new pc soon got some ?s

[pegisys]

I like building my own pc's just becuase you know what's going on inside and after you build your first one it's a piece of cake, and all the pieces fit right in to place so you dont have to worry about puttin something in the wrong place

if you do build it just make sure not to do it in a room with carpet and have a antistatic wristband

and I would get a 64bit CPU so when xp-64 and 64bit games come you'll be ready besides that I agree with everyone else

 

[skmanga]

alright cool ill look into 64bit cpus then

thx for all the help everyone

 

[{Sniping}Waste]

Did you check out the link I posted yet?
http://www.unitedmicro.com/sysw.cgi?48155911

This is the best I could find for you that gives choise.

 

[Pete]

Prices will always drop, so the longer you wait, the less you'll pay. Alternatively, the longer you wait, the more you'll get for your money. You will have to buy the thing at some point, though, and now doesn't seem like a bad time. RAM prices seem to have dropped recently, to just $75 for 2x512MB PC3200. HD prices are also pretty cheap AR, with a 160GB Seagate for $50AR @ Outpost and a 250GB Hitachi for $75AR @ CUSA.

I'd go for the MSI myself, but that's b/c I want to fit it in an Antec Aria, need Firewire, and can accept no OCing options. Your priorities may differ. I think A64s are good OCers, so you may want to spend more on a better MB and faster RAM.

The P4 6-series sounds good WRT 64bit and (relatively) lower power, but the cheapest one at NewEgg is $230. That's almost $100 more than the cheapest A64--not worth it, IMO.

More suggestions: look for a quiet system. You might not value quiet initially, but the more office work or even sleeping you do near a noisy system will make a quiet one seem that much more worthwhile. So try to buy a quiet PSU, a case that can accomodate 120mm fans (or just quiet 80mm ones, knowing that they'll provide much less airflow), and a quiet HD (I don't think WD HDs are the quietest, though my second 800JB is much quieter than my first [and I've heard the 74GB Raptor is quiet]).

 

[stevem]

Didn't know that about Tagan/Epower. Can't find any efficiency info on their site, though, and $50 seems like a suspiciously good deal for a 450W PSU. Still, "Leather Feel Coating?" I'm in!

Tagan, OCZ, BeQuiet, ePower, Vantec are all made by Topower. FSP Group make Fortron, Aopen, Zalman, Sparkle, Nexus, InWin & some PCP&C. In fact you can often find the same base OEM unit labelled FSP-3xx/4xx etc, under the Poweman label. With around 80% efficiency & APFC depending on model, they're a solid unit for the $.

 

[skmanga]

what would u guys rather get?

AMD ATHLON64 3500+ CPU w/ Hyper Transport Technology
or
Intel P4 630 w/HT Technology 3.0GHZ 800FSB 2MB Cache, 64 Bit

also can u get ddr2 with an amd chip?

 

[Fox5]

I'd imagine the 3500+ is a much faster chip.
1. It's rated as a 3500, which compares it to a 3.5ghz P4.
2. Athlon 64s seem to perform about 400 points higher than their rating for games. So say a 3000+ athlon 64 would perform as well as a 3.4ghz P4.
3. That P4 will be hindered by the DDR2 memory. PC4200 DDR2 is at least faster than PC3200 DDR, even if the latency is worse(I think the DDR2 still performs slightly worse, but not measurably), but that P4 only uses PC3200 DDR2 memory, which is the same speed as PC3200 DDR but with much worse latency.

Also, no you can't get DDR2 with AMD, but DDR2 kind of sucks. It is faster than DDR, but also has much worse latency so its net result is that it's a tiny bit slower.
If you don't mind manually adjusting settings in the bios, you could get faster ddr ram. AMD officially supports up to PC4000, and I think you can buy ddr ram up to PC4700, but the fastest official JEDEC DDR standard is PC3200.(mainly because they're trying to push DDR2 as the new thing, so they don't want to give official support to faster DDR which would outperform DDR2)
You can also buy lower latency memory which can perform better without overclocking anything at all.

If you aren't building your own PC, a site like www.monarchcomputer.com would be good. Not the best prices in the world, but they're competitive, and they tend to have all the latest equipment, and allow you to fully configure the PC how you want it.

 

[Pete]

Thanks for the info, steve.

