Rate your fav components!

[eggy]

I've decided to upgrade my PC. I have two PCs, one as a buffbot computer. Here's what I have at the moment on the main PC:

P4 3ghz Northwood 800FSB
1gig Giel Value DDR2
Geforce 6200GT
200gig HD (IDE )
Some pants on-board sound
19" TFT

Ideally, I'd like to get rid of the buffbot PC, just having 1 for both accounts. I can dual-log at the moment but have problems sticking etc. I'll go for a dual-core CPU which should work nicely with two accounts.

So, I want to buy:

-Dual core CPU (Intel or AMD?)
-New RAM? More of the same or completely new stuff?
-Motherboard (I have no idea about the latest standards)
-Case (Quiet, cool running)
-PSU
-New SATA HD
-Sound card + speakers
-Mouse (with programmable buttons for qbinds)

Any advice on any of the above would be appreciated.

I don't want to change the graphics card or monitor or network card at all.

 

[Boni]

For PSU, I got a 'Hiper' Modual PSU. Got something like 580W, glows blue and has very handy easily detachable power cords. Comes in a plastic toolbox with various types of power cord.

http://www.gladiatorcomputers.com/P...=PSUHIPHPU4580BL&CategoryId=4.6&Link=Featured

 

[Twist]

I've also gone for the Hiper PSU & it's great. I wouldn't get upset about having an IDE HD - if it works ok then who cares it's not SATA?

If I were you I'd post a budget + explanation of what you want here and let them do the work for you

 

[Roteca]

I've also gone for the Hiper PSU & it's great. I wouldn't get upset about having an IDE HD - if it works ok then who cares it's not SATA?

If I were you I'd post a budget + explanation of what you want here and let them do the work for you

i have a TAGAN 2force PSU, works like a charm and is quiet, not as cheap as the HIPER one thou.

cpu im realy satisfied with my AMD X2 4400+, fast and stable so far atleast for me, i have that running on a DFI motherboard, DFI LANPARTY nF4 SLI-DR, and some corsair memorys, works for me atleast, wasnt the cheapest thou...

 

[Darzil]

Decent spec PSU - from a decent make.

Never regretting going for matched memory, rather than cheapo stuff.

Between the two, all my previous system stability issues vanished. 18 months on, no blue screens, no restarting of system or Camelot because it slows down, no LDs in Camelot except when my ISP, OpenTransit or GOA networks are really screwed.

Nothing too special in the box, though. GeForce 4600Ti, 1 Gb memory, Athlon 2600 or so. I'd not want to run two accounts on one box, just cos I like to see both at once.

Darzil

 

[Twist]

i have a TAGAN 2force PSU, works like a charm and is quiet, not as cheap as the HIPER one thou.

cpu im realy satisfied with my AMD X2 4400+, fast and stable so far atleast for me, i have that running on a DFI motherboard, DFI LANPARTY nF4 SLI-DR, and some corsair memorys, works for me atleast, wasnt the cheapest thou...

I've also got the 4400+ but with the Asus A8N-SLi Premium nForce4 SLi MB and 2GB Corsair CAS2 memory. Tbh it was a bitch to get everything running stable (mainly due to the Maxtor SATA HD as the nForce drivers don't like it) but worth it

 

[Roteca]

I've also got the 4400+ but with the Asus A8N-SLi Premium nForce4 SLi MB and 2GB Corsair CAS2 memory. Tbh it was a bitch to get everything running stable (mainly due to the Maxtor SATA HD as the nForce drivers don't like it) but worth it

blame it on the maxtor drive ^^ had one once, or well i still have it in my old comp, never had a worse hdd, but they migth have gotten better lately.

myself i prefer WD hdd's, ive tried both ide and sata drives, both 10000rpm's and 72000rpm's, never failed on me, i have 3 WD's at home atm, my ex has 1 WD drive, my mother one, my uncle also have 3 of them, never had any problem with the drives at all. and they are kinda cheap aswell so thats nice ^^

 

[eggy]

If I were you I'd post a budget + explanation of what you want here and let them do the work for you

Nono.

I'm very capable of making the pc, that's not the issue in question.

