Building a PC next month, £1200 Budget

[Shinoda]

Lo guys, gonna get a PC when I get back from holiday. Budget is £1200 tops, and it has to be AMD64.

Heres a spec I built on ebuyer... wont be ordering until 13th July so I expect prices to drop a little..nothing drastic.

Any way heres the spec I put together, what ya think? Main concern is the board, but I think im happy with that after reading alot of reveiws. Case I like as well (again I read a bunch of reveiws):

 

[FlameZ]

I would personally go for a P4, but that's my opinion.

I try to stay away from AMD. =/

Other then that, it looks pretty sweet.

 

[Emotionless]

stay with AMD. get rid of TFT. u can find a 21" CRT screen for cheaper, and it'll be miles better. trust me.

 

[Shinoda]

Na Emotion, I have been staying away from TFTs for ages. However they are simply miles better then CRT. I have a 19Inch CRT atm which I got at christmas.. the thing is sweet and was a mid-high end one.

But I went to a friends and saw his TFT (Similar price range to mine) and it was just jaw dropping, the sharpness and quality was just so much better, and personally I diddnt think you could get better... It also saves alot of space.

Thing with TFT's is.. the low-mid range ones simply suck..you need a high end one which is bright, non-blury on all resolutions and can be veiws form any where. I searched for reveiws on the one selected and it simply scored 5/5 on all of them ^_^

Thats just my thoughts on CRTs any way. TFTs are better but you need to spend alot more, if you can only afford low-mid range TFT.. get a CRT.

 

[Emotionless]

the 23" CRT in my school is immense. although i get some TFTs are better. other than that i don't see the problem with ur parts =] although you could get a cheap 5.1 speaker system for a tad more, which after price drops could equal to under 1200.

 

[¤]´)÷¤--§îr Äürøñ--¤÷(`[¤]

Don't use the thermal grease, get Artic Silver 5.

Also, if you wait until around July, consider getting an Abit uGuru motherboard, as it's the fastest AMD64 one around.

 

[Blaminator]

www.special-reserve.net - best computer parts cheapest prices.

 

[urbanfox]

Don't use the thermal grease, get Artic Silver 5.

Also, if you wait until around July, consider getting an Abit uGuru motherboard, as it's the fastest AMD64 one around.

the abits r good solid boards, but id have to bet against it. you really have 3 choices when it comes to mothertboard for the a64.

(chipsets)
kt800
nforoce 150 (ultra w/e)
nfoce 250


now, instead of going trhough all the crap that u pro dont care about, im just going to recommend some stuff.

msi fisr2

-cant go wrong. i own this board and its stable as sht not to mention it has evbrything 100/1000 lan 1394 etc, and its relatively inexpensive. only drawback not a good oc'er :/

msi (the new one with the nforce 250 chipset)

- no complaints from what ive seen. possibly the best board out there. great oc'er and extremely stable with all the goodis and features.

chaintech z250 or something (nforce 250 one)

-there r two versions, cheap one (really cheap) and expensive one. only difference is features. both solid oc'ers and stable.


abit - solid boards stable, good oc'ers

next up.


cpu:

dont go newcastle. not worth it. go for the clawhammer 3200+. y? cus it has 1mb cache compared to 512kb, which makes a hige difference.
also, u might instead (for the same price) get the mobile a64 3200. it only produces 62w of heat (more oc'ing and better temps) although im unsure of mobo support.

and do what SA said. antec sucks. AS5 is the best hands down.

next, that cpu. i assume that is the venus12 one and not that silent crap one.

next ur ram. if u can afford, def go with the new samsung chips. just like bh5, these babies can do 2-2-2-5! unfortuntely im not sure of availibility :/
corsair (they would have them now) would be called XL model. if u cant find that some mushkin 222 special is awfully sweet or ocz EB memory (cheap and fast!)

next ur video card. 9800pro is a good cheap fast choice right now, however make sure u get it 256bit! the 128bit sucks a little.

power supply is good.

everything else (monito/speakers/etc), is really up to ur personal choices.

 

[Biohazard]

I would personally go for a P4, but that's my opinion.

I try to stay away from AMD. =/

Other then that, it looks pretty sweet.

AMD is better then P4, ne *REAL* gamer knows that.....

 

[SilentDragz]

The only thing I would change on there is the HDD - go for Maxtor dude, fast, 8MB cache and never had a problem with it.