 

[skmanga]

thx for all the info
so the p4 630 with ddr2 PC4200 will perform worse than a
amd 3500 with ddr PC3200 if thats the case then ill go with the amd system

im trying to build a system with about $1000 that will last me about 2 years, ill probably add ram before the 2 years are over

1 question if i get a mobo that suppports the fastest ram (ddr/ddr2) out at the moment when faster ram comes out in the future i wont be able to use it right?

another question about overcloking ram, is it basically the same as overcloking a video card u can only do it so much due to overheating?
and can u overclock regular ram without heatsinks a good amount?

hmm it also seems that amd mobos dont support ata150hd's only 133 and down is 150 alot better than 133?

ok these are the 2 systems that i came up with from http://www.cyberpowersystem.com/

intel:

X-BLADE Medium Tower Case 450 W
(Sckt775)Intel® Pentium® 4 CPU 630 CPU w/HT Technology 3.0GHZ 800FSB 2MB Cache, 64 Bit
Abit AA8-DuraMax I925 Chipset Sckt775 DDR2/533 PCX w/Audio,Gb LAN,IEEE,
1GB (2x512MB) PC4200 DDR2 Dual Channel Memory
Hitachi 160GB 7200RPM SATA150 8MB Cache
Geforce 6600 GT 128MB 16X PCI-E -- Powered by Leadtek
SONY DWD-22A DUAL FORMAT 16X DVD±R/±RW + CD-R/RW DRIVE DUAL LAYER (BLACK)
3D WAVE ON-BOARD 5.1 SOUND CARD

Price: $1162.00

amd:

X-BLADE Medium Tower Case 450 W
(939-pin) AMD ATHLON64 3500+ CPU w/ Hyper Transport Technology
Gigabyte GA-K8NF-9 Chipset Mboard
1GB (512MBx2) PC3200 DDR400 Memory
Hitachi 160GB 7200RPM SATA150 8MB Cache
Geforce 6600 GT 128MB 16X PCI-E -- Powered by Leadtek
SONY DWD-22A DUAL FORMAT 16X DVD±R/±RW + CD-R/RW DRIVE DUAL LAYER (BLACK)
Creative Labs SB LIVE 24.bit 7.1

Price: $1152.00

which one do u think will perform better and last longer?

 

[digitalwanderer]

I'd go AMD all the way.

One thing, can ya upgrade the SoundBlaster Live to an Audigy2?

 

[skmanga]

well i dont really give a shit about sound
ive been using onboard all my life so im guessing the soundblaster is enough of an upgrade

 

[Pete]

I say either stick with onboard or go for the Audigy 2. Heck, I think this version gets down to $80 after rebates from time to time, and it includes a ton of good games. Unless that Live is about $20, I wouldn't bother.

 

[ANova]

I'd imagine the 3500+ is a much faster chip.
1. It's rated as a 3500, which compares it to a 3.5ghz P4.
2. Athlon 64s seem to perform about 400 points higher than their rating for games. So say a 3000+ athlon 64 would perform as well as a 3.4ghz P4.
3. That P4 will be hindered by the DDR2 memory. PC4200 DDR2 is at least faster than PC3200 DDR, even if the latency is worse(I think the DDR2 still performs slightly worse, but not measurably), but that P4 only uses PC3200 DDR2 memory, which is the same speed as PC3200 DDR but with much worse latency.

1. Incorrect. The s754 3400+ performs better then the 3500+. This is because the 3400+ has 1 MB L2 cache while the 3500+ has 512 KB. Dual channel support was supposed to make up for the less cache but in reality dual channel only gives a very small advantage. While generally yes, a 3400+ does compare to a P4 3.4GHz, that's not always the case. The 3500+ will perform better then a 3.4 GHz P4 in gaming, but not in most other areas, where the P4 is typically as fast or faster.

2. This is more or less correct.

3. Yes, and this is why I recommended only using DDR. Most motherboard manufacturers have at least one LGA775 motherboard that supports DDR or DDR and DDR2.

Like I said, in the real world I doubt anyone would notice a difference between two similarly speced chips from either company, although I would argue the P4 is noticably faster when multitasking.

