Decent build? Hack it to bits...

Dancer

Dancer

Dancer

Associate
Joined
17 Mar 2003
Posts
351
Location
London
Have a look at my spec. Tell me if you like it. You hate it. You would change it. I should wait, because of reason X.

I've commented on my build below the spec. I'm tearing my hair out deciding if I should buy now or wait another month or three...

CP-121-AM AMD Athlon 64 3700+ San Diego 90nm (Socket 939) - Retail £79.95
MB-087-AB Abit KN8 Ultra nForce4 Ultra (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard
£51.95
HD-070-WD Western Digital Caviar SE16 320GB 3200KS SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM
£64.95
GX-044-CO Connect3D ATI Radeon X1800 XT 256MB GDDR3 AVIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail
£144.95
MY-000-MK Mushkin 2GB DDR XP4000 Extreme Performance Dual Channel Kit (2x1GB) CAS3
£120.95
CA-004-TG Tagan TG480-U22 480W ATX2.01 2Force SLi Compliant Silent PSU £54.95
CA-039-AN Antec P180 Advanced Super Midi Tower Case - No PSU (Silver)
£64.40
OS-002-MS Microsoft Windows XP Professional Edition inc. SP2 - OEM - 1Pk
£81.95
Subtotal £664.05
VAT £116.21
Total £780.26

I'm trying to do this on a budget (already overspending so if you can see any cuts...). I have several old PCI cards (hence mobo with 3 PCI slots) and 2 IDE HDs that I want to use (hence 2xIDE for drives + DVDBurner & CD Player).

I use my computer for
1) watching movies
2) home stereo
3) some light gaming, mostly World of Warcraft and the odd strategy game now and then.
4) Word Processing, Web and some light photo editing
5) Potentially Programming (although realistically I get enough of this at work)

I have been doing a lot of research and I know AM2 is the future for AMD. Still I've had my old PC for something like 4 years now and if this one lasts me 2-3 then standards will probably have changed completely again anyway. The reason I have for going 939 is a) I save about £50 and b) AM2 motherboards generally have only 1 IDE connector which would add further cost to add my old hard drives.

Thanks for any feedback.
 
1.) It's a bit overkill for what you are going to use it for, but if your budget allows it then it'll be nice to have all that power "just in case" you want to get into gaming or heavy video encoding etc.

2.) I would personally wait until Conroe is released, AMD are going to be slashing prices (by around half) on most Socket 939 single and dual-core processors (X2 3800+ may be £99), then you might be able to upgrade the graphics to an X1900XT (£250) with the difference. :)
 
Thanks, you are probably right that it's overkill, but I figure requirements will increase over the next two years and I don't see myself buying a new computer for the next 2-3 years.

I did know about the Conroe from my research but I didn't think it would have such a huge impact. Your advise prompted me to do a check on the web.

According to
http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=2800
AMD plans to make cuts between 30-50% on the 24th of July. Which is the day I come back from my weeklong summer holiday (miss those school summers).

Considering that I think I will indeed wait. The only downside I can see is that I might have a problem connecting my IDE drives, but since I plan on running a SATA drive as the OS drive I suppose I can always buy a PCI IDE-card or an external USB-HD caddy. Ideas?
 
Commenting on what you listed, I'd replace the Ultra with the KN8 SLi, tis an extra £10 but the passive cooling is worth it.
 
Dancer said:
Considering that I think I will indeed wait. The only downside I can see is that I might have a problem connecting my IDE drives, but since I plan on running a SATA drive as the OS drive I suppose I can always buy a PCI IDE-card or an external USB-HD caddy. Ideas?
Click to expand...
You'll have no problem connecting up your IDE disks, motherboards won't be cutting those for a long time yet.

As Stelly said, going Conroe is a good idea if you can stretch your budget that far (will need a new motherboard and DDR2-553/667 RAM for it to work), you would see a massive performance increase.

If not, I would stick with the cut-price 939's, AM2 offers no performance increase over it and you'd still have to shell out for DDR2 as I don't think AM2 nor conroe support PC4000 properly as they do DDR2-553/667.
 
