Help please, new machine need some friendly advice.

[Traducer]

Hey all this is my first post, so be nice
Been thinking of building a new machine for some time now, and going to finally do it in about two weeks, so I am doing my research now, but just cannot decide what to get also getting the best machine for my money, as I tend to just choose the most expensive thing then expect it to be the best hehe, but that hurts my already suffering bank balance. This is what I have been looking at so far, my budget is around 800 to 950ish, the lower the better really.
Oh hehe I forgot to mention, I use it for general use, internet and such, work, music, and I am very into my online gaming, but I don't use crazy resolutions or anything like that.

AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 3800+ (Socket 939) - OEM x1
£169.95

Asus A8N32-SLi Deluxe nForce4 SLi X16 (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard x1
£114.95

GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC3200 Value Dual Channel Kit CAS3 (GE2GB3200BDC) x1
£89.95

BFG GeForce 7900 GT OC 256MB GDDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail x1
£209.95

Seagate Barracuda 7200.9 NCQ 80GB ST3808110AS SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM x1
£30.95

OcUK Value Floppy Drive - Black x1
£5.95

NEC ND4570 16x16 DVD±RW Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) - OEM x1
£24.95

Arctic Cooling Freezer 64 Pro CPU Cooler (Socket 754/939/940) x1
£15.95

Akasa Eclipse-62 Aluminum Case x1
£66.95

Tagan TG580-U15 580W ATX2.01 Easycon SLi Compliant Modular Silent PSU x1
£77.95

Akasa AK-183-L2B Ultra Quiet 120mm Fan - 3 pin x2
£8.95

Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound (3.5g) x1
£5.50

Subtotal £763.95
Shipping (City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri) £9.95
VAT £135.44
Total £988.01

I know you all must get sick of these posts, but it would really help
Feel free to change anything you want, I am open to all suggestions as I said, anything else you want to know just ask me, any advice would be much appreciated, thanks all

 

[booyaka]

IS 80GB enough storage for you - minimum i would say is 200gb these days.

The arctic 65 fan comes with preapplied compound on it so no need for the extra stuff.

I would change the motherboard to something a bit less expensive.

Asus A8N-SLi SE nForce4 SLi saves you £50.

Very rare that you need a floppy drive these days but if you must!!

Could save a few quid on the PSU and go for a 530w one instead - this will be fine for the system.

 

[Traducer]

I don't tend to install much stuff on the pc, as I usually stick to certain games, for now it will be ok but when I have more spare cash I will just add another drive and use that for windows or whatever.
Yeah I thought I was going overkill on the PSU and MB, I just wanted to make sure I was getting best thing for money hehe.
I was looking at DFI boards aswell, but Asus have always been sound for me.
And little things like the compound, I never knew it came with the fan, little things like that ease the mind to know hehe, and save cash.
Thanks

 

[Traducer]

 

[Monstermunch]

Bit over budget but you could always drop the ram to the Geil Value to save another £50ish which will bring you under budger (just)

CP-152-AM AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 3800+ (Socket 939) - OEM (CP-152-AM)
£169.95 £169.95
FG-000-AR Arctic Cooling Freezer 64 Pro CPU Cooler (Socket 754/939/940) (FG-000-AR)
£15.95 £15.95
MB-014-DF DFI LanParty UT NF4 Ultra-D (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-014-DF)
£79.95 £79.95
MY-057-OC OCZ 2GB (2 x 1GB) PC3200 Dual Channel Platinum Series EL-DDR CAS2 (OCZ4002048ELDCPE-K) (MY-057-OC)
£139.95 £139.95
GX-048-HT HIS Excalibur ATI Radeon X1900 XT 512MB GDDR3 AVIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-048-HT)
£279.95 £279.95
HD-023-SA Samsung SpinPoint P HD080HJ 80GB SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM (HD-023-SA)
£30.95 £30.95
CD-026-NE NEC ND4551 16x16 DVD±RW Dual Layer LabelFlash ReWriter (Black) - OEM (CD-026-NE)
£25.95 £25.95
CA-038-LL Lian-Li PC-7 PLUS Silver Aluminium Midi-Tower Case (No PSU) (CA-038-LL)
£47.95 £47.95
CA-008-TG Tagan TG530-U15 530W ATX2.01 Easycon SLi Compliant Modular Silent PSU (CA-008-TG)
£59.95 £59.95
Subtotal £850.55
VAT £148.85
Total £999.40

 

[Traducer]

Yeah that looks interesting, I like the idea of having that graphics card, and thats nice ram aswell, though I don't mind using the other ram if needs be, I did have my mind set on a Eclipse 62 case, but that looks nice aswell.
I did also think of going single core and using the 3700 as its seems to be a nice little chip, though I do prefer the dual cores. I never done any overclocking, but I guess there is a first for everything.

