ok, ill dive stright in and explain things at the bottom....
CPU
****AMD Athlon 64 3700+ San Diego (Socket 939)**** (£62.85) - the one I think I should go with...
or...
AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 3800+ 2.00GHz (Socket 939) (£105.69)
AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 4200+ 2.20GHz (Socket AM2) (£129.19)
Not fully understanding the difference between the the two in real world terms, I understand the .2Ghz, but what will the effect be in terms of performance of my rig as a whole? Also, I see that I can have these chips in AM2 or 939 flavours (which is the better one for me to go for in the long run? from what I have read, AM2 is the future...is this true?)
I am currently thinking that to get this rig up and running, buying the 64 3700+ just now would offer me the performance to run modern games (??) as they should be displayed, and leave me the option to upgrade the CPU to a dual core later. Or would it make more sense just to buy the dual core just now? is the performance difference that great?
Mobo
DFI LanParty UT NF4 Ultra-D (Socket 939) PCI-Express (£93.94)
AMD mobo.......................no idea!
All I really want from a motherboard is to have SLi compatibility (for future graphics expansion), SATAII support, onboard networking (preferable a gig card, 2 would be better) and some form of future upgrading path. Also if it is possible get one that I can begin to overclock (I am totally new to this)
memory
Corsair 1GB DDR2 Value Select PC4200 Dual Channel Kit (2x512MB) (£65.74)
(or equivalent)
graphics
BFG 3DFuzion GeForce 7600 GT 256MB GDDR3 TV-Out/DVI (PCI-Express) (£115.09)
(his leaves me the option to buy another and strap them toghether right??)
the rest of this rig I will use old parts until I can get things up and running (old HDD, CD/DVD, mouse, keyboard, CRT 19" and sound card) I will need to buy a case, and I dont know If i need to buy power supply and/or cooling...
roughly looking at costing 378 (inc VAT...but hopefully my company will purchase this stuff for me and we will work it out between us)
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To give you guys some understand what I want from this setup...let me fill you in on my past and present...I currently have a DELL dimension 4100 with P3 1Ghz and 256RAM..it has some form of nvida geforce gt card, but its pathetic at running games...well, nowadays, I bought it back about 5-6 years ago, and at the time it was pretty strong, allowing me to complete half-life (along with the addons that came out like special ops etc) Delta force land warrior was also hammered on this machine, the C&C games all completed up until I got my hands on the C&C Generals game, which will not run at all on my setup, so this made me think "maybe a new pc is a good idea"
Now before I go any further, I am a network admin for a company, so PCs are really what I am meant to do...but I stayed away from the PCs after Team fortress classic took up much to much of my time (damn...they where the days!) I really lost interest in anything home pc'd looking, and got interested in engines, and the power they can produce to send you sideways in some dirty drift action...but now as technology advances, I think its a crying shame that I dont have a pc strong enough to even run ANY game worth talking about from the past 3 years...also, I want to start doing some more video and web site development (all based round macromedia software)
With the introduction of high speed internet connections, and cheap as chip pc parts, I think its only fair I put toghether something that will offer me high gaming performance, allong with a good sturdy machine to get back on the horse....I plan on making a media centre style machine with lots of space to store all my cds, and allow me to do other swank-tastic things later on...
My budget is a measly 300 at the minute, but I dont need to buy everything I need right now, this is only to get the bare bones up and running...
I await the advice from the forum members with enough time to read this, and better yet reply to yet another "rig setup advice" post...(oh, and I did read the very very impressive rig building guide, and found it helpful...so thanks for writing that!)
CPU
****AMD Athlon 64 3700+ San Diego (Socket 939)**** (£62.85) - the one I think I should go with...
or...
AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 3800+ 2.00GHz (Socket 939) (£105.69)
AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 4200+ 2.20GHz (Socket AM2) (£129.19)
Not fully understanding the difference between the the two in real world terms, I understand the .2Ghz, but what will the effect be in terms of performance of my rig as a whole? Also, I see that I can have these chips in AM2 or 939 flavours (which is the better one for me to go for in the long run? from what I have read, AM2 is the future...is this true?)
I am currently thinking that to get this rig up and running, buying the 64 3700+ just now would offer me the performance to run modern games (??) as they should be displayed, and leave me the option to upgrade the CPU to a dual core later. Or would it make more sense just to buy the dual core just now? is the performance difference that great?
Mobo
DFI LanParty UT NF4 Ultra-D (Socket 939) PCI-Express (£93.94)
AMD mobo.......................no idea!
All I really want from a motherboard is to have SLi compatibility (for future graphics expansion), SATAII support, onboard networking (preferable a gig card, 2 would be better) and some form of future upgrading path. Also if it is possible get one that I can begin to overclock (I am totally new to this)
memory
Corsair 1GB DDR2 Value Select PC4200 Dual Channel Kit (2x512MB) (£65.74)
(or equivalent)
graphics
BFG 3DFuzion GeForce 7600 GT 256MB GDDR3 TV-Out/DVI (PCI-Express) (£115.09)
(his leaves me the option to buy another and strap them toghether right??)
the rest of this rig I will use old parts until I can get things up and running (old HDD, CD/DVD, mouse, keyboard, CRT 19" and sound card) I will need to buy a case, and I dont know If i need to buy power supply and/or cooling...
roughly looking at costing 378 (inc VAT...but hopefully my company will purchase this stuff for me and we will work it out between us)
---------------------------------------------------------------------
To give you guys some understand what I want from this setup...let me fill you in on my past and present...I currently have a DELL dimension 4100 with P3 1Ghz and 256RAM..it has some form of nvida geforce gt card, but its pathetic at running games...well, nowadays, I bought it back about 5-6 years ago, and at the time it was pretty strong, allowing me to complete half-life (along with the addons that came out like special ops etc) Delta force land warrior was also hammered on this machine, the C&C games all completed up until I got my hands on the C&C Generals game, which will not run at all on my setup, so this made me think "maybe a new pc is a good idea"
Now before I go any further, I am a network admin for a company, so PCs are really what I am meant to do...but I stayed away from the PCs after Team fortress classic took up much to much of my time (damn...they where the days!) I really lost interest in anything home pc'd looking, and got interested in engines, and the power they can produce to send you sideways in some dirty drift action...but now as technology advances, I think its a crying shame that I dont have a pc strong enough to even run ANY game worth talking about from the past 3 years...also, I want to start doing some more video and web site development (all based round macromedia software)
With the introduction of high speed internet connections, and cheap as chip pc parts, I think its only fair I put toghether something that will offer me high gaming performance, allong with a good sturdy machine to get back on the horse....I plan on making a media centre style machine with lots of space to store all my cds, and allow me to do other swank-tastic things later on...
My budget is a measly 300 at the minute, but I dont need to buy everything I need right now, this is only to get the bare bones up and running...
I await the advice from the forum members with enough time to read this, and better yet reply to yet another "rig setup advice" post...(oh, and I did read the very very impressive rig building guide, and found it helpful...so thanks for writing that!)
so unless your upgrading a 939 or AM2 system they arent really worth considering.