 

[Fox5]

1 question if i get a mobo that suppports the fastest ram (ddr/ddr2) out at the moment when faster ram comes out in the future i wont be able to use it right?

another question about overcloking ram, is it basically the same as overcloking a video card u can only do it so much due to overheating?
and can u overclock regular ram without heatsinks a good amount?

hmm it also seems that amd mobos dont support ata150hd's only 133 and down is 150 alot better than 133?

Depends what mobo you get on the ram.
Overclocking ram doesn't really make it overheat, it just fails to work beyond certain speeds, which is why you need to buy faster ram.(note that you need to lower the multiplier on the cpu, or the cpu will speed up and overheat)
Some AMD mobos support SATA2 which I believe is 300MB/s max. However, physically harddrives can't reach those speeds.

http://www.monarchcomputer.com/Merc...=PROD&Store_Code=M&Product_Code=80311
On monarchcomputer.com you can configure a nice computer.
The DFI Lan Party UT NForce4 Ultra-D motherboard can overclock ram very high, and is nicely featured. I believe it supports SATA 2.
However, they only sell pc3200 ram, so you'd likely have to buy the ram seperately if you want to overclock.

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=20-227-206&depa=0
This is about the best overall ram you can buy right now.(monarch does sell this ram, but it's not an option when selecting parts to build a PC)

PostPosted: Sun Apr 03, 2005 8:57 am Post subject: Reply with quote
Fox5 wrote:
I'd imagine the 3500+ is a much faster chip.
1. It's rated as a 3500, which compares it to a 3.5ghz P4.
2. Athlon 64s seem to perform about 400 points higher than their rating for games. So say a 3000+ athlon 64 would perform as well as a 3.4ghz P4.
3. That P4 will be hindered by the DDR2 memory. PC4200 DDR2 is at least faster than PC3200 DDR, even if the latency is worse(I think the DDR2 still performs slightly worse, but not measurably), but that P4 only uses PC3200 DDR2 memory, which is the same speed as PC3200 DDR but with much worse latency.


1. Incorrect. The s754 3400+ performs better then the 3500+. This is because the 3400+ has 1 MB L2 cache while the 3500+ has 512 KB. Dual channel support was supposed to make up for the less cache but in reality dual channel only gives a very small advantage. While generally yes, a 3400+ does compare to a P4 3.4GHz, that's not always the case. The 3500+ will perform better then a 3.4 GHz P4 in gaming, but not in most other areas, where the P4 is typically as fast or faster.

I wasn't comparing the 3500+ to a 3400+, I was comparing it to the 3ghz p4, it's likely that the 3500+ will beat that 3ghz p4 in everything or just about everything.

although I would argue the P4 is noticably faster when multitasking.

And I've heard people say AMD chips seem more responsive with general windows use, but I've never seen tests for each. Come on, some one get out a stopwatch and measure, or at least count the number of 'hiccups' a computer has while running.

 

[digitalwanderer]

I wasn't suggesting the Audigy2 for fidelity so much as for better gaming performance.

The Audigy2 takes some of the gaming work off your CPU, so your games will run better.

I'd go with the onboard sound before I put a SB-live 5.1 in it, I had one of those and they ain't very good and they are VERY frustrating at times. :?

 

[skmanga]

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=20-227-206&depa=0

will that ram work on most motherboards out now that support ddr400?

about ddr and ddr2

this is the ddr specs:

GEIL VALUE 512MB PC3200 400MHz DDR MEMORY

• 184pin, Non-ECC, Un-buffered, Industry Standard DDR memory modules.
• GeIL 5ns 32x8 Density DDR Chip.
• 6 Layers Low Noises Shielded PCB.
• Lifetime Warranty .
• CAS 2.5 6-3-3 @ DDR400MHz PC3200
• 2.55v-2.85V

ddr2:

GEIL PC2-4300 533Mhz DDR2 Single Channel

PC4300 533MHz CAS 4-4-4-12
64x8 DDR2 FBGA Chips
240pin, Non-ECC, Un-buffered DDR2 SDRAM DIMM
Aluminum Heat-spreader
6 Layers Ultra Low Noises Shielded PCB
Retail package
Life time warranty
1.8V Power Supply

out of that ddr and that ddr2 which would perform faster overall

oh and umm is a heat spreader het sink thing worth getting on ddr if im not planning on overcloking?
is it even necesary when overclocking?

