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mikeczyz

Limp Gawd
Joined
Apr 18, 2005
Messages
290
Old computer just died. Here is what I'm currently looking at:

Intel E7200 $120
Corsair 650W PSU $72 (buy.com)
Gigabyte GA-EP35-DS3l $85 (+free shipping...I love buy.com)
Andy Samurai Master $40
4GB of OCZ Platinum DDR2 1066 RAM $80
750 GB Samsung HD $110
EVGA GTX260 $280
Random DVD-Burner $20
Antec P182 Case- $140

Am I missing anything here? I'm a little bit out of the computer loop because I was hoping to upgrade next summer. I'm particularly concerned about the gfx card. It's a bit more than I'd like to spend but the price/performance ratio seems pretty good.

Thanks.
 
Based on your video card I assume this will be a gaming rig? How much is your budget? What size LCD monitor do you have? I would adjust these:

Mobo: GIGABYTE GA-EP43-DS3L for $90
RAM: 2x2gig G. Skill DDR2 800 for $70
HDD: WD 6400AAKS 640 gig for $85
Video Card: Visiontek HD 4870 for $260

You can also save a little more by getting the Intel E5200 for $90
 
Gaming rig, yes. I am looking to keep it below 1200.

From what I've seen, the GTX260 usually edges out the HD4870 in most tests. Given that the GTX260 I am looking at is 240 after MIR, what advantage is there to the 4870?

What is the advantage to the mobo which you recommended?
 
1680x1050 is my monitor's res.

I should add that I am trying to keep this machine fairly quiet. My roommate has teh andy samurai master and it is mighty quiet.
 
550? That's quite a bit more.

Dumb question. When I get the DVD drive, do I get a SATA one or an EIDE one?
 
SATA pretty cheap already. Don't bother with EIDE. less restriction on airflow to with the SATA cables. As far as comparing the HD4870 and GTX260, they trade blows depending on the games. But, the HD4870 has Direct X10.1 support and Shader Model 4.1 support as well as integrated sound core.
 
Well not much if any games really utilize DX10.1 now but, Sega and Electronic Arts will be making new generation of games that take advantage of DX10.1. DX10.1 is expected to deliver features and performance that are enhanced and also overall better game experience. It will provide:

5 new API
Improves rendering quality
Enforces floating point 32 rendering
Enforces 4x multi-sample anti-aliasing (MSAA)

In the upcoming months ahead we should see games that utilize DX10.1 features.
 
picked up the hd4870 and the rest of my new rig. around 1100 for the whole mess (price includes s&h and a copy of windows vista).

pretty good deal, imo.
 
You're gonna rock man with the HD 4870 on a 1680 x 1050 resolution. Turn everything up already AA, AF, texture, v-sync, filtering all that garbage! LoL.
 
HardwareGuru said:
You're gonna rock man with the HD 4870 on a 1680 x 1050 resolution. Turn everything up already AA, AF, texture, v-sync, filtering all that garbage! LoL.
Click to expand...

That was sort of the point. My last computer purchase was when I was a poor student. Now that I am gainfully employed, I decided to get something somewhat nice. .
 
Don't forget to post pics... and I hope you didn't buy the old P35 board, cuz as Danny mentioned, for $5 more, the higher PCI-E bandwidth and extra SATA ports were well worth it. In fact, its the same price if you get it from zzf.
 
I think that I already know the answer to this question but would like to check.

I have an E7200 which runs at 266x9.5 to achieve the rated 2.53 ghz speed.

I have DDR2 1066 ram. 1066/4=266 which is the fastest FSB speed with which this ram is compatible.

Thus, I will be unable to overclock the CPU (raise the FSB) with my current ram, right? If I want to go to a FSB of 333, I will need to buy some DDR3-1332 RAM, right?

Can you OC DDR 1066 ram?

Thanks.

edit: Looks like I'll need to use fsb:ram dividers, no?
 
Your math is slightly off. 333FSB will require DDR2-667 RAM. No, you won't need dividers, and Intel chipsets don't provide dividers.

/*------------- <cut n paste> -------------*/
Formulas for Intel platform @ 1:1 settings: (base FSB speed is SDR, or single data rate)
c × [Base FSB speed] = CPU Clock speed (c = CPU Multiplier)
2 × [Base FSB speed] = RAM speed (DDR: double data rate)
4 × [Base FSB speed] = Effective FSB speed (QDR: quad data rate)

On Intel platforms, running the RAM higher than a 1:1 ratio with the CPU is, for the most part, useless, so don't bother trying to do so. If the BIOS does it for you, just let it. All you need is a 1:1 config, though. Here's some possible clock speeds (as always with OC'ing, your results will vary):

E7200: 9.5 × 266 = 2.5Ghz, 1066FSB QDR, DDR2-533 << STOCK
E7200: 9.5 × 333 = 3.2Ghz, 1333FSB QDR, DDR2-667 << Nice OC
E7200: 9.5 × 366 = 3.5Ghz, 1466FSB QDR, DDR2-733 << Good OC
E7200: 9.5 × 400 = 3.8Ghz, 1600FSB QDR, DDR2-800 << Great OC, near max on good air cooling
/*------------- </cut n paste> -------------*/

As you can see, all you needed was DDR2-800.
 
Computer is built.

The software is killing me. I installed Vista 64-bit last night. Then I installed the chipset drivers. Then I went ot windows update and started updating vista. THen I started downloading other programs and the computer crashes pretty much every single time I try to install a program. Try to install Quicken? Nope. Crashes halfway through. iTunes? Nope. Upgrade my display drivers? It goes BSOD when I restart.

REALLY REALLY irritating when all I want to do is play TF2.
 
Run memtest overnight to test the RAM. Run Prime95 smallFFTs to test the CPU. Loop 3DMark to test the vidcard (highly unlikely). However, I suspect its a software (driver) problem. :p

No pics of the build? :(
 
No pics...The inside isn't as tidy as I would like. Maybe once I get everything totally clean I'll post something. It might happen this weekend b/c I need to go back in and fix the front USB ports so maybe I'll do some cleaning when I take care of that issue.

I also suspect that it is a software driver problem. Any advice on how to ferret out that problem? I re-installed Vista this morning. My install plan is:
1. Chipset drivers.
2. Windows Update (update Vista)
3. Vid card drivers (Downloaded directly from AMD website)
4. Misc. Programs & Utilities.

Any other advice?
 
I also suspect that it is a software driver problem. Any advice on how to ferret out that problem? I re-installed Vista this morning. My install plan is:
1. Chipset drivers.
2. Windows Update (update Vista)
3. Vid card drivers (Downloaded directly from AMD website)
4. Misc. Programs & Utilities.
Click to expand...

Should look like:

1. Chipset drivers.
2. Windows Update (update Vista)
3. Vid card drivers (Downloaded directly from AMD website)
4. Team Fortress 2 and update
5. Misc. Programs & Utilities.
 
Question:

"IDE Channel 0 Slave"
"IDE Channel 3 Master"

THis message shows up while my computer is booting. These drives are connected to SATA ports. Is this normal?

After that, the computer hangs on "Detecting IDE drives"
 
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