[Ntd]

Hey all, currently i have a very old PC, (Pentium 2 555 Mhz, 63 mb Ram, um 13 gig hard drive, 1 mb onbaord graphics card and a vortex sound card <- i think) well anyway back to my appeal for help, heres the background, i love computers and when i time permits i am one as long as possible try new things and ding other stuff, however i am also a gaming freak!!! If i could i would play Counter-strike all day everyday but school has to come first now. My current system cant play Counter-strike meaning i have to goto lans to play. So i have been saving for a year now and have $1,500 (australian dollars, dont know how much that is in american probally not much) now with this money i want to build a computer than can surpport Counter Strike: Source and allow me to get 80-100 fps at least!!! Now i am not very good with hardware so this is where i need your help.

This is a list that my friend gave me to help me and surgestions and any links with reviews or helping info would be greatly appriciated!!

AMD CPU SEMPRON 2400+ BOX 104.4
or
AMD CPU SEMPRON 2600+ BOX 141.53
or
AMD CPU SEMPRON 2800+ BOX 183.28
or
AMD ATHLON 64 3000+ CPU WITH FAN 273.6
or
AMD ATHLON 64 3200+ BOX WITH FAN 346.84
with a mobo:
8HDA5J EPOX MB,K8T800,S-754,FSB1.6G, 3DDR,AGP8X,2SRAID,8CHSND,GBLAN 145
or
8KDA3+ NF3250GB,S754,FSB1.6G,3DDR400,6SRAID,6PCI,8CHSND,8USB2,GBLAN 225
Ram::
KVR400X64C3A-512 512MB 184PIN 400MHZ(PC3200) CL3 DDR MODULE. 140
or
512DDR400 512MB DDR400 PC3200 120
Hd:
WD2000JD WD 200GB 7200RPM 8MB SATA150 HDD (3 YEAR WARRANTY) 199
Now the most imprtant part!! The graphics card This wont do i need a better one plz!
A9600XT-TVD-P-128 ATI Radeon 9600XT/128MB DDR/DVI-I/TV-OUT/Video-In/AGP8X. 289
Floppy
MSU144 MITSUMI 144 FLOPPY DRIVE 13
Modem (have DSL changing it to a network card)
M110 MIT 56K V.92 & K56FLEX PCI INTERNAL MODEM, 5YEAR WARRANTY 15
Operating system::
MICROSOFT WINDOWNS-XP HOME OEMSERVICE PACK 1 140
MICROSOFT WINDOWS-XP PRO OEM SERVICE PACK 1 225
(The pricese are in australian dollars)

Just a quick question
with the AMD ATHLON 64 3000+ CPU WITH FAN and AMD ATHLON 64 3200+ BOX WITH FAN does that mean they will run at 3.0 and 3.2 Ghz? And whats does the Front side bus and L1 and L2 cache mean? Also how do i know what mobo goes with what cpu and if they are good products?

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hey ntd- welcome bak man

gaming computers huh -this is when i start to drool and babble

i would def. put in the

AMD ATHLON 64 3200+ BOX WITH FAN 346.84- and overclock it you should get atleast a 3.4 ghz operating speed out of that

512-1 gig memory- atleast 512 ddr on the low side and its how much money you wanna spend for that- i would also get pc3200 or pc4000 (check with your mobo which one it would take- go to the max it would take though)

80-250 gig hd- make sure its atleast 7200rpms but dont be scared to go higher if you have the cash - 80's really fine for gaming but for this kinda machine i would say 160 to keep the specs up

NVIDIA® GeForce™ 6800 Ultra 256MB DDR3 w/Digital and S-Video Out
ATI RADEON™ X800 XT Platinum Edition 256MB DDR3 w/Digital and TV Out - though those are both expensive they are very very very nice cards- alienware uses these i believe

from the old computer you have you can take the floppy and stuff

and a dvd-rw drive is only about 60 bucks here

try onboard audio for your sound or if you want to get a card i would recommend the audigy 2 zs

motherboard is a part that you will have to decide for you and what you want

your looking for something that can support an amd chip with 64 bit and i dont know the case you have and if you want usb in the front or not- also somehting that will support high ram and a higher quality

the sites i usually use are

www.newegg.com
www.tigerdirect.com

and to check prices from a wide variety of sources use www.nextag.com

good luck man- hope it turns out well

[Hemal]

hey ntd- welcome bak man

gaming computers huh -this is when i start to drool and babble

i would def. put in the

AMD ATHLON 64 3200+ BOX WITH FAN 346.84- and overclock it you should get atleast a 3.4 ghz operating speed out of that

