Help with Hardware

Ivan

Fledgling Freddie
Joined
Dec 23, 2003
Messages
525
im going to build a new PC for myself but at the moment i do not have time/ patience to get updated info on the hardware available. Could i please bother you Hardware wizzes to help me out with this. Base the PC around P4 2.2 GH. Win XP Pro

Mobo (with cooler details please) ?
Ram ?
3D card ?
Sound ?
<also welcome mice + board info>
 

plomien

Fledgling Freddie
Joined
Jan 7, 2004
Messages
319
it also depends on how much you are willing to spend. a friend of mine built his online when he spoke to the customer services guy to confirm the details they tweaked it for gaming performance.
i will find the site for you and post here with it
 

Ivan

Fledgling Freddie
Joined
Dec 23, 2003
Messages
525
ta, and money isnt really an issue, unless the price gets to silly proportions.
 

Nxs

One of Freddy's beloved
Joined
Dec 23, 2003
Messages
478
Ivan said:
im going to build a new PC for myself but at the moment i do not have time/ patience to get updated info on the hardware available. Could i please bother you Hardware wizzes to help me out with this. Base the PC around P4 2.2 GH. Win XP Pro

Mobo (with cooler details please) ?
Ram ?
3D card ?
Sound ?
<also welcome mice + board info>

Any reason why you are going for a P4 over an AMD ? Not really that up on Intel stuff, but I upgraded mine around a month ago. I already had a 2400 AMD processor (runs at 266 bus) and wanted to spend about £200 to keep me going for another year.


I got a ASUS A7N8X-X motherboard (this uses the nForce 2 chipset, which is suposed to be pretty good, although nForce 3 is out now i think, but this motherboard was about £50 all in - the board could accept my AMD 2400 (266 bus) processor, and also any of the later processors running at the new 400 bus speed, so a nice easy upgrade path later on
This board had onboard LAN and SOUND and 4xUSB ports :) wooo bonus

I also purchased two sticks of "512MB 184DIMM PC3200 NP CL2.5" memory, again this runs on a 400 bus speed, but can be backward compatible and run at 266 to work with the processor, these sticks were about £45 each

So total price here was about £150 which gave me a system that would work with my existing 266 mhz processor.... but could take any AMD 400 mhz processor later on.

As for a GFX card, everyone here in the office agrees - never buy the latest top notch card, its a waste of cash and is generaly out of date within 6 months. I think currently these are the ATI 9800's and Geforce 5900's - so taking the advice from my work friends, i would be looking at the models a little lower down namely the ATI 9600 or Geforce 5800's I think if you aim for around £150 youll get a nice card.

As for a cooler... personaly id buy a retail box'ed AMD processor as they come with heatsink and fan, however check out www.overclockers.co.uk they have some really cook stuff.
 

SilverHood

FH is my second home
Joined
Dec 23, 2003
Messages
2,281
I'm with Nxs on this one... you'd get a lot more bang for your buck buying an AMD system. Unless you have the CPU already :)

As Nxs also said, the nForce mobo's are ace... especially the ASUS ones... I have one, and it has dolby 5.1 surround sound on board... good enough for gaming and films! :)
The built in network card / ADSL / cable modem is also pretty sweet

For GFX cards, the ATi Radeon 9800XT is probably your best bet in combining speed for price.

No point in having the latest in GFX cards if your CPU can't handle it... I have a GF4 Ti4800... serves me well enough for my gaming needs (CPU is the equivelant of a 2800XP)
 

Adrianicus

Loyal Freddie
Joined
Jan 2, 2004
Messages
230
Here is a pc that i built, with help from a mate ;)

P4 3ghz
Asus p4c800
2 sticks of 512mb pc3200 crucial ram
seagate barracuda 80gb 7200rpm harddrive
LG dvd rom
LG cdrw
keyboard
Tower and powersupply

Came to about £570, but need to add cash for graphics card (used my old radeon 9700pro).

Didnt bother with sounds - settled for onboard sound

PC runs really well, and didnt cost too much either.

Someone wrote on another thread that AMD does not have Hyperthreading capabilites - id definately consider this factor if you intend on running two accounts.
 

Musashi

Fledgling Freddie
Joined
Dec 25, 2003
Messages
23
If basing the system on the Intel P4 2.2/2.4 then something like below would work pretty much like a charm.

Abit IS7 motherboard with HT Technology
- Intel 865PE -chipset.
- Celeron 2.0 GHz or faster/Pentium4 1.3-3.0 Ghz or faster with HT support.
- 6x USB2.0 - 3x FireWire - Only DDR-DIMM
- Buspeed 133-200, FSB 400/533/800Mhz.
- PCI slots: 5
- AGP slots: 1, 4x/8x only 1.5V
- DIMM memory slots: 4, Only DDR-DIMM (max 4.0Gb, PC1600-PC3200, with Dual Channel support).
- IDE-slots: 2, DMA33/66/100/133
- Serial ATA-slots: 2
SATA-RAID -chipset
- Intel ICH5R South Bridge 2-channel, 150MB/s
- 2 SATA-harddrives
- SATA-RAID -level 0
Integrated sound
- Realtek ALC650E 6-channel / AC-97.
- Mic in, Line in, Front out, Rear out, Center/Subw out.
- External optical SPDIF IN
- External optical SPDIF OUT
Integrated Lan
- Realtek RTL8101L, 10/100Mbps


Zalman CNPS7000-AlCu AMD Athlon 64, Intel P4 cooler
http://www.zalman.co.kr/english/product/cnps7000alcu.htm

Kinston HyperX, 512MB 333Mhz DDR-RAM DIMM x2

ATi Radeon 9600 Pro 128Mb

If integrated audio aint your thing then either of these are good, well only Terratec is good imo but :p

TerraTec SS Aureon 7.1 Space PCI
or
Sound Blaster Audigy2 PCI

For keyboard / Mouse any usb/ps2 ones will work so its more upto your own taste on brand/looks :)
 

Ivan

Fledgling Freddie
Joined
Dec 23, 2003
Messages
525
Thank you for feedback guys, and basing system on P4 this time , ive been having a load of overheating problems with AMD.
 

chretien

Fledgling Freddie
Joined
Dec 24, 2003
Messages
1,079
If money is no object and you want a top end gaming system then why haven't you looked at an athlon64 based system?
You can get the chip for less than a top end P4 and the nforce3 chipset is reputedly very sweet indeed.
 

SilverHood

FH is my second home
Joined
Dec 23, 2003
Messages
2,281
Athlon64's are a waste of money regarding future investments.... they're making changes to them right now.... which guarantees that any motherboard you buy now wont support the next gen 64 bit chips.
Besides, an Athlon 2500 or P42.2 is adequate for almost all of todays gaming needs.
 

Roalith

Can't get enough of FH
Joined
Dec 26, 2003
Messages
743
P4 Hyperthreading chips are excellent, especially if running two accounts on one PC. Have a 2.4 HT chip @ 2.6 clock speed myself, although have had it up to 3.0 before with no problems.

Aside from the absolute pants gfx card, I was able to run two SI clients, one on stick, with no discernable gfx lag (stuck character lagging off into the wilderness) whatsoever. Whatever you do, avoid Nvidia Geforce FX cards below the 5900 :)
 

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