 

[Monstermunch]

Yeah that looks interesting, I like the idea of having that graphics card, and thats nice ram aswell, though I don't mind using the other ram if needs be, I did have my mind set on a Eclipse 62 case, but that looks nice aswell.
I did also think of going single core and using the 3700 as its seems to be a nice little chip, though the dual cores are nice also. I never done any overclocking, but I guess there is a first for everything.

Case wise it just comes down to choice, personally I like them to look fairly plain and blend in with the room along with being well built etc, whereas other people like them loud and intrusive!

Don't go single core, by this time next year games and other things will be using dual core and you'll regret it!

Ram wise IMO the OCZ I specced is the best vfm currently available offering vfast timings and great for clocking. The geil however is still good memory it's just not as quick and although not noticable in games while playing it will add to the performace of your machine and potentially remove a bottleneck. Any PC3200 ram will be running on a divider anyway (if you want it to be quick) because the timings are more important than the overall speed. For example: 400mhz @ 2-3-2-5 is faster than 500mhz @ 3-4-4-8.

Clocking is easy, I hadn't attempted it until recently but found it much easier than expected. Plus you have the wealth of knowledge of people on these forums to help you do it anyway.

 

[Traducer]

Exactly, glad I found these forums, only registered today, but been reading for sometime now, most people seem to know exactly what there talking about and friendly aswell.

AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 3800+ (Socket 939) - OEM (CP-152-AM)
£169.95

DFI LanParty UT NF4 Ultra-D (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-014-DF)
£79.95

GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC3200 Value Dual Channel Kit CAS3 (GE2GB3200BDC) (MY-046-GL)
£89.95

Sapphire ATI Radeon X1900 XT 512MB GDDR3 AVIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-112-SP)
£269.95

Samsung SpinPoint P HD080HJ 80GB SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM (HD-023-SA)
£30.95

OcUK Value Floppy Drive - Black (HD-001-OK) <-- Dunno why but I just like having it lol.
£5.95

NEC ND4570 16x16 DVD±RW Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) - OEM (CD-030-NE)
£24.95

Arctic Cooling Freezer 64 Pro CPU Cooler (Socket 754/939/940) (FG-000-AR)
£15.95

Lian-Li PC-7 PLUS Black Aluminium Midi-Tower Case (No PSU) (CA-054-LL)
£48.95

Tagan TG530-U15 530W ATX2.01 Easycon SLi Compliant Modular Silent PSU (CA-008-TG)
£59.95

Subtotal £796.50
VAT £139.39
Total £935.89

Just toying with ideas at the moment as thats half the fun about building a new system
I do have a Lian Li case currently and I have not been impressed with it at all, granted its been cool, but its also been way to loud, not to mention the rest of computer, just way to loud.

 

[Monstermunch]

I do have a Lian Li case currently and I have not been impressed with it at all, granted its been cool, but its also been way to loud, not to mention the rest of computer, just way to loud.

Your spec looks good to me, if you don't like the Lian-Li cases then look at the Thermaltake soprano or possibly the Tsunami Dream if you can afford cos it looks fantastic and build quality is supposed to be good!

I'm guessing that the LL case you have has 80mm fans in it! When looking for a case with quietness in mind you need to make sure that all the fans are 120mm and not 80mm. 80 or even 90mm fans are noisy and 120mm fans are much quieter and better.

 

[Traducer]

Yeah they defently look like 80mm to me, its very anoying. Still though the 7900GT seems to be a good card, especially for the price, and from recent reviews and benchmarks I seen, its a good performer, I keep seeing people choose X1800XT and X1900XT/X, but I don't know, something just appeals to me about the card, whats peoples opinions on the cards I mentioned?
And what are the other Asus boards like? DFI seem to be a favorite on these boards, just wondering the differences between them and such.

 

[Monstermunch]

Yeah they defently look like 80mm to me, its very anoying. Still though the 7900GT seems to be a good card, especially for the price, and from recent reviews and benchmarks I seen, its a good performer, I keep seeing people choose X1800XT and X1900XT/X, but I don't know, something just appeals to me about the card, whats peoples opinions on the cards I mentioned?
And what are the other Asus boards like? DFI seem to be a favorite on these boards, just wondering the differences between them and such.

IMO crossfire is problematic so avoid

The DFI-Ultra-D is the best single card mobo available for clocking and generally clocks better than everything. If you want to consider another then the MSI neo4 nF4 Ultra is very good as well and about £20 cheaper.

