Bedhead Posted November 25, 2004 Author Posted November 25, 2004 Originally posted by Martin_s Yeah... the top range CPU prices are severely overblown so allowing upgrade potential on that side of things allows you to save and get the higher end CPU at bargain prices later on. Getting a better base component set (ie: motherboard, RAM) allows you more scope later on.. well worth doing it that way. Ok... I'll sort something out for you... and yes I've been known to do this one and off ref: http://www.sheffieldforum.co.uk/showthread.php?s=&threadid=18177 cool - will look forward to it - i guess the basics that i would like to see included are; AMD Athlon processor (an FX-55 would be great but would put the system over 2k!!) 160 GB HD Asus A8V Deluxe motherboard (seen good reviews for this) Dual Layer DVD-R/RW (16x) GeForce 6800 GT would be nice XP good quality components are essential so i don't mind you giving me a few quotes for varying build qualities (will post this on your other thread for exposure!)
xafier Posted November 25, 2004 Posted November 25, 2004 I just want to point out one major point... power supply... never, never, NEVER get anything other than the best and brand named powersupply, trust me, its the most crucial part to a powerful system is steady voltage's... especially when in 6 months time your PC is dated and you turn to overclocking to get a few more FPS, and then 6 months and its out of date and your trying for even more speed... my system was top of the line 12months ago, theres over £1000 of pure parts in it that was built myself and now its pretty standard definitly go 64bit, it adds immense amounts of power in some games now and definitly with some of them due out with 64bit enhancements... graphics card is debatable... I'm personally an ATI fan, and please don't be fooled with the fact that the latest ATI card doesn't support PS 3.0 or VS 3.0, because the latest Nvidia only just supports it and not at decent speeds, nor is it being implemented fully in many games for quite a while... as for CPU, its best not to get the top of the range as the price is never justifiable... I got an XP2500+... its running at about a 3400+ if you know your stuff you can get a lot more for your money, there are certain CPU's that are prize cash, like the original XP2500+'s that were from the same batch as the XP3200+'s and were also unlocked multiplier... now they're locked but still will all do 3200+ in most cases... and of course mobile athlons are amazingly good for overclockers shame they dont do mobile 64 bitters yet... lol
igm1 Posted November 25, 2004 Posted November 25, 2004 Originally posted by xafier my system was top of the line 12months ago, theres over £1000 of pure parts in it that was built myself and now its pretty standard That's normally the story. It's been 12 months since I got this PC and I'm sure within 6 months it was outdated.
Martin_s Posted November 25, 2004 Posted November 25, 2004 Yup... the way it goes with hardware... That said... some things rarely change.. and if you plan ahead to get a really good motherboard everything else is pretty much upgradeable.. Never ceases to amaze me when people buy a "cheap" system that looks really great that uses a cheap motherboard and then finds out 9 months later that they have basically one upgrade option... "buy a new PC".. As for overclocking... Hmm... that's all well and good but not something I'd build for a client... for me? well that's a whole other kettle of fish
Bedhead Posted November 26, 2004 Author Posted November 26, 2004 Originally posted by xafier I just want to point out one major point... power supply... never, never, NEVER get anything other than the best and brand named powersupply, trust me, its the most crucial part to a powerful system is steady voltage's... especially when in 6 months time your PC is dated and you turn to overclocking to get a few more FPS, and then 6 months and its out of date and your trying for even more speed... graphics card is debatable... I'm personally an ATI fan, and please don't be fooled with the fact that the latest ATI card doesn't support PS 3.0 or VS 3.0, because the latest Nvidia only just supports it and not at decent speeds, nor is it being implemented fully in many games for quite a while... as for CPU, its best not to get the top of the range as the price is never justifiable... and of course mobile athlons are amazingly good for overclockers shame they dont do mobile 64 bitters yet... lol hmm interesting! what do you think of this then; 425w HiperPower 3rd Gen Power Supply Unit what's this?; PS 3.0 or VS 3.0
