good build?

O

oOo sam lee oOo

Limp Gawd
Joined
Aug 29, 2004
Messages
297
ive thought about this for my friend's mostly gaming comp, and heres what i got

MSI K8N Neo4/SLI Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce4 SLI ATX AMD Motherboard - Retail

and

AMD Athlon 64 4000+ San Diego 1GHz FSB Socket 939 Processor Model ADA4000BNBOX - Retail

combo for 480.99



MSI NX7800GTX-VT2D256E (Lite) Geforce 7800GTX 256MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16 Video Card - OEM 479.00

CORSAIR XMS 1GB (2 x 512MB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM DDR 400 (PC 3200) Unbuffered Dual Channel Kit System Memory Model TWINX1024-3200C2PT - Retail 123.00

Western Digital Caviar SE WD1200JS 120GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM 80.00

TOTAL: 1162.99

thats it so far without the case and the psu...speaking of which, anyone care to recommend me one suitable for this system?

im pretty sure i must have made a msitake somehwere, so please correct me on anything and make suggestions that would make this a better comp...im hoping to keep this around 1300-1400 without tax or shipping (1500 dollars to use)
 
No, it's just horrible. You could not have done worse!!!!



Lol, seriously though, I mean, you've paid attention to reviews and such, right? Basically, you can't really go wrong with that sort of thing. You may or may not be able to slightly improve on this or that, but, you aren't exactly looking at low end stuff there, so there's only so much room for improvement.
 
sc00ter said:
PC Power & Cooling 510W - $205 (expensive, but you can never spend too much on a PSU.)
Click to expand...

Sorry, have to disagree with that statement. Never too much? Yes you CAN... If a human priced one works just as well, a Donald Trump one isn't necessary. For example, for less than a fifth of that price, I've found that my current PSU holds things nice and stable on my dirty lines. Ok, no raptor raid array, but, otherwise, not exactly a power efficient system here...

The important thing is make sure the PSU is stable and provides at least a REAL 350W (not to be confused with some of those out there promising some huge number like 600W, but, unable to actually provide more than 250W or so under real life conditions instead of battery powered electricity running in a vacuum test chamber.) Read reviews and don't just grab anything promising a high number over something promising rock solid lines, and you're ok.
 
Well, ok, I guess you're right in that you can spend too much on a PSU. I meant to post one of the Fortrons, those are good for a lot less. Sparkle is a good brand too. Reason I posted the PCP&C is because I built a computer for a friend with that and it's run stable for over a year. Sorry for the false trail there.. :(
 
Sorry if I kind of jumped on you there. The thing is, so many people have a tendancy to just assume they have to spend hundreds on every single part just to get something good and reliable, but, if they look around well, they can actually beat it. To name a really easy example, compare getting a desktop barton 3200+ to getting, say a mobile 2400+ or so back when the bartons were more popular (actually, still applies today technically.) The 3200+ cost more than 2x as much (heck, it was around $200 for my 2600+ being $90 when I got this thing) yet, the mobile WILL overclock far beyond anything the plain 3200+ could ever hope to do without water cooling. Suddenly 2400+ becomes 3400+ while 3200+ also becomes 3400+, both looking at roughly the same temperature ranges even probably -- for a rather considerably different pricerange however...

I'm just saying that it bugs me watching people make that mistake. Now, the power supply probably is a darned good one. Probably keeps those voltages closer to 0% than mine could hope to do on a very good day without my dirty lines. Still, $200+ for a PSU? The fact is, the returns are very diminishing once you get them stable enough to hold those voltages within tolerable ranges. (Getting that line to the CPU more stable does help obviously since it means a slightly lower voltage setting can become possible. Beyond that, if they're stable enough, it doesn't really matter that much whether they are staying within 1% or 2% instead.) I'd really tend to say that you really needn't spend more than $100 if you want a rock solid psu that won't die on you before some new type of plug is invented and it becomes useless. That $200 one is something I might want to get if I planned to have a server which may well end up not being updated for many years (some linux based routers, that sort of thing that you might run on a lan, really don't need much horsepower, so don't have to be updated very often. Heck, you can run a few basics on a mere 386.)

EDIT: BTW, I've had this a little over a year now too. I think you have to look at a minimum of two years to start comparing shortlived to longlived. I mean, heck, I'm still using a power supply from probably four years ago in my retrogaming system, and it wasn't a particularly good PSU even at the time -- though I must admit I haven't overclocked a single thing in there even a little.
 
Hehe, well, as you can tell I'm still pretty noobish in these parts. The main reason I posted that was because I was in a hurry and knew that PCP&P made good PSUs. Suppose that's pretty much as bad as assuming that $200 is a reasonable amount to spend though, eh? I totally agree with you though, and thanks for correcting my mistake. And considering I only spent like, $45 on mine (TT Purepower) I shouldn't be going around throwing things like that in peoples faces. :p Here's a little better list:

Ultra X-connect
Fortron BlueStorm
OCZ Powerstream

And before anyone flames the x-connect: I have 5 friends who have all owned them for varrying amounts of time and they have all been very pleased with them. Just thought I'd put it in..
 
Flames? Actually, that thing looks pretty interesting. I like the way the cables are designed to both get in the way and hinder airflow a little less. What do they do, have plugs on both ends, one to the PSU, one to the drives/etc so you only have to use what you need? That's what it looked like in the pictures anyway. That's the one thing I'd say was wrong with my PSU when I first got it. Long cables with enough connectors for everything I needed without any Y connectors, but, in that cramped little mid-tower they definitely didn't help airflow. Being able to remove cords you don't need sounds like a great idea to me.

Overall, not a bad design. 400W is quite sufficient for a normal person's system (if designing a setup that could actually need more, you'll KNOW if you need more, not just suspect that you probably do. We're talking things along the lines of running a bunch of raptors or 6800Ultra SLIs or something.) BTW, I hear the 7800GTX actually uses less power than the 6800GT.

I guess the metal doesn't look bad, but, honestly, their pretty little surface is only going to be seen by the side in most cases, so rather goes to waste.
 
due to money problems, i think im gonna have to go witht eh 3700 SD. you guys think it'll still be a good setup?
 
Sandiego is good, don't worry. Even going just a tad lower, you're still pretty well off, and I wouldn't exactly call 3700+ low, it's just lower than 4000+
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top