[gswpete]

I just wanna add, that although I've been using AMD cpu's for a while now, the heatsink/fan that comes with retail boxed Intel P4's is damn quiet! Something to consider if noise is an issue.

BTW, with memory being so cheap these days, I recommend you spend a bit more and get 1GB of RAM. You never know when that extra 512MB are gonna come in handy

 

[gloco]

Quote:

Originally posted by gswpete I just wanna add, that although I've been using AMD cpu's for a while now, the heatsink/fan that comes with retail boxed Intel P4's is damn quiet! Something to consider if noise is an issue.

Absolutely, my current tower is one noisy SOB, between the fans and HD's, it drives me crazy, when i shut down the pc at night, the noise in my room dies down instantly. I've chosen most parts, let's see if i can copy n paste all the info over. So far this is what i have chosen, looks like i'll have to look for a video card elsewhere, i'm pretty much looking to buy a radeon 9500. Feel free to chime in with your opinions on the selections below:

Codegen (CG Group) Mid Tower case, Model CAT-6072-1F Beige with 400W Power supply and Firewire ports Retail
Specifications:
Material:Steel
Form Factor:ATX
Bays:4x 5.25" 2x 3.5" and 5 3.5" (hidden)
Expansion Slots:7
Fans:0
Power Supply: 400W Power Supply
Dimensions:19.10 x 7.68 x 17.52 Inches (L x W x H) more info>
N82E16811182034 $55.00


Seagate 120GB 7200rpm SERIAL ATA Hard Drive Barracuda 7200.7 ST3120026AS - OEM
Specifications:
Size: 120 Gigabytes
Interface: Serial ATA
Seek time: 8.5ms
RPM:7200
Data Transfer: 150MB/sec
Cache 8MB
(OEM See pic) 1 Year Manufacturer Warranty: Requires additional Power adapter (see below) more info>
N82E16822148017 $156.00x2=$312.00


CORSAIR 512MB PC3200 VALUE SELECT. VS512MB400 DDR RAM - OEM
184-Pin. CL=2.5-Unbuffered 2.5V. 64x64 Requires DDR 400 supported Motherboard - Lifetime Warranty. more info>
N82E16820145026 $73.00
$146.00


Aopen Model AX4SG-MAX Springdale (Faster than Canterwood) Motherboard for Intel Pentium 4 Processors Retail
Supported CPU:Intel Pentium 4 Socket 478
Chipset:Intel 865G + Intel ICH5R
FSB: 800/533/400MHz
RAM:4x DDR 400 DIMM Slots Dual Channel up to 4GB
IDE:2x Ultra ATA 100 Ports up to 4 Devices
Slots:1x AGP (8X) 6x PCI 32-bit
Ports:2x PS2,4xUSB,1xVGA, See pics for additonal Ports
Onboard VGA: Intregrated Intel Extreme 2
Onboard Audio: ALC650 Intregrated Audio Codec, 5.1 Channel
Onboard LAN: Broadcom 5705 10/100/1000
Onboarfd SATA: 4 channel Serial ATA 150 mbs more info>
N82E16813137032 $176.00


Intel Pentium 4 / 2.4CGHz 512k socket 478 Hyper Threading Technology 800 MHz FSB - RETAIL
Specifications:
CPU: 2.4GHz
Type: Pentium 4 Northwood
Cache: 512K
BUS: 800 Mhz
Socket: 478
3-year MFG. Warranty- more info>
N82E16819116157 $196.00


-AUDIO Sound Card - "Revolution" RTL
Only PCI solution for surround up to 7.1
High definition 24-bit/192khz audio output
Real-time stereo-to-surround conversion more info>
N82E16829121101 $90.00
$90.00

 

[gswpete]

Just one thing. Not all power supplies are made equal. So you might want to do a little research on which PS's give you enough juice when more juice is needed. And which one's are less noisy.
I use the Antec Truepower 430W and I find it a very good overall power supply. Good quality parts, not a lot of fan noise.

 

[SumB]

Looks pretty good. If you're a gamer I'd dump the Revo in favour of a *gasp* Audigy 2 OEM though. That card's going to chew up too many cpu cycles with its software-based processing.

The Canterwood is worth shooting for at an additional $75 over the Springdale when it provides 3-20% more performance.

Even if you only occasionally play games, you'll want to pick up the 9500 Pro over the vanilla 9500. The 9500 has half the active pixel pipelines and this results in a rather large performance gap. Not worth the mere dollars saved.