xafier Posted November 26, 2004 Posted November 26, 2004 Originally posted by Bedhead hmm interesting! what do you think of this then; 425w HiperPower 3rd Gen Power Supply Unit what's this?; PS 3.0 or VS 3.0 Dunno, never heard of the brand, do some searches on it for reviews... the best ones are Antec and Enermax, they have the best reputation in high end systems, extremly stable, exelently built just unfortunatly rather well priced too... the Antec's go upto around £120 for the big daddy... lol PS 3.0 = Pixel shader 3.0 VS 3.0 = Vertex Shader 3.0 they've just been introduced into DirectX 9.0c, they're supposed to extend the 2.0 version with enhancements to improve speed drastiacally... Nvidia, as always, decide to implement this ASAP to make sure their card sounded the best, ATI realised there wasn't a need for it yet and games wont use it for a while, and so just went for pure speed, they partly implemented it though in the form of PS and VS 2.0b or something along those lines... ATI vs Nvidia will always be a huge debate, they both have their advantages and disadvantages... ATI are generally better with DirectX, and Nvidia are generally better with OpenGL... but in the end, if you compare both of their top cards theres little in it from what you'll see with your eye... and they're still held back by the CPU even with a highend 64bit system... [edit] btw you might want to check out this link: http://www.romulus2.com/feedback/chart.php?1 it's rather good for finding online part suppliers
Bedhead Posted November 26, 2004 Author Posted November 26, 2004 Originally posted by xafier ATI vs Nvidia will always be a huge debate, they both have their advantages and disadvantages... ATI are generally better with DirectX, and Nvidia are generally better with OpenGL... but in the end, if you compare both of their top cards theres little in it from what you'll see with your eye... and they're still held back by the CPU even with a highend 64bit system... [edit] btw you might want to check out this link: http://www.romulus2.com/feedback/chart.php?1 it's rather good for finding online part suppliers Somebody advised me not to go with ATI and based that on Doom3 for an example which performs poorly on ATI cards... great link by the way! gonna take me a while to have a good look through it but precious advice!
Martin_s Posted November 26, 2004 Posted November 26, 2004 So's you know Bedhead.. I've opted for a good quality antec case albeit with a slightly lower power supply unit. You don't have too much draw on that and replacing it with something heftier, if needed wouldn't be a problem.. . As for all the graphics comments.. finding it enlightening myself... as a multi monitor user myself the Nvidia's are a no brainer compared to ATI which has the awful Hydra utility... in a word...
Bedhead Posted November 26, 2004 Author Posted November 26, 2004 Is there much benefit for getting a RAID system for a gaming PC - apart from the benefits of being able to have (in essence) a second HD i'm not sure if this is essential for a gaming PC? and what's a Strip Array? nvidia have bought the (i think it's called) the 6200 SL, two of which can be used at the same time - how fast would that make things!
xafier Posted November 26, 2004 Posted November 26, 2004 RAID isnt meant for home systems, unless you plan on having crucial data on your system that you cant afford to use... RAID has many settings but the main ones are basically mirroring of one disc onto another, or setting so that all data is split between 2 or more discs with checksums to be able to re-create data if one fails... in-short, people get the wrong idea when they are talking about RAID... you might want to get an IDE controller card if you plan on having a seperate HD for gaming, I have one in my system for having my DVD drives and my HD on for backing up DVD's... it means it all runs on a seperate channel than my system disc thus no slow downs... as for Doom3 on an ATI, well it ran ok on my 9800 pro and thats not the top of the range card... and Half Life 2 runs nowhere near as good on Nvidia's cards as ATI's and Martin_S: have you tried the latest drivers with the new control panel? I've never had any probs with multi-monitor support on my ATI card also, from what I've just read on the 6200 I wouldn't touch it with a barge pole... lol http://www.nvnews.net/previews/geforce_6200/index.shtml it's nVidias bottom end card, even if you had two of them it'd suck btw if you want dual graphics cards keep your eye on alienware, they're making a special motherboard that will support two AGP cards
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