New System Time!

[Abdul]

Right its now time to buy a new AMD64 system, by brothers taking the old system to uni. That means everything new, well not everything!

So i have a price limit of 700(GBP) or summat close to that, to buy a new system. The system is to be SKT 939 based on a DFI Lanparty Nforce 4 board (which ive already got), and im sure most know whats compatible with the DFI board.

For the whole system I need:

a) Monitor (preferably TFT)
b) CPU
c) Hardrive
d) Memory
e) GFX card (Pci-e)
f) Case and PSU
g) Keyboard and Mouse
h) And to make things difficult with the budget a printer! though I have my optical drives.

So id be very happy to see a system created by many different heads (not literally ) and so much experience.

It'd be a great help! Thanks beforehand!

[GrahamGarside]

For your vid card I'd say go for a Leadtek WinFast GeForce 6800 GT at around £212

For you cpu I'd say go for a 3000+ Venice for now, you should get 2.7-2.9ghz from it, I wouldn't go for anything fancier as a dual core will eat too much of your budget and the 3000+ overclocks just fine while saving you a big chunk o' change over anything faster. £82

Hard drive I say a Maxtor 10 200GB, good performance, good size and decent value at a little over £61

For your psu you want an Enermax Noisetaker 485W, simple reliable and quiet. £65

For your case I'd keep it simple to save some money, go for the Antec SLK3000B, it doesn't come with a psu so you aren't wasting money on that, it offers great ventilation for cooling and it's simple black styling means it won't look cheap and only costs £35

For a keyboard and mouse you can go wrong with a Microsoft Wireless Optical Desktop, they're all around the £30 mark so it depends on which styling and ergonomics you prefer. If you want a gaming mouse then go for the Logitech MX510, there is the MX518 but it's a tenner more and unless you are a pro gamer after the ultimate imaginary edge then theres little differance. I'd partner that with a Microsoft keyboard as well.

[Abdul]

Im still short on memory though... i was planning to get some OCZ ram but if i dished out 212GBP for a 6800 GT id be running short. Plus to get the most out of a Venice id need some decent RAM modules.

I need a decent monitor, performance and style wise. So if id buy a monitor for around 150GBP that'd be a total of 675GBP without memory. Going with what Graham set out.

Im intrested the following model:

http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/produ...duct_uid=86715

Anyone any experience with it are similar monitor??

As for the ANTEC SLK3000B, i have checked it out previously and seen it in action, good case and it would be my first choice.

[GrahamGarside]

Well you can save yourself just over £70 going for the standard 6800, which is still a good performer.

As for memory, yes to get the best from an A64 memory matters, but you don't get performance equivelant to the price you pay. A gig of DDR400 costs about £70, which you aren't likely to get huge overclocks or tight timings from. Now the premium stuff cost 2, 3, maybe 4 times as much, and best case can give you about 60-70% more memory performance, but this doesn't directly translate to 70% more overall performance. In games the 6800GT over a 6800 will make far more differance. If games aren't the most important thing you still aren't going to see performance equal to the extra spent.

Personally I recomend saving the premium ram for people who have high or no budgets, but when limitted like you are, the value range stuff is the better choice as you just don't get the performance relative to what you spend beyond that

[45 Auto]

Rather than getting a 6800gt, take a look at the radeon x800xl. It's equal to the gt or slightly better. I'm running the agp version on my epox, and in replaying HL2 with all the eye candy turned on fraps reports most of the frame rates in the triple digit range. Besides it can be found for less than the gt.

As far as the ram goes, though I'm using the high priced spread, I've heard good things about the Patriot ddr400 xbl. OC's well and is based on Samsung tccd chips.

[Abdul]

Games are very important, so a 6800 is about right. If i do go for a 6800 is there anyone i should be weary about, anything specific, that'd be real helpful Cheers.

Which Performance RAM would be suitable, anything in particular?

As for the X800XL, i'll do some more searching, anyone else with these cards let me know how they perform.

[Exile69]

I would go with a 6800GT over an X800XL anyday. I think the driver quality is superb, they're actually about the same price, and nVidia does have SM 3.0, which is nice for the newer games. Do they also feature HDR? If so, then it's a no brainer.

[GrahamGarside]

They both feature HDR, but the 6800GT has SM3 so it's higher precision I think.

If games are important then my tip is definately go for value ram and a 6800GT, you will see far greater performance even with the lower memory bandwidth, the cpu will still be pumping away at 2.7-2.9ghz which even with ~DDR400 will still give top notch cpu performance, and coupling that with a GT over an NU will do more for performance than premium ram can hope for

[Abdul]

This is what it currently looks like its gonna be then:

Following From SCAN Inc. VAT

AMD Athlon 64 3000 32/64Bit CPU S939 "Venice" 90nm Retail inc Heat Sink Fan & 3 Years Warranty
£102.58

256Mb XFX PCI-E GF6800GT DDR3 TvOut/Dual DVI *Full Retail Package £192.64

485W Enermax Noisetaker EG495AX-VE-W-SFMA aPFC Quiet
£64.03

1Gb 2x512Mb Corsair, DDR400/PC3200,128Mx64, non-ECC, 184 DIMM, unbuffered, CL2.5, Lifetime Warranty
£64.16

200Gb Maxtor Diamondmax Plus 10 (7200rpm,8MB) SATA NCQ - Lead Free
£57.50

Total £480.91

Whats left then Case, (cant get it from Scan, DAMN!) And monitor, Any ideas, pointers...Preferably from Scan

[GrahamGarside]

I'd make a seperate order to overclockers.co.uk for the venice, a cooler and antec case.

You can get an oem 3000+ for £82 and believe me the stock heatsink is not worth £20
You could also get the Arctic Cooling Freezer 64 for about £16 which is a good, quiet cooler.

Scans case range is pretty weak, and the SLK3000B really is a good case it's worth making the seperate order for

[Abdul]

Thats that settled then Cheers Graham!

But still need a decent TFT monitor, anyone out there got any ideas, for 150GBP

[Exile69]

To be a little more realistic hope for 2.5-2.7Ghz for the 3000+ Venice, granted with nice cooling 2.7-2.9Ghz shouldn't be too much of a problem.

[GrahamGarside]

I think 2.7ghz+ is perfectly realistic with a venice. Thats not to say there aren't some cores out there which don't have it in them. But in pretty much every venice review I've read, 2.7ghz with the stock cooling is achieved, and quite a few make 2.8ghz with only a little extra voltage.

[Exile69]

I have a 3000+ Venice and it took 1.65vcore to get 2.7Ghz, so I wouldn't really count on anything above 2.8 on stock cooling.

[aghastpumpkin]

Any AG Neovo Monitor will do fine. The F500 (it's called something like that) is around £150.