512-1 gig memory- atleast 512 ddr on the low side and its how much money you wanna spend for that- i would also get pc3200 or pc4000 (check with your mobo which one it would take- go to the max it would take though)

80-250 gig hd- make sure its atleast 7200rpms but dont be scared to go higher if you have the cash - 80's really fine for gaming but for this kinda machine i would say 160 to keep the specs up

NVIDIA® GeForce™ 6800 Ultra 256MB DDR3 w/Digital and S-Video Out
ATI RADEON™ X800 XT Platinum Edition 256MB DDR3 w/Digital and TV Out - though those are both expensive they are very very very nice cards- alienware uses these i believe

from the old computer you have you can take the floppy and stuff

and a dvd-rw drive is only about 60 bucks here

try onboard audio for your sound or if you want to get a card i would recommend the audigy 2 zs

motherboard is a part that you will have to decide for you and what you want

your looking for something that can support an amd chip with 64 bit and i dont know the case you have and if you want usb in the front or not- also somehting that will support high ram and a higher quality

the sites i usually use are

www.newegg.com
www.tigerdirect.com

and to check prices from a wide variety of sources use www.nextag.com

good luck man- hope it turns out well

[Ntd]

Hey Hey Hey!!
I have a T-Shirt that says "Sox Rox" (well I cant find it anymore, but it was black and white)

Thanks for you advice!!
I will definitely put in a
AMD ATHLON 64 3200+ BOX WITH FAN

512 DDR (might go 1GB but I will see) however which one is better PC3200 or PC4000? And how come?

200 GB Hard drive (might make it less if I go over my budget)

Now the most important part of my box the graphics card
Which one is better? the
NVIDIA® GeForce™ 6800 Ultra 256MB DDR3 w/Digital and S-Video Out
or the
ATI RADEON™ X800 XT Platinum Edition 256MB DDR3 w/Digital and TV Out
(as long as they are below or around 800 I am happy) Also how long will they last, because I do not want to find out in 2 years that a game I like is coming out and my card cant play it. Also I will be mainly playing Counter-Strike, Counter-Strike: Source, Counter-Strike: Condition Zero, Half-life two, World of war craft, Commander conquer and far cry as well as count less other games Cant wait!!! So, which card will be the best for those kinds of games?

Now for the motherboard, my friend has suggested these two motherboards
8HDA5J EPOX MB,K8T800,S-754,FSB1.6G, 3DDR,AGP8X,2SRAID,8CHSND,GBLAN 145
Or
8KDA3+ NF3250GB,S754,FSB1.6G,3DDR400,6SRAID,6PCI,8CHSND,8USB2,GBLAN 225
Well to me that looks like a lot of numbers, however one is an EPOX and the other I have no idea. However, another friend has told me asus is much better than EPOX, is that true? If so how come? What should I look for in a motherboard?

Thanks for all your help!!!!!

[Ntd]

Forgot one thing, what power supply unit should i get 300W-400W?
Also where has the edit option gone?

[Ntd]

what about this motherboard
Asus K8V AMD Athlon 64 VIA K8T800 3DDR AGP 8X 5PCI SATA RAID LAN Audio? $200 australian dollars. (i think just hlaf it to get a rough estimate in american dollars) ?

