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Building a Gaming Desktop

post #1 of 29
7/12/05 at 6:05am
Thread Starter 
Hi

Its been a while since my last pc, so i figured i would build my own to get the best performance for the lowest price
OK, i used a site which is like the Australian equivilent of Newegg.com to get the components i want, so here they are:

MotherBoard - Asus A8V-E DELUXE K8T890/ S939/ 1000FSB/ GLAN/ 2x1394/ DDR400/ PCI-EX
CPU - AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+ Dual Core Processor, Socket 939, Manchester Core
RAM - KINGSTON 1GB 400MHZ DDR (PC3200) DIMM UNBUFFERED/NON-ECC 184-PIN KVR400X64C3A-1G
HD - Western Digital WD2500JB/PB Caviar 7200RPM ATA100 250Gb 8M cache
GPU - MSI NVIDIA GEFORCE NX6800GT-T2D256 PCIE, TV Out, Dual DVI
Case - CoolerMaster CENTURION V CAC-T05 SILVER W/ 380W

The main thing i want to know is would all these components be compatible with each other.
I already have a DVD-RW and a floppy drive so i wont buy either of those.
Could you guys please give me pointers on what i should do to make this system better without increasing the price to much,
i also need some advice on a nice 19" lcd that would be good for gaming.

So any comments/advice are VERY welcome.

Thanx,

Chiggle
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post #2 of 29
7/12/05 at 10:34am
you need DDR2 ram not DDR1

also here's my review of the hyundai L90D+, it's a great LCD for gaming

also I recommend the samsung 930B

http://www.notebookforums.com/showth...hlight=Hyundai

and if this is going to be for a gaming desktop, I would recommend the FX57 over the duel core, unless you plan on some serious multitasking

or save money and get a 3700+ and OC it to fx57 speeds for half the price and get a 7800GTX gpu
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post #3 of 29
7/12/05 at 11:57am
3 letters: SLI
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post #4 of 29
7/12/05 at 8:25pm
Well the big thing about the fx series, if Im not mistaken, is not their speed, but rather their cache. I dont recommend them if you want to keep this price down.

I would recommend stay with DDR, as I have heard DDRII offers no real performance increase yet.

Also I recommend stay with say 4400+ for the cpu.

I should say my opinions have almost no factual basis that I feel like arguing over, so if you don't feel the same way, that is cool, but don't write a message debating either way.
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post #5 of 29
7/12/05 at 8:42pm
ryanniedz, i will support you on that.

DDR2 offers all of a 5% boost over DDR and there is a nice budget gap there that does NOT justify the increase in performance. FX is really expensive, stick to 4xxx AMD64, benchmarks show that they are not much slower, and cost about $200 less. As far as video cards go, i am not a big buff in that, i mean, my desktop uses nvidia 5700 and i am alright....so dont ask me
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post #6 of 29
7/12/05 at 9:56pm
I don't recommend going SLI on the gaming desktop..granted its a great feature, but it doesn't add anything to power of the video card. I suggest getting a top o' line vid card and be done with it there....yes ddr2 is a must. Dual cores are great but not intended for just gaming, its great if your going to be running 3 or 4 games simulatenously or whatever, but not if you think your going to get a boost to your computing power. I would suggest down grading to a single core.
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post #7 of 29
7/13/05 at 7:20pm
well dual core would be good if you like to run alot of background programs run all of them on 2nd core and game on first core that way the first core will take on the game i mean its not necasarry but if you have the money i say go for it
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post #8 of 29
7/22/05 at 2:40pm
Thread Starter 
Ok, i made a few changes to the system, any recommendations on where i could improve the system owuld be greatly appreciated

Here are the specs:

AMD CPU - Athlon64 3800+ Socket 939
Asus MB [A8N-SLI-UAY], NF4, SKT-939, PCIE x 2, SND, GBLAN, RAID, SATA
Legend 1024MB DDR2 RAM
Western Digital HDD - 250GB, SATA, 8MB, 7200rpm [WD2500JD]
LG DVD Burner 16x, +-, Dual layer +R, Black OEM [GSA-4163B]
Legend FX7800GTX 256MB DDR3, PCIE, SLI Capable
Coolermaster Case - Centurion 5
Antec PSU - 480W TruePower

Would these components make a good gaming machine or do things need to be changed ?

I just have a few questions.

Is the power supply good enough to power the system or will a 550 W do a better job.

With the ram, it is DDR2, is the motherboard i selected compatible
with this, and also, it is legend brand, is this a big problem or is
it a good performer. Would i notice much difference in performance if i choose Corsair Ram (DDR1) instead.

