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Building: how's it look?

S

Skidde

n00b
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Joined
Oct 4, 2005
Messages
6
First build, so if you have any comments about what I have here I'd appreciate them.

I don't game, and I'm not looking to overclock, so those areas aren't of much concern to me. Besides the tedious school-related stuff I have to do, I'd like to be able to deal with multimedia (video/photo editing) fairly smoothly even if I have a bunch of stuff open.

Case: Antec Sonata II w/ power supply
CPU: AMD X2 4400+
Motherboard: Asus A8N-SLI Premium
Memory: 4x512MB Corsair Value Select (2 1GB kits, it's right here)
Video Card: eVGA GeForce 6600 (256MB)
Sound Card: Creative Audigy2 ZS Platinum
Hard Drive: Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 10 250GB
Optical Drive: BenQ DW1640 DL DVD+-RW
TV Tuner: Hauppauge WinTV-PVR 150 MCE
OS: Windows XP MCE 2005
Remote: MCE remote

Total comes out to $1623.94, maybe a bit less for rebates. Budget isn't that big a deal, but I don't need (too many) extravagancies. Already have monitor/keyboard/mouse covered, undecided about speakers (I'll probably want new ones).

My main concerns are if I'm going way overboard on something, or if I'm getting something of such poor value that I could spend the same to get something way better. I tried doing a bit of research but I don't have much experience to see how my needs are best met.

I've got 2GB of RAM in the hopes that it'll let me deal with multimedia stuff even if I have other things open, but I don't know if 1GB will let me do that reasonably well (right now I'm stuck with 256 MB RDRAM, so I decided a RAM upgrade was pretty pointless).

Also, the videocard: I know, I'm not a gamer, but I read somewhere that Vista would benefit from extra VRAM and I'd like to save myself the extra step, plus I'm running at 1920x1200 and might add a 15" LCD that's not being used.

As for the motherboard, again I know the SLI seems like a waste if I'm not going to use it, but I read that Asus' motherboards are pretty stable for stock speeds and the non-SLI may not be totally what I want (it doesn't look like it supports SATA-II, so would that nix the NCQ support of the Maxtor?).

Anyway, that's what I've got... hopefully I can get this stuff ordered soon so I can build next weekend. Thanks for the help.
 
Get rid of the SLI motherboard, as it is just a waste of money. I would suggest the EPoX EP-9NPA+Ultra. Don't get four 512MB sticks, instead just get two 1GB sticks. You don't even need a 6600 if you don't game.
 
Thanks for the motherboard recommendation, it looks good.

What's the advantage of two 1GB sticks instead of 4x512MB? Is there a serious performance gain to be had? From what I've found using four sticks saves about $30.

Also any other video card recommendations? I figured I had something a bit too high but I want to make sure it can handle my monitor, and I don't know what advantages it would have for general mulitmedia stuff.
 
No, it's just that you'll have 2 open dimm slots for future expansion.

I'd say keep the SLI board. Even if you never use the feature, at least you'll have peace of mind knowing that you can. The price difference between most Ultra and SLI boards isn't a whole lot.
 
Actually here I found I saved about $65.
tongue.gif


Being that I don't have any expectation to be using SLI in the future, I'm okay with it, as long as I'm not missing some other major deficiencies in the EPoX vs. the Asus.
 
I'd say keep the SLI board. Even if you never use the feature, at least you'll have peace of mind knowing that you can. The price difference between most Ultra and SLI boards isn't a whole lot.
Click to expand...

An SLI motherboard should not be bought for future-proofing. In the end SLI is just a huge waste of money anyway.
 
the sli motherboard may not be a complete waste, you never know, pice x16 isn't just for video cards, or is it?
 
KoolDrew said:
An SLI motherboard should not be bought for future-proofing. In the end SLI is just a huge waste of money anyway.
Click to expand...
I'll have to kindly disagree (yes, to each his own). I use 2 6600GTs in SLI, as I don't have the money to spend all at once on a 6800GT or 7800 series card. I had to hunt like hell to get them (picked them both up new for under $125 each). The first I bought for $122 back in May, and the second I bought last month for $108. Both brand new eVGA models. In this instance, SLI was certainly not a waste of money for me. I plan to do the same thing when the 7800GTs get much lower in price.
 
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