 

[PeterG]

Case and 400 w power supply for $55? I'm skeptical you're getting a quality PSU, which is more important than you think.

 

[gloco]

Quote:

Originally posted by PeterG Case and 400 w power supply for $55? I'm skeptical you're getting a quality PSU, which is more important than you think.

yup, i figured as much. I'll keep looking for something better.

 

[penvzila]

Quote:

Originally posted by PeterG You don't need a gig of ram and I would not go with nvidia right now. Stick with a raedon 9700, it outperforms the TI series by a LARGE margin. All the crap Geek said about AMD is exactly that, crap. Athlon XPs do better in real world application and as long as you're not an idiot, there's no real risk of cracking the core. I would advise against such a small case.

Athlons do rock, and i don;t see how you could possibly crack it unless you are using a hammer to install it. But, you DO need 1 gb of ram. i just went from 512 to 1gig and it REALLY is 2x better.

 

[PeterG]

It depends on what you're doing. The most intense thing I do is gaming and even with the latest games, I never use all 512 mb of my ram. What are you doing that you can tell such a difference between 512 and a gig?

 

[Lando]

I recommend that you not go all-out right now. I would do moderate upgrades now and then go all-out when the Athlon64 is available this fall/winter. By that time it would be considerably less expensive to build a system around the 800mhz fsb Pentium4, too. Then again, my "moderate" upgrades might be enough to keep you happy for a whole year.

Motherboard: Asus A7N8X Deluxe $121.99 The Nforce2 is a no-brainer since it has dual channel ddr capability (approximately 5.3GB/s max bandwidth), and it's got onboard firewire and two integrated nic's to boot.

Processor: 2.083Ghz AthlonXP for $178.89. This is the Barton core (512K of L2 cache) with a 333Mhz fsb.

RAM: 512MB Corsair DDR333 for $56.00

Vid card: Radeon 9600 Pro for $175.89. The 9600 Pro is the same core as the 9800 Pro, just clocked lower.

Sound card: Audigy 2 OEM for $69.70

Hard drive: 120GB Western Digital WD1200JB w/ 8MB cache for $120.50

Total so far: $722.97

That's probably enough to get you started. For the case, power supply, heatsink, and fans you should probably check out Silent PC Review. I expect that you could spend less than $900 on upgrades now, leaving you $600 plus whatever else you save for upgrading again later.

Edit: all prices include shipping.

 

[Lando]

Quote:

Originally posted by gloco yup, i figured as much. I'll keep looking for something better.

Yeah, don't get anything less than an Antec Smartblue psu (their value line, but still good). If you can, spring for an Antec TruPower psu. Cheap generic psu's are bad news. IMO, the best deal for a case and psu right now is $129.00 for the Antec 1080AMG, with a 430W TruPower psu included. (That price includes shipping.)

 

[ai0tron]

I think you really have to be deranged to claim that Intel makes better chips than AMD. The complete and utter failure of the Itanium, even with the backing of Microsofts specificaly tailored OS is a good indicator of the real nature of the market. Intel only sells the most because they have the best distribution, advertising, and are probably more commonly known to the computer illiterate. But, to those of us in the know, Intel is overpriced, slower, and most of all, they're ********. So more power to AMD!

PS: Get a gig of Ram. Antec PSU. AMD processor. Nvidia FX video card.

 

[Darth Minidisc]

No one has mentioned RAID setups? If you're going to use a larger case try a RAID setup with serial ata. Lot cleaner, cheaper and faster than buying just one larger drive.

 

[ai0tron]

raid isnt always faster. In fact, the real reason for raid is redundancy, not speed. If you want speed, right now you have to get scsi, its as simple as that.

 

[MacDEF]

Quote:

Originally posted by Lando Hard drive: 120GB Western Digital WD1200JB w/ 8MB cache for $120.50

Right now you can get that same drive from Best Buy or Circuit City for $80 after rebates (Best Buy even has free shipping)

Quote:

Originally posted by ai0tron raid isnt always faster. In fact, the real reason for raid is redundancy, not speed.

There are a number of different implemenations of RAID. Some are for redundancy, some are for speed, some are for both.

A good IDE striped RAID (using multiple IDE buses) is very competitive with SCSI, if not faster, and cheaper. (SCSI is still a much better technology, but you can save money using IDE.)

 

[Audio-Me]

g-lo, update:

This case seems good, it's suposedly quiet.
http://www.newegg.com/app/viewproduc...n=antec+sonata

http://digitalaudioworks.com/terewx1.html
Terratec EWX 24/96