I have noticed that there are different makers of the Nvidia 7800 GTX, is the Legend FX7800GTX graphic card any different from other makers (ie. will it perform at the same level as other 7800 GTX cards).

Thanx,

Chiggle
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post #9 of 29
7/22/05 at 2:54pm
y not like ocz platinum ram or something?? it looks as though youve got money to throw that way so y not spend the big bux on some nice ram... imo i would get 2 1gb sticks for it so you can future proof it b/c now more and more games are recomending 1gb its only a matter of time b4 its required so get 2gb now then later you can upgrade to 3 or 4 if needed
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post #10 of 29
7/22/05 at 5:35pm
Oh god...you're going to have a hell of a time trying to get that SATA drive recognized. My Dad and I spent hours upon hours (I googled some stuff but it didn't work) until he finally got it to work (I just got an A8V Deluxe system). Make sure you put a floppy drive in the case cause you're going to need it, if the MB is anything like the a8v deluxe.

Also, if that 3800+ is the Venice core be careful. You might have to flash your BIOS, and I think you have to stick a single stick of RAM in the B1 slot (don't stick any other RAM in until everything is running fine).
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post #11 of 29
7/22/05 at 7:23pm
ditch the 3800 and get the 4800+. Add in sli, and work on your power supply and cooling.
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post #12 of 29
7/23/05 at 12:21am
you need a bigger power supply imo ive got a 500w in my system its better to overkill with wattage than underetimate
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post #13 of 29
7/23/05 at 1:39am
Thread Starter 
ok, i cant add the 4800+ cos that is wayyyyy to expenisive, i will get a 500W PSU and i already have a floppy drive so that shouldn't be a problem to get the SATA HD to work. (hopefully)
I will get 1 gig of corsiar DDR 2 ram, and ugrade to 2 gig of it in a few months when i have more cash.
but what about the GPU, wil that be OK???

Thanx
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post #14 of 29
7/23/05 at 2:53am
The 7800 is a great card.
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post #15 of 29
7/23/05 at 3:40am
uhhh would his card be bottlenecked by the CPU? cuz i know the x850 is recomended to have a 3.2ghz to run right so im sure this is higher...is there a reason you have to go with an asus board? im runing an abit and its amazing. not to mention the 3rd eye is great and the MB helps you overclock everything im running my 3.2 at 3.5 on stock cooling
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post #16 of 29
7/23/05 at 9:40pm
I still dont recommend ddr2. Also, I recommend getting 2 sticks even if that means dropping back to 512 since dual channel mode is only operational if u have 2 sticks of ram. I am of course assuming ur motherboard supports dual channel, since most of the newer, high end ones do.

I think more and more the games rely on gpu memory, i may again be wrong but i heard that somewhere. So 2 GB isnt really necessary unless ur doing high end rendering and u will notice the performance decrease due to the worse latency of 1 GB ddrII sticks.

Once again, just my opinion, lol
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post #17 of 29
7/24/05 at 8:15pm
well while running battlefield it uses nearly 1gb of ram the more ram you have the more memory you can use for textures in games not to mention the more you can run outside of the game without a problem im running like 3clones of aim ares xfire clonecd etc etc no prob at all with Bf2
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post #18 of 29
7/24/05 at 9:46pm
ares got mad spam and viruses.

I use limewire.
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post #19 of 29
7/24/05 at 11:36pm
www.ocforums.com

You'll need DDR ram for AMD. AMD hasn't made the switch to DDR2 yet. OCZ Platinum Revision 2 is good. If you're going to overclock, get the DFI nForce4 SLI-DR motherboard. Dual cores are a waste IMHO. Get the 3700+ San Diego core. And the guy who said SLI is not meant for gaming, well... he's wrong. Buy one 7800GTX right now and wait for the prices to come down. Then buy another one.
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post #20 of 29
7/25/05 at 12:26am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Flatulatta
uhhh would his card be bottlenecked by the CPU? cuz i know the x850 is recomended to have a 3.2ghz to run right so im sure this is higher...is there a reason you have to go with an asus board? im runing an abit and its amazing. not to mention the 3rd eye is great and the MB helps you overclock everything im running my 3.2 at 3.5 on stock cooling
CPU bottlenecks only happen at low res these days... at higher resolutions your gpu will always be the bottleneck

...

and do yourself a favor and get DDR, preferably TCC5 based.. or BH-5(not with that mobo though..)

AMD likes low timings over high bandwidth, DDR2 has craptastic timings... not to mention DDR2 won't work with AMD
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