Úlfhednar said:
You'll have no problem connecting up your IDE disks, motherboards won't be cutting those for a long time yet.
Click to expand...
They already are, most next gen chipsets only include one ide connector for optical drives iirc so that could be a problem if you have two ide optical drives.
 
Joe42 said:
They already are, most next gen chipsets only include one ide connector for optical drives iirc so that could be a problem if you have two ide optical drives.
Click to expand...

why? you can put two optical drives on one IDE channel

Stelly
 
Tetras said:
Commenting on what you listed, I'd replace the Ultra with the KN8 SLi, tis an extra £10 but the passive cooling is worth it.
Click to expand...

Why is the passive cooling worth it? Quieter or cooler or both? I assume this would be the "supports AMD CPU Cool 'n' Quiet Technology".

Úlfhednar, I did look at several AM2 motherboards and all of them had only 1xIDE. That means I have to either connect my 2xHDs or my 2xDVD/CD Burners, not enough connectors for both. Since I want to keep my DVD/CD burner that means I'd have to connect the IDE HD another way...

As I said I'll wait now for the Conroe to come out and see how it changes the landscape. Maybe then I can afford to get a dual core CPU or the 939 I looked at might have dropped even more than its current very good offer.
 
I see several of you already replied to Úlfhednar about the IDE HD/optical drive conflict. Must type faster!
 
Joe42 said:
They already are, most next gen chipsets only include one ide connector for optical drives iirc so that could be a problem if you have two ide optical drives.
Click to expand...
Didn't know that, my bad.

Dancer said:
Úlfhednar, I did look at several AM2 motherboards and all of them had only 1xIDE. That means I have to either connect my 2xHDs or my 2xDVD/CD Burners, not enough connectors for both. Since I want to keep my DVD/CD burner that means I'd have to connect the IDE HD another way...
Click to expand...
Yeah, simple solution then is to stick with Socket 939 if you want to stay AMD. Socket AM2 offers no performance increase anyway, and you'll save a small fortune. ;) Alternatively, go Conroe, but I don't know how their IDE support is. I never even thought about IDE on the new motherboards until this thread. :(
 
Conroe is the same for Ide, at least both the Intel and Nvidia chipsets. Intel like to push new standards and sata is no exception. You can get ide cards fairly cheap, just make sure you have enough pci connectors, thats another thing some of these new boards are short of.
 
Why is the passive cooling worth it? Quieter or cooler or both? I assume this would be the "supports AMD CPU Cool 'n' Quiet Technology"
Click to expand...
Cool n Quiet is nothing to do with the passive cooling, that should be on pretty much all 939 motherboards. It is allowing the CPU to scale down when it isn't being used much.

The reason I say it is worth it isn't actually cos of cooling or noise but that those little fans are so dang unreliable, not to mention replacing them usually meaning you have to dismantle your whole PC to get at the bottom of the motherboard. The risk of all that is well worth £10 imo, no fan = no fan failure.
 
Well glad I can bring up something new, even something as trivial as IDE connectors.

Yeah, I might stick with 939. Do you think the price reduction will make dual cores as cheap as the current offer in my spec or that that processor will drop in price. Pure speculation I know... just one last little devil on my shoulder saying I should buy now rather than wait to get that offer on the CPU and the nice Mushkin memory....
 
Joe42 said:
Conroe is the same for Ide, at least both the Intel and Nvidia chipsets. Intel like to push new standards and sata is no exception. You can get ide cards fairly cheap, just make sure you have enough pci connectors, thats another thing some of these new boards are short of.
Click to expand...
Man that SUCKS! I was considering grabbing a Conroe E6400, and was miffed that I would need to spend £150+ on a new motherboard and £100+ on new RAM, but this just takes the Michael that I would have to replace one or more of my disk drives with £60 SATAs too. :mad:

Looks like I'll be getting a DFI Expert 939 and X2 3800+/4400+ instead, and I'd recommend Dancer do similar.
 
I don't know that its worth limiting your motherboard choice just for the lack of one ide connector. I'm sure you can get an ide card for a good price off the bay.
You can also get ide to sata adaptors but they only work with silicon image controllers iirc.
 
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