My question is basically; what are the top-rated components around at the moment for performance.

 

[Kaelimar]

probably more memory can make it easier, if you have a large UI that eats memory like mad. sometimes i seen up to 600Mb and with 1 gig well you should see the answer lots of disk activity = bad

my current comp spec is
AMD X2 4800
MSI Nforce4 PCI-e motherbard
2gig dual ddr matching
XT850X PE
dual raptor disk S-ATA
500w PSU
and some other strange or unneeded items

yea it was not cheap but i like it

 

[Twist]

Nono.

I'm very capable of making the pc, that's not the issue in question.

My question is basically; what are the top-rated components around at the moment for performance.

I'm not saying you aren't capable, but if you want to know what the best bits are then surely asking on a tech forum is the way to go?

 

[cHodAX]

For a PSU you can not beat PC&C but they cost alot more than anyone else, really a case of getting what you pay for though. After that there is OCZ which are absolutely outstanding power supplies. Yes there are lots of others but if you want the best then there is none better than those 2 above.

For CPU, AMD dual core is the only way to go.

Motherboard ---> http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=2620 which is basically the best motherboard money can buy, if you plan to overclock your AMD then this is the baby to get. I have the earlier version of this board and have had some outstanding overclocks on both memory and CPU over the last 6 months.

Memory, I use OCZ and quite frankly I have never seen anything better for overclocking and that is saying something.

 

[eggy]

I'm not saying you aren't capable, but if you want to know what the best bits are then surely asking on a tech forum is the way to go?

FreddysHouse > Role Playing Games > Dark Age of Camelot > Technical Help

 

[Lexxus]

can reccomend Creative SB X-Fi Fatal1ty as soundcard, it works like a charm and for speakers i can also reccomend Logitech Z-5500 Digital

 

[Chronictank]

ABIT Fatal1ty AN8 mainboard on NVIDIA nForce4 Ultra Chipset
looks good on paper, and it glows

Article here:
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/mainboards/display/abit-fatal1ty-an8.html

If your going dual core AMD>Intel by a VERY VERY long way when it comes to games, see this article:

Article here:
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/28cpu-games.html


And for gfx card i would go Geforce 6800 GS
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/geforce-6800gs.html

Very expensive choices, but if you want the best you gota pay for it hehe

 

[liloe]

if it's for gaming only, go for AMD but for some applications you're better off with an Intel CPU.

As mouse I'd use the Logitech MX-1000 if I were you. From the many buttons it has, you can use 7+left+right. The middle mousebutton is very bad to press, so I didn't quickbind it to anything. It's a wireless laser mouse and it works like a charm, although I wasn't a huge supporter of wireless before that.

The rest was pretty much said already, get quality stuff, no NO-Name RAM's etc... If you want to run a RAID, check out the Western Digital RAID edition HDD's. I got 2 of them in my current system and they work really well.

 

[Honza]

Agreed with Liloe...

In case you have this as a pure gaming machine, AMD X2 is your choice. If it is work machine too (for example you 3D Maxing or using Visual Studio etc.) take Intel dual core 64bit Prescott...

For motherboard - Definitely take Asus SLI32 solution (two PCIe 16x slots) no matter if you take Intel or AMD version - for both it's the best board avail atm

Memory - Dual Channel, for AMD low latency Corsair (TwinX serie) 3200 modules - 1 gig is minimum, but I'd rather advise 2gigs for 'I can do what I want and when I want'; for Intel take same volume of low latency DDR2 675 MHz version (fastest RAM on market; you'll see damn performance difference with so fast RAM when compressing video to x264 or xVid)

PSU - brand model 550W+ (best with miniature nuclear power plant included ) )

Graphic card - do not take nVidia 6xxx serie, go for nVidia 7800, in case you can afford it 7800 GTX512 (512 bit version) and if you run in cinema-like resolution SLI. Reason for 7800 card: lower power consumption, better core (lower temperatures), 302M transistors (compared to 222M of 6800)

Sound card - definitely Creative X-Fi Fatal1ty 64MB X-Ram. Advertisement doesn't lie comparing difference Audigy2 -> X-Fi to SB32 -> Live. BUT! You really need decent speakers for that. I really don't recommend any of common PC speakers because it's like buying porsche and put there tires of 1900's. For X-Fi card you really should aim for device like Marantz receiver/amplifier and Mordaunt-Short speakers to use it's potencial.