As far as the gfx goes the X1900 is about equal in performance to a 7900gt but the x1900 series seem to be cheaper. You'll pay as much for a 7900gt 256mb as for a 512mb x1900. Personally I think the x1900 is just better vfm.

If you think your case is loud you've heard nothin, I have a Coolermaster Tornado for my rig and it drives me nuts. My ears ring for hours after leaving my pc. It has 6 x 80mm fans on the outside of the case! 2 on the top 2 on the side 1 front and 1 rear.

 

[Traducer]

If I was ever going to go dual cards, then it would be SLI hands down, especially at the moment.
I cannot see a single X1900XT 256MB or 512MB card cheaper then a 7900GT 256MB.
Unless I just not looking hard enough, in which case I am sorry hehe, but yeah, I not seen this?
I was looking at the Asus Deluxe and Premium, also the SE.
DFI seem to be nice, though I have heard they can be a pain to set up.
As you may have noticed there is no sound card thrown in there, but thats cause I have no more money, and I do have a Creative Soundblaster Live! 5.1.
But I was considering using the on-board sound, but I have no idea how good this is on most boards, maybe you guys could tell me

 

[Monstermunch]

If I was ever going to go dual cards, then it would be SLI hands down, especially at the moment.
I cannot see a single X1900XT 256MB or 512MB card cheaper then a 7900GT 256MB.
Unless I just not looking hard enough, in which case I am sorry hehe, but yeah, I not seen this?
I was looking at the Asus Deluxe and Premium, also the SE.
DFI seem to be nice, though I have heard they can be a pain to set up.

Sorry, I phrased that wrong

The x1900xt is faster than the 7900gt but slower than the 7900gtx and the x1900xtx. This is the order of quickest card chipsets:

x1900xtx
7900gtx
x1900xt
7900gt
x1800xt
7800gtx
x1800xl
7800gt
x850
x800
6800
6600

I could go on but i'd run out of page space!

 

[Traducer]

I added some more to my post above.
The X1900XT 512MB is looking very very tempting indeed lol.
Can only really afford that though, if I go with the 530w rather then the 580w PSU, and use a cheaper case, other then Eclipse 62, would have to be something like the Lian Li you posted. Maybe I could put it into a cardboard box and go for the X1900XT-X insted.
Oh decisions decisions hehe.

 

[Monstermunch]

I added some more to my post above.
The X1900XT 512MB is looking very very tempting indeed lol.
Can only really afford that though, if I go with the 530w rather then the 580w PSU, and use a cheaper case, other then Eclipse 62, would have to be something like the Lian Li you posted. Maybe I could put it into a cardboard box and go for the X1900XT-X insted.
Oh decisions decisions hehe.

One last thing to consider:

Although the x1900xtx is the best card, the x1900xt is exactly the same chipset but slightly slower. The same cannot be said for the 7900 series where the gtx has extra pipelines to that of the gt. In other words the stretch to the x1900xtx isn't necessary and only worthwhile if you can afford not to compromise elsewhere. For example IMO your money would be better spent by getting the OCZ platinum ram or a faster cpu instead if you're trying to stick to a budget.

 

[Traducer]

Good point mate. Though I thought the 7900GT and GTX both had 24 pipelines.
What about the on-board sound these days?

 

[Monstermunch]

Good point mate. Though I thought the 7900GT and GTX both had 24 pipelines.
What about the on-board sound these days?

On board sound is great, no need for seperate soundcards anymore unless you're into mixing or recording. It's a good thing really cos I remember having nothing but trouble trying to get soundcards to work!

 

[Traducer]

Sounds good to me mate, I am defently starting to like the idea of a X1900XT 512MB hehe, oh yes. Now I just got to decide on the rest of the stuff, especially the Motherboard, Case, PSU.

 

[ErNciLator]

It's a nice setup, but doubt you really need dual core for online gaming; most only use 1 process so the gain is neglig. Probably better to get a single core good clocker

 

[Traducer]

I was thinking about doing that, but I do want it future proof to an extent especially if going to be spending this kind of money ( its a lot to me ). I do tend to run more then one program though, at least i'd like to be able to.
I am still having trouble with what Motherboard to get as I want to make sure I get the best one I can without going to mad, so I been looking at a few different ones also.
And will 580w really make that much difference over a 530w? as its also a lot more.
Also the Eclipse 62, will it be a much better choice over the Lian Li PC7?
Will I notice the difference as there as very different in price?
Thanks for all the replys so far, its much appreciated