pc spec, what you think?

[cHodAX]

dam chod i didnt know u waz a PC wizz i would of been buging u for advice ! !

toooo late now just bought a new PC from pcspecialist.co.uk

tbh i couldnt be arsed to try and build one from overclockers and was scared about hardware compatablity.

i went for this spec and it arrived today . but reading above i noticed that my RAM etc wasnt named so im guessing i got sent shite ?


as for the PC it cost £1650 or so but as my company is VAT reg i can claim back all that making it cost me about £1380
havent tryed it on ay games yet but hoping it will rock

AMD® ATHLON® 64BIT X2 4400 1MB L2 Cache
2048 MB DDR400 PC3200 WITH LIFETIME WARRANTY! (2x1GB)
ASUS® A8N-SLI: DUAL DDR, S-ATA, 2 x x16 VGA, 3 PCI
SIX USB 2.0 PORTS (4 REAR + 2 FRONT)
SATA 160 GB HARD DISK @ 7200rpm 8mb cache
SATA 160 GB HARD DISK @ 7200rpm 8mb cache
Raid: NONE
16X DVD ROM WITH 48X CD ROM
4x +R DUAL LYR DVD WRITER (16x +/-R) (& RW) + 40x CD-RW
256MB GEFORCE 7800GT PCI Express
256MB GEFORCE 7800GT PCI Express
SoundBlaster Audigy 2 ZS 7.1 Player: £39
NONE, I WILL BE USING BROADBAND
2 x 10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORTS ONBOARD
1.44MB FLOPPY DISK DRIVE
Stylish Silver X-Plode Case + 2 Front USB
550W DUAL RAIL PSU, 120mm fan & 19.2 dBA CPU Cooler - for SLI
MICROSOFT® WINDOWS® XP PRO (inc. original CD & licence)
1 x FIREWIRE PORT ONBOARD

Looks good, you can easily pop the memory out and check it in seconds or you could just take the safe route and download Everest Home Edition from http://www.lavalys.com/ then use that to get the memory module info by loading the program and doing the following...

Click MOTHERBOARD ---> MEMORY ---> SPD

That should get the SPD data from your memory, it will tell you who manufacturered it, the memory timings currently set and also the optimum basic memory timings. Post back with the results bud and I will let you know what memory they supplied.

btw your machine is a bit of a beast

 

[popa]

high-end AMD athlon 64 based system


*AMD athlon 64x2 3800+ processor
*xp home edition
*1gb duel xhannel DDR ram (pc3200) 400mhz (2x512mb)
*200gb serial ATA hard drive with 8mb buffer
*256mb ATI radion X800GT pci express graphics
*19" viewsonic VX912 pure digital DVI TFT moniter (12MS response)
*DVD rom
*multi format duel layer DVD writer/CD writer drive
*nivada 7.1 chanmnel surround sound audio onboard
*creative inspire p5800 5.1 speakers

what you guys think of this pc spec, purely for gaming.
please critiquewhat would you change and what would you pay? i was quoted £1,400:eek2:

thanks for advice

well i got mine and take me less that 1,400 euro made myselfspet by step and buy the components cheeper on all barcelona shops ( takeme like 1 weeK)
well i got a
amd64 3500+
a8nsli deluxe
6600 GT pci
3BG ram 400 mhz ( updated from 1)
xp64
tft 19" acer
hdd dont remeber the name but waz a normal 80 gb 7200 rpm

 

[[SS]Gamblor]

"Titan Vantage" AMD Athlon 64 3200+ System (FS-009-OK)
If you are looking for high performance stylish looking system without the inflated cost then the new Titan is ideal. Titan Vantage is powerful enough for any task including all the latest games currently out too such as DOOM 3 and Half Life 2 offering an ultimate gaming experience and feature extremely low noise levels, you won't even know its on.

