PC upgrading help...

Neon Dingo · Post by **Neon Dingo** » Thu Sep 18, 2003 3:29 am

I'm upgrading my PC for Half-Life 2 and I need a second opinion...

Processor: AMD Athlon XP 3000+ 400 - $262
Memory: 512 PC3200 DDR- $73
Motherboard: AMD nForce2 A7N8X - $96.96

Total: $431.96

I plan on purchasing a Radeon 9800 Pro (I can't decide if I want a 128 or a 256...The 256 is fucking expensive) soon. I'm hoping I can make enough money to purchase the video card before Half-Life 2 comes out.

I also was wondering if anyone knew of any *good* PC cases that have good ventilation (Radeons get HOT) and don't look like ass. Also, any fans or cooling systems (I'm not willing to try liquid cooling, though) that you know of that are good. I want to make this system last as long as possible.

I currently have the terrible Intel Celeron 1.7 GHz, 256 SDRAM, and a GeForce4 MX440 128. Yeah, my PC blows.

I make around $120 every two weeks (Yeah, I know). I just got paid today, so I currently have enough money to purchase the CPU, RAM, and the motherboard. I was planning on buying it this weekend, but that may be subject to change if anyone can make any better suggestions.

(Note: Please don't turn this thread into a stupid Radeon vs. GeForce or AMD vs. Pentium battle)

Thanks in advance.

Darwin_187 · Post by **Darwin_187** » Thu Sep 18, 2003 4:14 am

Pretty good all around, but I'd get an extra 256MB of RAM if you've got the cash. You might consider getting an EpoX 8RDA+/8R3A+ mobo- cheaper and FAR better in my experience (I've built 4 8rda+ systems)... you could the cash you save towards more RAM, for example...

As for cases, go Antec all the way; having had a couple power supplies bite the dust on me, I'd reccomend buying the expensive good shit up front and not having to replace it in 4 months- All of this crap can be had from <a href="http://www.newegg.com">Newegg</a> (which is a great outfit, BTW) if you're in north america.

BTW- <a href="http://www.newegg.com/app/viewproduct.a ... >here's</a> the last case I bought- I've got nothing but nice things to say about it, except maybe that it's built like a fucking Abrams tank and thus weighs about 25 pounds (which is still kind of a good thing). Oh yeah, and snag an extra 120mm fan if you get the chance, those things fucking haul ass.

Cheers,
Darwin.

Neon Dingo · Post by **Neon Dingo** » Thu Sep 18, 2003 4:55 am

Thanks for the advice. I'm glad I got a different perspective because I was 99% sure that was what I wanted.

The EpoX board looks great. Is there a difference between the 8RDA+ and the 8R3A+, or are they basically the same thing?

I've been led to believe that the A7N8X is the best AMD board on the market.

Do you think it'd be worth getting another 512 (totalling 1GB), or do you think that would be unnecessary? I'm not exactly rich enough to buy 1GB of RAM right now, but I was considering it in the future. But yeah, buying another 256 seems like a good idea and I can afford it.

Edit: Halo PC comes out the 30th of September (something to keep me distracted from the existence of the HL2 demo) and I was wondering if I buy my new PC parts but still use my GF4 MX440, could it still run the game decently enough?

POOPERSCOOPER · Post by **POOPERSCOOPER** » Thu Sep 18, 2003 5:11 am

THe pc you have now isn't that bad. Get more ram and a new graphics card and your set, unless your one of those graphics whores who will do anything for higher FPS.

iohkus · Post by **iohkus** » Thu Sep 18, 2003 6:08 am

256 mb video is completely worthless, instead of spending money to go from 128 to 256 consider getting faster CL2 speed "OCZ" branded memory? and make sure your nforce supports 400 FSB before u get the 400 FSB CPU and ram combo.

kthxbye

and radeon is a safe bet, 9800 oem, get retail AIW if u plan on editing home vides of mom and dad at teh beech!

Darwin_187 · Post by **Darwin_187** » Thu Sep 18, 2003 6:33 am

The 8RDA+ and 8R3A are pretty much the same thing- I have a personal preference for the 8rda, but you should probably take a look at both and figure out which one is best for what you need (the 8r3a has a dual LAN onboard, for example). BOTH of these boards are able to handle the new AMD CPU's, so it's not vital that you buy one or the other (mostly it comes down to features and price).

As far as Asus boards go, I'd NEVER buy one again, considering what happens if you get a shitty board or if there's a BIOS issue (eg: you're fucked)- again, this is personal preference, but I'd strongly advise you to stay far, fay away from them unless you're certain the revision of the a7n8x you're buying is the right/latest one and is bug free (as the tech support is some of the worst I've ever seen).

More RAM is never a bad idea, and frankly, unless you plan on overclocking, you don't really need anything over 3200 (IIRC)- I'd shop around for corsair's best deal (assuming crucial is still shipping memory with bunk chips... you might wanna google this).

And as far as your current system is concerned- I've worked with a lot of computers in the last few years, and would NEVER buy a celeron based system if I had any choice in the matter- trust me, that CPU is NOT up to the task in any way shape or form- if youve got a mainboard capable of upgrading to a P3 or P4 then I'd say that might be the cheapest/quickest bet for ya, but given the current price of intel CPUs, it might actually wind up being cheaper to build a new AMD rig. -Either way, do a little research (try pricewatch.com [prices] and resellerratings.com [avoid getting scammed]) before you commit to anything.

And if worst comes to worst, you can PM me and I'll give you a hand.

Cheers,
Darwin.

