Need comments on a build I'm working on.

D

DarkHound

Weaksauce
Joined
Dec 22, 2002
Messages
81
Ok here's revision 3. I've opted to not worry about SLI at the moment as I don't think I'll be needing it. I appreciate any comments and suggestions. Basicly the system will be for gaming and whatever. I've got an existing DVD burner I plan to put in it.

My wishlist

Thanks in advance.
 
Get a better power supply. Antec, Enermax, Fortron, Sparkle, Tagan all have solid units. Spend the extra money for one, especially if you plan to upgrade to SLI in the future.

Consider an Opteron Model 165 instead. They're selling for around $350 and have 1 MB L2 cache per core. The Opterons lately have overclocked quite nicely.

Be careful about NewEgg's hard drives and LCD monitors. Their hard drives are poorly packaged and tend to fail more often than a properly packaged drive from ZipZoomFly, HyperMicro, and other places. Be sure you understand NewEgg's return policy for LCD monitors, especially the dead pixel policy.

The Audigy you selected can be purchased for much cheaper if you forego the software bundle--keep that in mind.
 
xonik said:
Get a better power supply. Antec, Enermax, Fortron, Sparkle, Tagan all have solid units. Spend the extra money for one, especially if you plan to upgrade to SLI in the future.

Consider an Opteron Model 165 instead. They're selling for around $350 and have 1 MB L2 cache per core. The Opterons lately have overclocked quite nicely.

Be careful about NewEgg's hard drives and LCD monitors. Their hard drives are poorly packaged and tend to fail more often than a properly packaged drive from ZipZoomFly, HyperMicro, and other places. Be sure you understand NewEgg's return policy for LCD monitors, especially the dead pixel policy.

The Audigy you selected can be purchased for much cheaper if you forego the software bundle--keep that in mind.
Click to expand...

Judging by the parts selection, it doesn't appear you're going to OC.

Definitely get a new power supply. Remember the axiom: Never skimp on a PSU. I like this Antec model, personally, and it's not much more than you have now.

If you're going to spend that much on a soundcard, you'd be better off to just drop the cash for the X-Fi XtremeMusic, which is only a couple dollars more.
 
I always prefer to buy monitors at a walk-in store. The prices after shipping aren't much different, if not the same. If you have any dead pixels or something its a hell of a lot easier to take it back to the store and exchange than to return ship it. Shipping on a monitor isn't cheap. I also buy my cases in person for the same reasons, but then I live a few miles from Monarch so I guess that's convenient.
 
xonik - Other than OCing, the extra cache is worth the extra money I'd put out for it, not to mention the time to find it since it doesn't seem to be on newegg?

GForce64 - True, I'm not planning to OC off the bat. Maybe down the road I might think about it, I tried to leave my options open when choosing that motherboard.

Thanks for the suggestions on the PSU, I had heard the rosewill name before, but wasn't sure if it was generic or not. I'll look into the suggestions of the other brand names.

As far as stores go, I'm not married to newegg but I've been ordering from them for years.. I place about 30,000 a month to them through work and of the 30ish PC's I've built from thier parts, I've only ever had one bad hard drive. They seem to come wrapped just fine. Usually in 2-3 wraps of bubblewrap and in a box of peanuts. I can't complain about that.

I've looked at the LCD panels around here and they seem to be about 50+ bucks higher than newegg for the same thing.. And $5.99 for 3 day shipping? That's not a whole lot of money to spend.

I'll probably snag that X-Fi though, looks like a good deal. Anything has to be better than my SB Live 5.1.

On the subject of other stores, do you have other favorite stores for buying stuff aside from newegg? I'll look at ZipZoomFly and HyperMicro, but are there other reliable dealers out there?
 
DarkHound said:
xonik - Other than OCing, the extra cache is worth the extra money I'd put out for it, not to mention the time to find it since it doesn't seem to be on newegg?
Click to expand...
Probably not.
They seem to come wrapped just fine. Usually in 2-3 wraps of bubblewrap and in a box of peanuts. I can't complain about that.
Click to expand...
Most hard drive manufacturers recommend much better packaging than that. Here is one such possibility,

http://www.hitachigst.com/warranty/jsp/arma251h.jsp
I've looked at the LCD panels around here and they seem to be about 50+ bucks higher than newegg for the same thing.. And $5.99 for 3 day shipping? That's not a whole lot of money to spend.
Click to expand...
Hopefully you don't find any dead pixels or cosmetic defects, because the restocking fee and return shipping costs will offset any price advantage you enjoy.
 
Our resident hard drive expert, DougLite, recommends ordering hard drives anywhere but Newegg, as the bubble wrap method does not protect the drive as well as it needs.
 
hi i have the same case and audio card (audigy gamer edition) as you. Beware that the sound card doesnt fit right, it doesnt fix at the back, it jus doesnt fit somehow.... so it sits kinda loose on mine.
I got pissed because evreytime i had to put my 5.1 speakers in it the dame thing would come out of place and i had to open it again to put it in place... It was annoying


anyways good luck
 
the only thing i can think of

is screw that case and psu, it looks dead ugly.

you can get an antec sonata with 450 watt truepower in it for like 80 bucks after rebate on newegg.

that psu will be enough for ur system, if you ever added SLI you may need to upgrade, but for now your saving money and even if u had to upgrade tgeh case is cheaper.

i dont really like gigabyte, i would just get teh EVGA motherboard and Vid Card combo for under 400. newegg has that as well.

ditch that SATA 2 harddrive, just get a normal 300gig for 100 bucks. The 16mb cache ones are right around that price too, i would save the money.

with all that money saved, upgrade that chip to a opteron 165+ or a 4200x2
 
Ok I did some more playing, I swapped out cases for a Thermaltake Tsunami and added the Antec PSU in place of the rosewill. I also swapped out the audigy for the X-Fi.

I'm pretty happy with the overall config, though I may not buy all the parts from newegg. Any other suggestions are welcomed. And thanks to everyone who helped so far.
 
GForce64 said:
Our resident hard drive expert, DougLite, recommends ordering hard drives anywhere but Newegg, as the bubble wrap method does not protect the drive as well as it needs.
Click to expand...

I bought mine from Newegg, and the quadruple layer of bubble wrap plus styrofoam peanuts kept it nice and safe. Had the drive for 5 months and it works fine.
 
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