Building new comp, please advise parts

Y

ymee

Weaksauce
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Apr 29, 2005
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Currently I have a MSI K8N Neo which is a Nvidia nforce3 chipset MB. The CPU is an Athlon 64 3000+

I have been out of the loop for a year or so, havnt been keeping up with whats going on in the AMD cpu and MB department. Could you guys suggest the parts ? I am not going to be overclocking much. I do a lot of programming and occasional mp3 and divx type encoding. Oh and will the new dual cores be much of a step up from the Athlon 64 3000+ I currently have?

1.CPU (max $450)
2. Motherboard
3. Memory
4. VideoCard

Thanks.
 
You put a price limit on your CPU but not the rest of the system, and you didn't mention gaming so I assume that's not important to you.

So with a $450 price limit on your CPU, I'm just guessing that $2k is your budget, not counting a monitor and other accessories. And I'm assuming that you don't want to go dual CPU since you didn't mention gaming or any other 3D application needs. So let's begin.

CPU:
Everyone in this forum is an Opteron freak because of the overclocking prowess. So in your price range we have:

AMD Opteron 170 Dual-Core 2.0GHz Processor Retail lists for $402 on ZipZoomFly

You could also go for this:

AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+ Processor Socket 939 Retail $469 ZZF

A little outside your budget but a very popular choice as well.

Motherboard:

I have this motherboard and love it:

Asus A8N32-SLI Deluxe 214.99 ZZF

Might be a little more than you want to spend, but what really has struck me about this board has been my system stability. My sig rig has been on 24x7 for two months and its slightly oc'ed 4800+ 2.4 @ 2.6 FSB @ 218MHz, nothing else, but still, the just thing works.

Memory:

Corsair TWINX2048-3500LLPRO 2GB $303.00 ZZF

This is the recomended memory for the Asus A8N32. Very overclockable and stable with the A8N32.


Video Card:

ATI Radeon X1900 XT PCI Express $549.00 ZZF

This is the best single card out right now. Well the XTX I guess but its not that much different. While I guess this is a gaming part, its a great card and will allow you to game if you want.


All together:

I wan't looking for the best price on anything, just looking at ZZF which generally has good prices. So shopping around you might do better.


AMD Opteron 170 Dual-Core 2.0GHz Processor Retail $402.00
Asus A8N32-SLI Deluxe $214.99
Corsair TWINX2048-3500LLPRO 2GB $303.00
ATI Radeon X1900 XT PCI Express $549.00
----------------
$1468.99

So out of the $2k, you have $531.01 left for case, power supply, HDD and optical drives which is enough to pretty decent stuff.

So maybe I'm way off base, but if I were going to build a $2k now, it have this stuff.

Good luck!
 
Thats a huge budget on a cpu.

heatle has some good recommendations, except many items he choose, the prices were a little off. Let me shave off some of those prices.


CPU: Right now if you check the Hot-DEAL forum. You can get dual core Opteron 170 for $355 shipped from monarch. The opteron 165's were on sale yesterday for $301 shipped, but you missed that.


MEM: For your memory. You can find 2gb kits of OCZ PC-4000 for $200 AR at monarch. That insures you can do plenty of ocing(partly using a 166 divider of course).

Also newegg has 2gb kit of PC-4000 G.Skill for $197. Thats another good bet.


Vid card: Id pick up a cheap 7800GT. You should be able to find an EVGA or BFG for around $250-$300 these days.

MOBO: Well, ill leave that up to you. It depends what you want in a mobo. I have a EPOX 9npa+ultra board. Was $100 shipped. Rock stable and ocs my opteron 144 great. Of course there are the newer Asus boards and DFI boards that cost over $200, so Ill let you pick out whatever you want.

Hope that helps. :p
 
thanks guys,

I already have a monitor case etc, forgive my ignorance but why is the Opteron better than the dual core x2's?

Thanks
 
OP Do you plan on gaming alot on your new rig? If no, then there is no reason to get a tip top of the line video card.
 
ymee said:
thanks guys,

I already have a monitor case etc, forgive my ignorance but why is the Opteron better than the dual core x2's?

Thanks
Click to expand...


Opterons aren't better perse especially if you don't plan to o/c. But all opterons are the 1MB L2 chips, which is nice so an opteron 170 is essentially the missing 4000+ processor. If you don't o/c a 165 = 3600+, 170 = 4000+, 175 = 4400+, 180 = 4800+

Perfomance would be exactly the same in those situations.

But for the most part Opterons O/C better then their X2 counter part.
 
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