- AMD Athlon 64 3200+ Venice CPU
- AMD approved cooler
- Asus A8N-E nForce4 Ultra PCI-Express Motherboard
- GeIL 1GB Value (2x512MB) DDR PC3200 CAS2.5 Dual Channel Kit
- 160GB Western Digital Serial ATA-2 8mb Cache Hard Drive
- XFX GeForce 6800 GS 256MB DDR3 PCI-Express Graphics Card
- Pioneer DVR-110 16x16 DVD±RW Dual Layer ReWriter
- Onboard 6 Channel Audio
- Floppy Drive
- Antec SLK-3800B-UK Silent Midi Tower Case
- Antec 400W Silent ATX Power Supply


Price: £549.00 (£645.08 Including VAT at 17.5%)

I FInk that's what i'll be going for , i already have a Gig of DD2 ( 400 Mhz) in my old system so i can swap it into this one if needed.

 

[liloe]

btw your machine is a bit of a beast

A tamed beast though.

-32bit OS
-2 big drives but no RAID
-gigabit network but nearly nobody uses the technology atm ( I must change tbh =) )
-dual core nearly not used by any application ( that buggers me aswell on my system )

and holy cow....2.400€ for that? Where do you people buy your stuff? Not even if I add in a 2nd gfx card and that soundcard to my system I get to such a value =)

 

[Coolan]

[QUOTE='[SS]Gamblor' I FInk that's what i'll be going for , i already have a Gig of DD2 ( 400 Mhz) in my old system so i can swap it into this one if needed.[/QUOTE]

not very likely ddr and ddr2 use 2 different slot types for the memory, and amd's are made to run on ddr.

 

[cHodAX]

A tamed beast though.

-32bit OS
-2 big drives but no RAID
-gigabit network but nearly nobody uses the technology atm ( I must change tbh =) )
-dual core nearly not used by any application ( that buggers me aswell on my system )

and holy cow....2.400€ for that? Where do you people buy your stuff? Not even if I add in a 2nd gfx card and that -soundcard to my system I get to such a value =)

-64bit O/S offers very little advantage at the moment and the driver support is very limited.

-Raid is nice but offers very little in the way of real world performance gains when it comes to gaming and when you consider the cost.

-Agreed Gigabit is really only needed for servers, it is total overkill on a desktop machine, hell there is no standard desktop hard drive around that could keep up with that sustained data transfer rate and there are no desktop applications that would really saturate that amount of bandwidth.

-Dual core helps hugely by offloading processes to the 2nd core, a dual core system feels much much smoother than a single core when it comes to multi-tasking. Even games benefit by the fact that they are not fighting for CPU time with the operating system. Everything just feels alot smoother, especially with NCQ enabled drives.

 

[liloe]

-64bit O/S offers very little advantage at the moment and the driver support is very limited.

yes, that buggered me aswell on my system, took SiI almost 2 months to get me the drivers I needed

-Raid is nice but offers very little in the way of real world performance gains when it comes to gaming and when you consider the cost.

I just say Fraps =) and a lot of boards nowadays have hardware raids available. Not the interesting ones like RAID5, but the fast ones like RAID0 =)

-Agreed Gigabit is really only needed for servers, it is total overkill on a desktop machine, hell there is no standard desktop hard drive around that could keep up with that sustained data transfer rate and there are no desktop applications that would really saturate that amount of bandwidth.

Rox if you move huge data as I do sometimes =) and I cba to wait...just the costs piss me off a bit atm =)

-Dual core helps hugely by offloading processes to the 2nd core, a dual core system feels much much smoother than a single core when it comes to multi-tasking. Even games benefit by the fact that they are not fighting for CPU time with the operating system. Everything just feels alot smoother, especially with NCQ enabled drives.

Yer that's true, but I'd like to see more multi-thread software like Adobe Premier or Quake 3 ( yes yes, Quake 3 open source can be compiled for multi processor use =) )

 

[SkarIronfist]

Personally I would go with the system Chodax recommended. good solid components. Getting the 7800 was a real bonus.

1 change - Go to 2 GB of memory. 2 copies of DAOC take about 1.5 GBs.

Also something which may not have been mentioned (I didn't see it), that the current Nvidia Drivers take advantage of the dual core and can offer I think between 15 - 30% advantage in certain situations. I am not sure if the ATi's do the same.

If you do decide to build yourself. A top quality power supply is a must. It will save you alot of pain.