 

[Fox5]

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=20-227-206&depa=0

will that ram work on most motherboards out now that support ddr400?

about ddr and ddr2

this is the ddr specs:

GEIL VALUE 512MB PC3200 400MHz DDR MEMORY

• 184pin, Non-ECC, Un-buffered, Industry Standard DDR memory modules.
• GeIL 5ns 32x8 Density DDR Chip.
• 6 Layers Low Noises Shielded PCB.
• Lifetime Warranty .
• CAS 2.5 6-3-3 @ DDR400MHz PC3200
• 2.55v-2.85V

ddr2:

GEIL PC2-4300 533Mhz DDR2 Single Channel

PC4300 533MHz CAS 4-4-4-12
64x8 DDR2 FBGA Chips
240pin, Non-ECC, Un-buffered DDR2 SDRAM DIMM
Aluminum Heat-spreader
6 Layers Ultra Low Noises Shielded PCB
Retail package
Life time warranty
1.8V Power Supply

out of that ddr and that ddr2 which would perform faster overall

oh and umm is a heat spreader het sink thing worth getting on ddr if im not planning on overcloking?
is it even necesary when overclocking?

That ram on the top will work on all motherboards that support ddr400..but only at ddr400 speeds. If you want to run it at pc4000 speeds(ddr500) with low latency, you need a motherboard that supports a higher memory voltage, like the DFI motherboard I mentioned before. Well that, or a add in voltage booster which costs about $50 or $60.

Between the DDR and DDR2 you linked.....
1. The ddr2 maybe PC4300, but the P4 by default will only run it at pc3200, so it will perform much worse. I believe only the extreme edition p4s run at pc4200 without overclocking, and p4s don't have unlocked multipliers like athlon 64s so it's harder to safely adjust the front side bus.
2. That DDR2 running at PC4300 speeds would have a latency of around 13ns, while the latency of the DDR at PC3200 speeds would have a latency of 12.5ns. With both memory sticks operating at their peak abilities, I'm not sure which one would be faster, but they'd probably deliver similar performance in most situations.
3. Why does the DDR2 memory say single channel? If it can't run in dual channel and the DDR can, then the DDR will definetely be faster.

 

[ANova]

I wasn't comparing the 3500+ to a 3400+, I was comparing it to the 3ghz p4, it's likely that the 3500+ will beat that 3ghz p4 in everything or just about everything.

LOL. You specifically stated, and I quote "It's rated as a 3500, which compares it to a 3.5ghz P4." Obviously my point went over your head. The naming convention AMD uses doesn't specifically mean it compares to an equivalently clocked P4. According to your suggestion, the 3400+ should be equivalent to a P4 at 3.4 GHz and the 3500+ to a 3.5 GHz P4. So...how can this be if the 3400+ is in fact faster then the 3500+?

Could you also point out where you compare a 3.0 GHz P4 to anything?

 

[Guden Oden]

The Audigy2 takes some of the gaming work off your CPU, so your games will run better.

If T2k was still around (he was banned, I suppose), he'd laugh at me, but audio performance really ISN'T much of a factor with a decent CPU. I have on-board SoundMAX 7.1 audio - which I assume is plain ol software-driven AC97, and it actually works BETTER than my Audigy2 ZS did... In WoW, I get full surround now whereas with the Audigy2 the back speakers were silent. :?

I do notice some sound differences - not really quality-related, other than the treble isn't as good as with the Audigy2 since it has built-in equalizer and the Logitech Z680 has a weak upper range - but other than that I have no complaints whatsoever. 3D/EAX effects sound different at times, but nothing I can pin down as better or worse. Just different. (And not coke/pepsi different as coke rules and pepsi sucks; it's more like, brown skin vs. fair skin: both are equally beautiful).

And, performance is still great despite software sound rendering. No complaints there either; I can't 'feel' any framerate sag when there's lots of 3D sounds going and there are NO compatibility issues in any games I've tested so far. Altogether a very nice and solid solution IMO.

 

[skmanga]

3. Why does the DDR2 memory say single channel? If it can't run in dual channel and the DDR can, then the DDR will definetely be faster

it is dual channel i selected the wrong one

so how will it perform agaisnt the ddr dual channel similar??[/quote]