Jimmyjay86 · Post by **Jimmyjay86** » Thu Sep 18, 2003 1:51 pm

I went for the Antec server case with a 400W power supply. It doesn't hurt to have the extra power if you need it. Plus there are two fans that come with it and room for four. I thnk the power supply has two fans but the whole thing is quiet.

You might want to check to see how much more you'd actually see in the game with the higher priced card versus say the 9600 pro. From what I read in Maximum PC the 9600 pro offers pretty good quality, but its your money.

Saint_Proverbius · Post by **Saint_Proverbius** » Thu Sep 18, 2003 4:00 pm

I went with an X-Dreamer case. For one, it's dirt cheap, being only $50 to $60. For another, it has... EIGHT FAN MOUNTS.

You can check out ExtremeMHz's review of the case, pay attention to the bottom of page 3 where they talk about how well it cools.

jimmyjay86 wrote:You might want to check to see how much more you'd actually see in the game with the higher priced card versus say the 9600 pro. From what I read in Maximum PC the 9600 pro offers pretty good quality, but its your money.

The 9600 is also .13micro, so it's much, much cooler running, which means you have room to overclock the thing. Here's a little bit of a review on overclocking the 9600. You can up the core clock about 150MHz and the stock heatsink still keeps it's cool.

Neon Dingo · Post by **Neon Dingo** » Sat Sep 20, 2003 8:09 pm

Thanks for the links, Saint. I think I'm going to buy that case. It's badass. It looks very cool, and has a shitload of fan mounts. The LCD thermometer seals the deal.

Darwin: Yeah, the Celeron blows. I was basically tricked into purchasing this system off of eBay for $500. It said "Pentium 1.7" which is actually very good, but lo and behold it was a fucking Celeron.

My brother got an identical system for $450, except it runs an AMD Athlon XP 1500+. You would not believe the substantial difference in framerates he has. Hell, we even have the same on-board video card and everything. He used to have at least 20 frames more than I did until I purchased a GeForce4 MX440.

What voltage power supply should I buy? I have no clue about what power supply I should purchase. This is probably the first time I've truly upgraded, so I'm kind of in the dark about this.

Keep in mind that I'll probably overclock my video card and/or CPU given the fact that this case is built for overclocking.

I'm considering the 9600 because after I buy this PC I am going to be flat-out broke.

I remember reading something about how a Radeon 9800 Pro won't work on a 17 inch monitor. That sounds like bullshit to me, though.

iohkus · Post by **iohkus** » Sat Sep 20, 2003 8:48 pm

the amount of power doesn't matter, the brand of power supply matters more

you can have a 500w generic power supply that will crap out if you have 400w of stuff in your box,

but u can have an enermax 350w dual fan that can power u up to 400w, eh?

350w enermax or similar good brand should be fine, but if you're a whore and plan on sticking like 8 usb devices and like 4 hard drives, then go for 450-500 w

and lol about 9800 broking 17" monitors... what redneck cesspool forums do u visit? 9600 or GeForce 5800 ultra equivalent will do you good, i think the gforce equivalent of the 9600 is better same price?

EH WOOOH! WAHAHKAK.

Neon Dingo · Post by **Neon Dingo** » Sat Sep 20, 2003 10:17 pm

what redneck cesspool forums do u visit?

Penny-Arcade. :p

What about memory? I was going to buy from crucial.com, but I dunno. Does it really even matter?

iohkus · Post by **iohkus** » Sat Sep 20, 2003 10:21 pm

as long as your memory is CL 2.5, CL is clock cycles or whatever, basically speed

if u are stupid fuck rich then you would get like OCZ CL 2 ram by Kingston or whatever the fuck

as long as you're DDR 333 then u shouldn't worry?

if u go amd make sure you have matching FSB on your ram and CPU

so like DDR 333 ram + DDR 333 cpu + DDR 333 supported mobo

don't be liek "lewl i'm enwb3 i buy DDR 400 ram even though my CPU and mobo are only DDR333 , look my penis get biggar!"

Icabod · Post by **Icabod** » Sat Sep 20, 2003 11:00 pm

By the time HL2 is released you could probably get a 64 bit processor for the same price as a Barton is now.

Killa-Killa · Post by **Killa-Killa** » Sun Sep 21, 2003 3:43 am

Where did my post go? I think it had some very good ideas... Did one of you admins delete it?

Perhaps I got the invalid session and I didnt realize it... if that's what happened, then here's pretty much what I said:

I suggest you go with this, it's about the same price as what your origonal idea cost...:
Intel P4 2.4Ghz, 512k(cache) 800Mhz FSB: $176.99
Asus P4P800 Delux: $149.99
Dual Channel DDR 400Mhz w/ Heatsink: $140.00
ATI Radeon 9600 Pro 128 Mb: $189.99
Antec - SX-1040B II - Carbon-Black Full-Tower case, 400 watt power supply, 2 free 80 mm case fans: $89.99
Reasoning for each item:
CPU: Lowest cost for the desired effect of 800 Mhz FSB. After all, the FSB is what makes the big difference.
Mobo: the P4P800 Deluxe is what my brother has, runs really well... 800FSB, AGP8x, supports dual channel DDR-3200 (400Mhz)
RAM: As said before, the FSB what we're after.
Video Card: The 9600 runs really nicely, and is pretty cheap.
Case: I have one, dispences heat really, really well, is big.

iohkus · Post by **iohkus** » Sun Sep 21, 2003 3:47 am

it got r0x3d by teh CYBAR vacuum of goatsecx

Killa-Killa · Post by **Killa-Killa** » Sun Sep 21, 2003 4:26 am

Wow... that was