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Help - Building First Rig, Input Valued

U

Useness

n00b
Joined
Feb 2, 2005
Messages
31
Ok here goes, finally got an account here so I could get everyones valued input. I am building a gaming rig as my Senior Project in high school. ]

Goal: Build a High end Gaming Machine with a price limit of $1500

With the input of friends and online reviews this is what I have right now:

Build 1.0

Motherboard -
ASUS "A8V Deluxe" VIA K8T800 Pro Chipset Motherboard For AMD Socket 939 CPU

CPU -
AMD Socket 939 Athlon 64 3500+, 90nm, 2.2 GHz, 512KB L2 Cache 64-bit Processor - OEM

Memory - 2x
Crucial Ballistix 184-Pin 512MB DDR PC-3200

Video - BFG nVIDIA GeForce 6800 Ultra Video Card, 256MB GDDR3, 256-Bit, TV-Out/Dual DVI, 8X AGP, Model "BFGR68256UOC"

Hard Drives - 2x Maxtor 300GB 7200RPM SATA Hard Drive, Model 6B300S0

Sound - Creative Labs Sound Blaster Audigy2 ZS Platinum PCI Sound Card, Model "SB0350"

Media Drives - Sony Black 52x32x52x16 Combo Drive, Model CRX320E Black


Things I am still unsure about are Cooling and Power Supplies, I want to water cool.
Right now I am at a Sub total of $1,490.99


Looking forward to your advice
 
I think you need to be a bit clearer on exactly what your requirements are. At the moment you have hit your budget, but don't have a monitor, operating system, keyboard, mouse, case and the PSU you mention.

If you're to have any hope of hitting under $1500, you're going to have to drop that second 300Gb drive, change the 6800Ultra to a GT and more. Can you be more specific as to exactly what that $1500 needs to cover?
 
Ok, Essentially the 1500 has to cover everything excluding a monitor and an OS. I will be running Windows XP prof but I already have that. I am unwilling to make a Vid Card downgrade but 600 gb of storage may be a bit excessive.

I have my case already, its a Lian Li PC6070

Keep that Advice coming!
 
also what speakers are you using, do you need to offload the sound to the card?
 
School credit for making a computer for yourself?

Wow, schools sure have changed since my day... :confused:
 
So are you at 1.490 for just the stuff listed? Because if you want to cut a couple costs, I would suggest hitting that sound card and pulling it down a couple notches. I got a turtle beach santa cruz for about $36, and if your speakers aren't up to par with the sound card, what's the point?

And are you sure you need 600GB of space? Your CD drive can't burn DVDs.

If you plan on making it for under 1.500 You may need to spread the cash around a bit. Because like you say, there's no power supply yet (about 75 lets say) and no watercooling yet (150-200). No keyboard, mouse, speakers, and little things like AS5. I'd suggest redistributing your cash around a bit.

And be sure to check out the power supply area to figure how much you'd need. Don't even dare skimping on the power.
 
Othersider said:
School credit for making a computer for yourself?

Wow, schools sure have changed since my day... :confused:
Click to expand...

My senior project idea is going to be overclocking :D (but I'm not sure about the sources yet..as "Othersider from Hard Forum" isn't exactly a source :p)

Yep yep, the senior project is pretty much open to anything.
 
Well I'm not in the US so I'm not going to go looking around for the best prices, but if it was me, I'd be looking in the following areas:

An SLI-ready mobo such as the Asus A8N-SLi Deluxe
Stick with the RAM and CPU you've got.
One 74Gb Western Digital Raptor (it will be faster than the two you've specified even if you run them in RAID 0) for boot and games.
One 6800GT
PC Power and Cooling 510 SLI

I'd guess that lot will run you close to $1400, giving you a bit of change for a mid-priced sound card and DVD drive.

What this gives you is a working high-spec games machine with a clear upgrade path. Later on you can add another HDD for further storage if needed and another 6800GT to boost your performance another 60-80%. The PSU costs a lot of money but if you run SLI you need to rely on the power supply to the components.

EDIT - get the retail CPU if you plan to watercool in the future as well. It'll come with a perfectly adequate HSF to tide you over. Otherwise check out the Thermalright XP-120, making sure to see if it's compatible with the motherboard you choose (the Thermalright website lists compatible boards)
 
Zippy PSU with 600W since you'll be driving a pump with it too.

I'd get Seagate or WD HDD's instead of Crapstor.

What kind of case do you want to put it all in too?
 
Drop that second hard drive.

It'll give you enough to upgrade your optical to a DVDRW so you can burn off stuff; you won't need the extra storage. Might also be enough to upgrade to PCI-E video and motherboard. If it's primarily a gaming machine, you'll be fine with onboard sound so long as the motherboard has half-decent 7.1. In gaming, location is more important than quality.

If you really want you can add a sound card later, but your prof shouldn't complain about it. Might have to cheap out on the keyboard a little, but they're kind of disposable anyway.

Honestly, I think using the case and OS you have at 0 value is kind of cheating, but if you believe it's right, up to you. ;)

The PSU, yeah, you can cheap out on the project; your prof probably won't notice. But if you plan to be using this machine I recommend you upgrade it shortly thereafter. Same goes for the mouse and speakers I guess.
 
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