Asus boards rocks. I got one months ago and have had 2 more since, will never buy another brand board.

/SilentDragz

 

[FlameZ]

AMD is better then P4, ne *REAL* gamer knows that.....

That's my personal opinion.

I have used AMD the whole time I've had a computer until I recently bought a new one and decided to go P4, I love it.

I'm not a "REAL" Gamer, I use my computer for "WORK".

 

[urbanfox]

Asus boards rocks. I got one months ago and have had 2 more since, will never buy another brand board.

/SilentDragz

there descent, but in no way the best. there tied i'd say when it comes to a p4 system with abit, but there no where near as good when it comes to amd.

 

[urbanfox]

That's my personal opinion.
I have used AMD the whole time I've had a computer until I recently bought a new one and decided to go P4, I love it.

I'm not a "REAL" Gamer, I use my computer for "WORK".

if ur happy then screw everyone else's opinion or you will never be happy again


the amd 64 is faster than the pentium 4. way faster. in work or play.

 

[Shinoda]

Mmm isnt the Pentium 4 EE a fair bit faster when it comes to encoding, and old directx games?

 

[urbanfox]

Mmm isnt the Pentium 4 EE a fair bit faster when it comes to encoding, and old directx games?

P4EE 3.4GHZ 2MB CACHE
P4EE 3.2GHZ 2MB CACHE

AMD FX-53 2.4GHZ 1MB CACHE
AMD FX-51 2.2GHZ 1MB CACHE

From this point on i will compare the P4EE 3.4 with the FX-53

basically what it comes down to is this:
(everything ran 1024x768 unless said with detailed settings)

Sysmark2004
-The P4EE leads by about 2%

Winstone (Content Creation and Business Content)
-The FX-53 leads both by about 15%+ and 8%+ respectively.

Divx encoding (to make the term "encoding" a little more specific)
-P4EE edges out over the FX-53 by about 1-2% or less.

DirectX9 (Farcry, Gunmetal, Aquamark 3 etc)
-FX-53 edges out on almost all games by also a small percentage
(this can also be atributted to the fact that newer DX9 games r dependent on teh videocard, but not all and not too much)

OpenGL
-In ine the infamous benching of Quake 3, the race is too close, like less than .3% difference with the P4EE having the advantage. In Wolfenstein ET, the FX-53 has almost a whopping 10% increase over the P4EE. In Jedi Knight Jedi Academy the difference is less than .4%, with the FX-53 leading by not even 1 whole fps.

DirectX8
-In Unreal Tournament 2003,in the flyby bench the FX-53 edges out over the P4EE by about 4%+. In the botmatch bench the the FX-53 gains momentum again this time with more than 16%. In warcraft 3 FT the FX-53 once again has the lead but by less than .5%

Rendering
-In a 3D Studio Max R5 test the P4EE has roughly a 10% or less lead.
In a lightwave test the P4EE has roughly a 6% or less lead.

Development Workstation
-In a Quake 3 source code compiling the the FX-53 has roughly a 20% lead.


^^^^so there u have it.

Test System

2 x 512Mb OCZ 3500 Platinum Ltd (2-2-2-6)
Seagate 120GB 7200 RPM (8MB Buffer)
Sapphire ATI Radeon 9800 PRO 128MB (AGP 8X) ATI Catalyst 4.1
Windows XP Professional SP1

and

Intel D875PBZ (Intel 875P Chipset)
ASUS SK8V (VIA K8T800 Chipset)

Respectively

 

[Viola A.I.]

Really, nobody cares. Go nerd it out on overlockers because thats not what he's here to discuss. Having the best PC commercially available doesn't make you great.

 

[urbanfox]

Really, nobody cares. Go nerd it out on overlockers because thats not what he's here to discuss. Having the best PC commercially available doesn't make you great.

wtf r u talking about?go shove ur consumerism bs somewhere else. he wanted to know if p4 was better than a64 and i gave him unbiased benchmarks. i dont know how u buy ur crap, but when i do i normally want to buy whats fastest for my pricerange.

 

[Viola A.I.]

go shove ur consumerism bs somewhere else...

I think you need a dictionary and a good stab in the neck.

You don't know me.

 

[urbanfox]

I think you need a dictionary and a good stab in the neck.

You don't know me.

anytime u want to come over and stab me feel free.

and i really dont want to get to klnow u so bug off, ur no help to this thread.