but thats just me
 
I'd dump that 9800xt, and go with a Gainward 5900nu, saving $222 to put towards 512MB or 1GB of memory, and bump the processor up to a P4 2.4C.

Also, I'm not a fan of Lite On drives, from past experiences, but I do have that exact drive you have listed (surprise Xmas present) and it's working fine so far.
 
He did say he's getting 2x 256 geil mem. if I read it right. So should be enough for now. Cut back on the vid card to whatever you want like 5900nu, like everyone else says, and look into Ath64 3000+ or something that will last awhile and offset the lesser vid card w/ good gaming perf.
 
Okay thankyou very much for the suggestions, I got the case/psu cuz i thought enermax was the people who made the very good power supplies.. also my friend likes the case. and i have that case so he probably isnt gonna want it heh.



Is the 9800XT that bad? lol
are there any like benchmark tests where someone compared 9800xt to 9800 pro?

I've never overclocked my video card before.. And there is noway in hell he could do it. So if anyone cares to teach me my 9700 is starting to disappoint me in highend games :*(



BTW why does everyone thing he needs more ram, I have 512 corsair xms on 1 channel, ive never run out of ram it can only go so fast... getting more doesnt make it faster..

if im wrong please correct me
 
About the RAM your wrong on several levels.

1st, if you have 512 you probably are running out of RAM, sory of... Windows (2k and XP, 98 is slightly different) use a page file, when you run out of RAM this file on your HDD is used to supplement RAM. You can see this when alt-tabbing from app to app and you HDD sees a lot of activity, this is paging.

2nd, getting more RAM does speed up a machine, it can a lot, IF you need it.

I wrote a pretty good reply here on this issue. It all has to do with sizing RAM.
http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=707368

Also there is a memory FAQ here. http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=707289
 
I have the same Enermax case with the original PS. I haven't had any problems after a year of steady use (no heavy loads, but enough standard stuff). I stick to my thumbs up.

Only issue I didi have was the included cathode died after a couple of months. :mad: Never got arount to fixing it.
 
Get an Antec Sonata case, comes with a 380watt Antec power supply. Only reason I would go with the Enermax case is if it came with an Enermax PSU, which it does not.
 
I agree on getting an Antec Sonata case. I dont like that enermax case, no offence to anyone thats using one :D.
 
Yes, I was going to suggest an Antec Sonata Piano Black. Although I have also heard complaints that the case produce super heat even though it is very quite. But the 380Watt PSU, Antec brand, that comes with it is a big plus.

Enermax makes really good cases, but if you take a look at the pictures on Newegg, when they take a snapshot of the PSU, it is not an Enermax brand. So it is true that you are getting an Enermax case, but not the PSU.

Yeah, I was thinking that the Video Card is very expensive. It is half of the total system cost, not worth it in my opinion. Get one of the pro series Radeon. I think the 9800 Pro is more affordable.

That money saved up could be used to get 2 sticks of PC3200 or PC3500 (2x512MB). Should get the XMS or HyperX series.

And does your friend really want an AMD setup? Once you get done spending everything, including a 3rd party HSF setup, your setup is basically the same as a 2.4C with one of the nicer 865 chipset board. Just something to think about.
 
Also, if price is starting to be the issue. You can change the Video Card to something like an NVIDIA 5900 series or so. You can save another 100 bucks on that.

So you have a nicer case with a way nicer PSU (Antec Sonata) $100 and 2x512MB PC3500 DDR433 $224 (Newegg has a special on the HyperX)
 
9800 pro 256 would own the 5950 256 meg last time I checked.

For comparable prices w/ the 9800 series... the 5900 series performs at the 9700 levels...

~Adam
 
O yeah? Did not know that, just checked prices and just saw that the 9800 Pro is 290 and the 5900SE is 190. Did not check the price for 9800 Non Pro.

So go for the 9800 Non Pro then. Saves you quite a bunch of money for a price tag of less then 200 bucks.
 
Originally posted by CleanSlate
Isn't the 5900 SE a POS?

~Adam
Click to expand...
im pretty sure Nvidia's "SE" editions arent crap, its the ATI versions of an "SE" card that suck

as for the original post, why not get an 80 gig Western Digital special edition for the same price?
 
i'd recommend getting a single stick of 512. You won't miss out on much without dual channel. Plus if you ever want to upgrade to a gig, it'll be easy.
 
To help out I made a list that I think basically brings together everyones suggestions:

Case + PSU: Antec Sonata w/ 380w True Power
Vid Card: Sapphire Radeon 9800 pro Bulk
Hard Drive: Western Digital 120gb SATA drive 3yr warranty
Mobo: Asus A7N8X-E Deluxe
CPU: Amd athlon xp 2500+ retail
Memory: Corsair XMS 1GB(512MBx2) PC3200 2-3-3-6 timings retail Platinum Heatspreaders (if you prefer black they are out of stock, same price though when I looked)
Floppy: Samsung Black Floppy
CDRW/DVD: Lite on 48x24x48x16 combo drive

Total: $955.58 shipped at Newegg when I made the list.
 
There you go, that is a pretty nice setup for $1000 bucks. But one thing that is missing, how about the HSF? I think for overclocking you would need a better one than the one packaged in the retail box wouldn't you? So add another $50 on top of that price.
 
Originally posted by CleanSlate
9800 pro 256 would own the 5950 256 meg last time I checked.

For comparable prices w/ the 9800 series... the 5900 series performs at the 9700 levels...

~Adam
Click to expand...
Wrong.
You haven't checked since the 52.16 or 53.03 drivers then.
http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/evga_e-geforce_fx_5900_xt_review/page12.asp

9800 series performs better in some games, 5900 series performs better in some game.

The 5900SE performs on the 9700 series level,
the 5900nu performs on the 9800 level (to 9800p if BFG or Gainward),
the 5900u performs on the 9800p level,
the 5950 performs on the 9800xt level
 
Drop that video card, it's expensive even for an XT haha... with the money you save go for a bigger HD and more ram - at least 512, preferably more, or go for a faster chip and don't OC....
 
Hmmm...about the retail heatsink, I don't think he would put it above a 3200+ and the 3200+ retail comes with the same heatsink and his friend might want to keep his amd warranty.
 
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