LAN Computer

[AaronP]

I've sorta already explained my situation in another thread but meh I'll do it again.

My mate John makes a couple million a year. He's really into playing PC games but between the family, his work and of course his PC gaming, he doesn't truley have time to take a hard look into learning PC parts, let alone build a PC. And since I'm the exact opposite (17, Living with parents, still in high school, and also only making 100$ a week if I'm not building a PC, if I am then maybe 2-300$ if I'm lucky) I get to handle all of his PC building and etc. He's a good friend of mine so I do his stuff cheaper than I would anyone else. Well one day we were having a LAN party with the usual 10 people. We already have 2 PCs that are his personal computers (1 being a server/gamer when lanning and the other being his main when he's not using his Alienware laptop for work and fun). Well one of our mates came in with his PC and John's dog ran through his legs and the guy dropped his 2K PC and needless to say a good chunk of it was useless. This tends to happen when you drop a $2000 worth of parts that's housed in a POS steel case on a solid concrete floor. The end result, John writing a $1000 check to replace the broken parts and to buy a new damn case!

What also resulted was the idea for John to setup a LAN party network pre-built for our weekly get togethers. He actually liked the idea because this wasn't the first time it'd happen (except last time it was his own computer he brought from upstairs, thus why the main tower is in the basment now). Since I'm the big computer geek (more so than the others sadly enough) me and him talked about it and he gave me a 3K per PC limit with or without LCD Monitor. I told him that was way too much money for simple LAN PCs and I don't intend on ripping my friend off espcially since he's paying for all of these out of his own pocket, just so our PCs stay safe.

I think I did fairly well but I'm definetly open to opinions and etc. Keep some things in mind though when looking at these parts:

-These PCs are strictly for gaming and only for a span of about 5-10hrs once a week other than that they won't be used
-These PCs are expected to keep up with the latest games with decent FPS for at least 2 more years
-These PCs are expected to handle the latest games (as of build date which will be in 2 weeks) on the highest graphical settings without any lag.
-These PCs are likely to be upgraded if truley necessary.
-These PCs are going to be in a basement that's rather cool on it's own and has air conditioning to top it off, so cooling is NOT an issue.
-These PCs are , once again strictly for gaming, nothing else, not movie watching, not listening to music NOTHING.

Now with that undestanding the parts: (Once again I'm open to opinions and none of these parts are final so I'm willing to change all of them)

- Case - Lian Li Black PC-61
- Optical Drive - LG 16X DVD-ROM
- Floppy Disk Drive (You Never Know...) - Nec 1.44MB Floppy Disk Drive
- Hard Drive - 74GB Western Digital Raptor Drive
- Memory - 2X512MB Crucial Ballistix PC4000 DDR RAM
- Power Supply (Most likely will need help with this, I suck when it comes to PSUs) - OCZ PowerStream 520W PSU
- Motherboard - Abit AX8 K8T890 Chipset Mobo
- Processor - AMD Athlon 64 3500+ w/Clawhammer core
- Video Card - eVGA nVidia 6800GT 256MB PCI-Express
- LCD Monitor - Acer Black 19" Monitor
- Mouse - Logitech MX500
- Keyboard - Liteon Basic Black USB Keyboard
- Headset - Logitech Extreme Gamer Headset (I have one of these and I love it!)

Once again, I'm open to opinions. This setup is currently going to cost around 1850$ after shipping, I want to keep it under $2000 considering I do have to build 8 of these.

 

[Oh4Sh0]

personally, I wouldn't go with the 6800 of any type. (although you'll probably hear differently from others) Being the newest card, is price tag is obviously bloated versus actual performance. It's settled a little bit, but the mainstream 6600gt which will probably cost you half of what you're paying for the 6800 gt's (im surprised you didnt say ultras!) is definately sufficient for current needs, will last a good bit of time, and once again, is half the price. I think it's kind of funny when people buy "the best" stuff when it comes out, and then 6-8 months later these items are 1/2-2/3 of the price they were.. Then again, I would also recommend the s939 3000+ vs the 3500+ considering the 3000+ has a newer winchester core vs the clawhammer core of the 3500+, and the 3000+ is still $120+ less @ $146 on newegg. Also, if you have "money to blow", a more comfortable keyboard could be generous

 

[AaronP]

I"m an ATi fan myself, but AA and etc is handled better by the 6800s than it is by X800s.

 

[Othersider]

I have that Acer at work. It's a good, solid monitor, but I wouldn't game on it.

For pure, pure gaming machines, get 8ms response time. Or even better, since heat isn't an issue, just get CRTs. Hell, for what you're saving him on systems, even spring for 22" CRTs.

 

[HvyMtl]

yeah lcd monitors response rating (even the high end 8ms ones) cannot beat a decent crt for first person shooters - I'd get some crts - flat screened at least 19inch.
save you a little $$$ and wont have tearing issues when fragging.
OCZ power supplies I havent had any experiance with - Antec's are a decent buy -
the WD Raptor drive is overkill in a gaming box - (unless you use it in the game server- where it will make a difference in load times for levels) They are hot (as they run 10000rpm, duh) and comparitively expensive. I'd go with a SATA seagate (quiet 5 year warranty) of around 200gb or more so you dont have to load/unload any games, as a 74gb will run out of space much faster - considering all of the addons in games these days (heck back in my quake 2 days I had 12gbs of levels, models, skins, addon games, etc, for that one game. Now that amount of space is just the game...)
I'd also look at a Nforce 4 sli motherboard (as you can upgrade in future to 2x 6800) as they perform better than the via chipsets of late.

 

[Othersider]

espcially since he's paying for all of these out of his own pocket,

Trust me, somehow these will become a business expense... not that that's anything you need to worry about.