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Greetings everyone,
It is about time for me to get a new machine. I have given this some thought and done a lot of reading up on the current hardware the past few days, but believe I could use the help of someone more knowledgeable anyway. While gaming performance is an issue, as my main rig it'll also be used for other things, including a fair deal of multitasking.
This is what I have in mind so far:
CPU: AMD Athlon X2 3800+
Mainboard: EPoX 9NPA+ Ultra
RAM: 2x1024 MB of ???
Video Card: Geforce 7800 GT
HDD: Maxtor DiamondMax 10 250GB SATA
PSU: ???
Case: ???
And in some more detail:
I would be quite happy if I could get the CPU to run at 2.4 MHz, and I am fairly certain I want to get 2 GB worth of memory in two sticks. Of the brands that are usually recommended, a few are right out here, due to availability (Crucial and Mushkin in particular, OCZ aren't that easy to come by either). So I guess Corsair would be my best bet. Any recommendations on what sticks to get which should allow me to reach my overclocking goal and perform decently? Would I be ill advised to take a 2 GB kit of the XMS series PC3200 DDR CL2-3-3-8-1T (PC400) or PC3200 DDR CL3-4-4-8-1T (PC400), or would ValueSelect PC3200 DDR CL3-4-4-8 do, even?
As far as cases and PSUs are concerned, I have heard good things of a few brands, and of those Antec, Chieftec, Enermax and Tagan seem to be the easiest to get, with others (Lian-Li and Seasonic come to mind) being unavailable.
Will I have to take special care to pick the right case and PSU due to the EPoX board's less than optimally positioned power connector?
In any case, do you have any suggestions for either? In a case, I would be looking for, in this order:
- Decent cooling
- Relative silence
- A power switch that doesn't hide behind a door
- Front USB
- Looks
My apologies if this is asking a bit much all at once from a newby such as myself. It is just me getting impatient now after two years of talking about getting a new rig, having finally decided that now is the time, so I'd appreciate any help I can get in getting to some decisions faster and finally enjoying last year's top games as they were meant to be, and perhaps even try out some new and future ones
. Thanks in advance!
cheers
It is about time for me to get a new machine. I have given this some thought and done a lot of reading up on the current hardware the past few days, but believe I could use the help of someone more knowledgeable anyway. While gaming performance is an issue, as my main rig it'll also be used for other things, including a fair deal of multitasking.
This is what I have in mind so far:
CPU: AMD Athlon X2 3800+
Mainboard: EPoX 9NPA+ Ultra
RAM: 2x1024 MB of ???
Video Card: Geforce 7800 GT
HDD: Maxtor DiamondMax 10 250GB SATA
PSU: ???
Case: ???
And in some more detail:
I would be quite happy if I could get the CPU to run at 2.4 MHz, and I am fairly certain I want to get 2 GB worth of memory in two sticks. Of the brands that are usually recommended, a few are right out here, due to availability (Crucial and Mushkin in particular, OCZ aren't that easy to come by either). So I guess Corsair would be my best bet. Any recommendations on what sticks to get which should allow me to reach my overclocking goal and perform decently? Would I be ill advised to take a 2 GB kit of the XMS series PC3200 DDR CL2-3-3-8-1T (PC400) or PC3200 DDR CL3-4-4-8-1T (PC400), or would ValueSelect PC3200 DDR CL3-4-4-8 do, even?
As far as cases and PSUs are concerned, I have heard good things of a few brands, and of those Antec, Chieftec, Enermax and Tagan seem to be the easiest to get, with others (Lian-Li and Seasonic come to mind) being unavailable.
Will I have to take special care to pick the right case and PSU due to the EPoX board's less than optimally positioned power connector?
In any case, do you have any suggestions for either? In a case, I would be looking for, in this order:
- Decent cooling
- Relative silence
- A power switch that doesn't hide behind a door
- Front USB
- Looks
My apologies if this is asking a bit much all at once from a newby such as myself. It is just me getting impatient now after two years of talking about getting a new rig, having finally decided that now is the time, so I'd appreciate any help I can get in getting to some decisions faster and finally enjoying last year's top games as they were meant to be, and perhaps even try out some new and future ones
. Thanks in advance!cheers