DVD drive: there it's pretty simple.. LG GSA-4166 (with lightscribe) or 4167 (without lightscribe) - tbh it's OPed like warlocks before nerf compared to other drives.

Controllers: There you should go for optical solution wired mouse - any dpi over 300 is good (don't be fool to let yourself into 1200dpi mouse etc..) - human hand can't be more precious than 200dpi ... As for tons of buttons - tbh I have Microsoft IntelliMouse Optical (4 buttons, 1 wheelbutton) - never used more than 4 buttons so far.
As for keyboard - get ergonomic one. It takes a while to get used to it, but it really saves your hands of pain.

HDD: Western Digital is a good choice (16MB cache version) SATA2 (for optimised instructions sequencing) - better RAID version. In case you already insane enough get 74GB Raptors, I was testing them in RAID0 setup and it was capable of 180 MBps random read/write. Reason why to prefer S-ATA from ATA: S-ATA has it's own processor like SCSI does and thus doesn't load up your CPU

TFT: For me the winner is Iiyama (www.iiyama.com) - you might consider model like ProLite E481S-B3... It has 8ms refresh rate, wide view angles and the best colours reproduction I have ever seen (both on CRTs and LCDs).

Chasis: In case you decide to run water-cooling, take chasis that can fit heatsink on top of case (that one with two 12cms low rpm high performance active coolers). In case you decide to stay with fan cooling get chasis that has cpu heat tunnel (takes out cpu heat outside the chasis instead of faning it against chasis side - in my case this put my usualy 45 deg CPU down to 35 deg, 52 deg chipset down to 45 deg and graphic card went down by 8-9 degree to current 42).


With this PC you could run lagless 2 accounts with both of them running Fraps and dvd -> x264 compression on background.

 

[scorge]

AMD Athlon 64 FX-57 Processor with HyperTransport Technology

ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe NVIDIA nForce4 SLI 2000MHz FSB Dual Channel DDR 400 Socket 939 ATX Motherboard

Enermax EG701AX-VE (W) 600 Watt Power Supply SLI read

2GB Extra Low Latency DDR PC-3200 SDRAM at 400MHz

Dual 512MB PCI-Express x16 NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GTX - SLI Enabled

500GB Serial ATA-II 3Gb 7,200 RPM w/16MB Cache

Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeMusic


LG GSA-4166 DVD

PSU - brand model 550W+ (best with miniature nuclear power plant included ) )

would reccommend a 600w PSU, especially if you are using SLI on a high end machine, liked the rest though

 

[scorge]

I

I don't want to change the graphics card or monitor or network card at all.

new mobos will probably have a decent onboard gigabyte lan card

would reccommend going the whole hog and changing graphics card if you getting a new system, especially if you are going to use SLI.


For amd fx-57 and amd x2 4800 benchmarking check out http://www.tomshardware.com/cpu/20050627/athlon_fx57-06.html for stats

 

[eggy]

new mobos will probably have a decent onboard gigabyte lan card

would reccommend going the whole hog and changing graphics card if you getting a new system, especially if you are going to use SLI.


For amd fx-57 and amd x2 4800 benchmarking check out http://www.tomshardware.com/cpu/20050627/athlon_fx57-06.html for stats

I'm on wireless, remember

I hadn't planned on using SLI, but having a look at my current budget and proximity of next months pay cheque I think I may wait a few weeks and order a collosal mother fucker with all the frills.

Thanks for input so far!

 

[scorge]

I'm on wireless, remember

thought so but you didn't specify

Some Mobos come with onboard Wireless as well, the ASUS above doesn't though :-(

I hadn't planned on using SLI, but having a look at my current budget and proximity of next months pay cheque I think I may wait a few weeks and order a collosal mother fucker with all the frills.

if you are going to change your mobo, you might as well upgrade the lot, as your current RAM might not work or underperform anyway, if your going to stick with your existing Mobo, would reccomend you upgarde to 2Gb of ram and get a new graphics card and sound card.

