New Dedicated Gaming Rig Build

B

BioHazard.89

Limp Gawd
Joined
Feb 25, 2004
Messages
229
So I'm building a new computer to be my dedicated gaming rig. I'll be playing games from BattleField2 - Star Craft - Steam - World of Warcraft - and looking to the future abit as well

I'm not interested in SLI at all and actually partial to ATI rather than nVidia just because I've used ATI in the past, It really doesn't matter to me what kind of card I get.... I probably will be scoring a TV Tuner later in the year for this system though just for a heads up..... I also don't want to do any overclocking but want all my hardware to work really nicely with each other........

This is what I'm thinking right now - I'd loev for it to be critiqued =D

Mobo: ASUS A8N-E Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce4 Ultra ATX AMD Motherboard - Retail

Proc: AMD Athlon 64 3500+ Venice 1GHz FSB 512KB L2 Cache Socket 939 Processor - Retail

Question: With a dollar price difference in the two 3500+ Venice procs on NewEgg - the only noticable difference is the voltage.... What's that all about, and how imiportant is it for me to pay attention to? Stock fan alright for no overclocking?

Mem: Again, I'm looking into G.Skill memory, DDR400 2x512 but find the differences in memory to be timings and cas latency.... What's that all about and how important is it for me to pay attention to? What kind of ram would go nice-ly in the system?

Video: eVGA 256-P2-N386 Geforce 6800GS 256MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16

I've found this to be the poison of choice in most threads.... any reservations on this selection?

HDD: I'm looking for a nice 80gb SATA Raid option that will duplicate the hard drive just incase of a crash.... all important stuff is on the network's servers


I'll also be popping a DVD Burner and DVD-Rom in this puppy too... and I'll run off stock sound for a while.....and I'm looking for a nice PSU that will more than power all of this - it'll probably all be housed in my old black chieftec case with the door and tower (old Alienware style)

Can anyone further help my setup?
 
You really don't get any help here unless your post specifics and (most importantly) your budget. Specifics you have posted, budget you have not. Looks good thus far, but with no budget we cannot OK your current setups or suggest better parts.
 
BioHazard.89 said:
Ah hah, My fault, I thought I had said around 800 USD.

'Preciate it none the less
Click to expand...
Before I run off and config something, you need:

Motherboard
Processor
Memory
Video Card
Hard Drive
Power Supply

Correct?

EDIT: Revision One. The price is more than you hoped for, but if you can scrape together $100 more it will be WELL worth it.
 
Thanks for the response fellah!

You're right, I'm only building the stuff inside the case minus the sound card and Rom drives =D

My first few thoughts are:

Why pick so much hard drive space? I'm actually looking for something like 2 80GB hard drives that are in the duplicated raid setup - for a total of 80GBs. Only games are going to be installed on this system so I'm thinking 250GBs is way to much.....

Next: Is SLI worth looking into? Is it necessary? What are the benefits? Can I shave off some money going with the board I first picked out, which looks to be the same minus SLI?

Finally: Is there a reason for the 2gb of ram? Is 1gb starting to become not enough ram for games?

If I do drop down from a non SLI system and to only a single gig of ram (2x512mb) will I have to "re"upgrade back to this stuff soon?
 
BioHazard.89 said:
You're right, I'm only building the stuff inside the case minus the sound card and Rom drives =D
Click to expand...
Just FYI, a DVD-RW will be fine, no DVD-ROM necessary.

BioHazard.89 said:
Why pick so much hard drive space? I'm actually looking for something like 2 80GB hard drives that are in the duplicated raid setup - for a total of 80GBs. Only games are going to be installed on this system so I'm thinking 250GBs is way to much.....
Click to expand...
Space is not the issue. This drive can do 300Mbps SATA, and has a 16MB buffer. It beats out most RAID arrays in performance, and comes in big sizes.

BioHazard.89 said:
Next: Is SLI worth looking into? Is it necessary? What are the benefits? Can I shave off some money going with the board I first picked out, which looks to be the same minus SLI?
Click to expand...
Worth it or not, it's good to get the SLI board just because of the bells and whistles. The price difference is minimal ($10 between A8N-E and A8N-SLI).

BioHazard.89 said:
Finally: Is there a reason for the 2gb of ram? Is 1gb starting to become not enough ram for games?
Click to expand...
1GB was officially not enough 6 months ago.

BioHazard.89 said:
If I do drop down from a non SLI system and to only a single gig of ram (2x512mb) will I have to "re"upgrade back to this stuff soon?
Click to expand...
Yes on the RAM, see above on SLI.

About that Chaintech board, I really advise people to buy a quality brand motherboard. The difference between the Chaintech and an ASUS A8N-E is $40, and well worth it in my mind.
 
I believe I may be able to find the extra 100 ;)

Earlier I only said -Rom as a allround term for disc drives.... meant to use Optical, the word didn't come to me at the time.... and optical still sounds a bit wrong =D

I don't think I will ever use the 250GBs though.... not saying extra space is a problem but it could cut down on the price - Are there alternatives?

Thanks for the help thus far guys.
 
BioHazard.89 said:
I don't think I will ever use the 250GBs though.... not saying extra space is a problem but it could cut down on the price - Are there alternatives?
Click to expand...
To be honest with you, hard drive space is so cheap these days that it is really nothing more than a marketing gimmik any more. "We've go 400GB drives!" "Oh yeah, we've got 500GB drives!" Will anyone use that much space? Probably not. It's the features you buy a hard drive for anymore, not the space. That 250GB hard drive has 16MB of cache, most drive today have 8MB or 2MB. The extra cache is what really helps in games.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top