 

[Honza]

as for power sources, these are tested to handle SLIing with no probs: http://www.slizone.com/object/slizone2_build.html#certified_powersupplies

as for graphic cards, usualy mobo+card from same manufacturer gives some extra performance (MSI, Asus, Abit from those I've personaly verified this)

 

[scorge]

as for power sources, these are tested to handle SLIing with no probs: http://www.slizone.com/object/slizone2_build.html#certified_powersupplies

as for graphic cards, usualy mobo+card from same manufacturer gives some extra performance (MSI, Asus, Abit from those I've personaly verified this)

nice site, will have to use it

pity i have an opteron fx53 940 pin chip should of gone for the 939 one, finding new mobo's is a pain

 

[Honza]

finding new mobo's is a pain

give 440BX reborn imo

 

[Jeriraa]

I'll never buy a Logitech mouse again!

I dunno if I was just unlucky or if I have too much strength but I had to throw away 3 Logitec mice for the same reason: The left mouse button refused to work after a half year and always it was because of material deformations at the point where the button body touched the microswitch.

It kinda sucks to buy 3 rather expensive mice and throw them away because cheap material was used...

 

[Roteca]

I'll never buy a Logitech mouse again!

I dunno if I was just unlucky or if I have too much strength but I had to throw away 3 Logitec mice for the same reason: The left mouse button refused to work after a half year and always it was because of material deformations at the point where the button body touched the microswitch.

It kinda sucks to buy 3 rather expensive mice and throw them away because cheap material was used...

ive had one logitech mouse, worked nicely for me thou, but migth been lucky, or you migth been unlucky dunno. but still i like my Razer mouses better, both my Razer Viper and Razer Diamondback is lovely mouses, like my diamondback better thou cuz if more buttons.

 

[noaim]

3800+ X2 is enough, if you wanna save some money there, otherwise go for 4400+ X2. Unless you are gonna overclock, its little reason to buy expensive ram etc, corsair value 2x 1GB will work fine. Hitachi released a new harddrive not too long ago with very good accesstimes, think its called T7k500, go for that if you want performance+storagespace, if you are only after performance buy a 76GB WD Raptor. Since you are basicly building a completely new computer, might aswell toss in a GeForce 7800GT (take the cheapest you can find, its the same shit more or less) and sell your old computer as it is? Then you can also buy 1 more 7800GT later if you feel like running SLI, but its pretty much overkill. Razer Copperhead or Logitech G5 for mouse, Logitech Z-5500 (or 2300 I think the 2.1 system is called if you dont need 5.1), an SB X-Fi fatality and you are pretty much set. I think Antec P150 is a good case, comes with a good Antec PSU, and should be low noise.

 

[Roteca]

3800+ X2 is enough, if you wanna save some money there, otherwise go for 4400+ X2. Unless you are gonna overclock, its little reason to buy expensive ram etc, corsair value 2x 1GB will work fine. Hitachi released a new harddrive not too long ago with very good accesstimes, think its called T7k500, go for that if you want performance+storagespace, if you are only after performance buy a 76GB WD Raptor. Since you are basicly building a completely new computer, might aswell toss in a GeForce 7800GT (take the cheapest you can find, its the same shit more or less) and sell your old computer as it is? Then you can also buy 1 more 7800GT later if you feel like running SLI, but its pretty much overkill. Razer Copperhead or Logitech G5 for mouse, Logitech Z-5500 (or 2300 I think the 2.1 system is called if you dont need 5.1), an SB X-Fi fatality and you are pretty much set. I think Antec P150 is a good case, comes with a good Antec PSU, and should be low noise.

for the price of the 7K500 i would rather add 40 euros and buy a WD Raptor 74gb and a WD Caviar 400gb 16mb cache, sure you get like 30gb less, but higher performance on your main hdd... sure a 2.1 system or a 5.1 or 7.1 or whatever can be nice, but i personally rather buy a set of highquality headphones, myself i sit with a pair of behringer dj headphones, but thats pretty much a preference of what you like thou..