[Hemal]

SOX ROK!! u got that right- u gotta order another shirt or ill have to get you one- i know a couple people in aussi so u gotta PM me about that

the processor is set

i would really recommend the 1 gig of mem and maybe downgrade the hd to 160 to balence the price... pc3200 vs. pc4000- usually the higher it is the better it operates at- the speed and quality really of it

the 2 graphic cards i gave you are the 2 cards that are used in alienware computers so i think you should be fine down the road and it is def. under 800

check this site out for one option on nvidia vs. ati here
then once u get ur brand we can look at the highest end of their cards

power supply should be 300-400 and i would think about putting in another cooling fan- all this stuff will get hot and i dont think 1 fan will do it- just to be safe ofcourse nothign to worry about

your motherboard... your looking for somethign that is 64 bit that supports amd and a higher quality of ram- the pc3200 or the pc4000 also i dont know how many usb you want either- if you want on board audio look for taht or we can get a sound card

i would recommend asus over most other motherboards because they have that great name and product- its like getting a lexus over a toyota- same engine and name and owner and all taht but the lexus still has that over all edge, look and luxury- dont know if you got that weird comparison

[Ntd]

Hey thanks for all your help!!!

For the graphics card i have 6 options
1.MSI RX800 PRO-TD256 (ATi,$799)
2.ASUS V9999 Ultra Deluxe (NVIDIA,$839)
3.ASUS AX800 (ATi,$720)
4.ELSA Falcox X80 PRO (ATi,$740)
5.GECUBE X800256 (ATi,$769)
6.SAPPHIRE X800 PRO (ATi,$699)
(all prices are in Australian dollars)
Hmm its a hard choice the ATi RADEON X800 Pro or the NVIDIA GeForce 6800b Ultra.
I am leaning to the ATi however my mind isn't made up (Why is it so hard!). The X800 isn't as powerful as the GeForce however it is cheaper. Or should i pay that little bit extra and get the card with all the specs?

For the RAM since i am spending alot on my graphics card i reckon 1 gig of corsair might be too much or is it worth the expense?

So i should stick with the ASUS motherboard?
Asus K8V AMD Athlon 64 VIA K8T800 3DDR AGP 8X 5PCI SATA RAID LAN Audio
Whatd oes the 3DDR mean?
Also what does the AGP mean?
Also what does the SATA mean?
Also when i have been reading about motherboards they talk about something called the north bridge and the south bridge what do they mean and how do they concern me?

Also i think the 160gb hard drive is sounding good.

[Hemal]

hey man

ok i want you to get the max out of your computer money to get the best parts-
use this site here to get your processor- will save you big time to get extra bucks-

would def. get that gig of memory pc 4000 with the 160 gig hd at 7200 rpms- use www.newegg.com or www.tigerdirect for most of the parts- best deals ive found

motherboard-
SATA - A specification for consumer hard drive connections that boosts the data transfer rate up to 150MB/second. In addition, it changes IDE/ATA from a parallel interface requiring 40 separate wires to connect components to a serial interface requiring only 6 wires. 2x and 4x versions of Serial ATA double and quadruple the speed of Serial ATA

AGP- Accelerated Graphics Port. An interface specification from Intel that enables 3-D graphics to display quickly on personal computers. AGP is based on PCI, but is designed especially for the high throughput requirements of 3-D graphics. Rather than using the PCI bus for graphics data, AGP introduces a dedicated point-to-point channel so that the graphics controller can directly access main memory

usually the 3DDR means the number of slots it has for the memory

the board that your looking at only supports up to pc3200 memory board info.

its your call, you can go with pc3200 and thats still a great computer but for gaming if you want this thing to blaze i would put a pc4000
This board is more expensive but is a higher quality- how much would u want to spend on it?

i think what we should do is get all the other parts set first and then order the video card (this is why they say the harddest thing of system building is ordering the parts )

[Ntd]

Once againg thanks for your help!!

ok so the two motherboards that i am looking at are the
Asus K8V-SE-D AMD Athlon 64 VIA K8T800 3DDR400 Audio AGP 8x 5PCI SATA 1394 USB LAN which retails for around $220 dollars
and the
Asus K8V AMD Athlon 64 VIA K8T800 3DDR AGP 8X 5PCI SATA RAID LAN Audio
which retails for around $195
Now the only difference that i have come across is that one surports PC4000 while the other surports PC3200.

Now this gets complicated, to save money i will have to go for a 160 HD and 1 gig of RAM that cost me least, however i might have money to upgrade again. Is it worth getting the more expensive motherboard (K8V-SE-D) and getting the more expensive RAM and lowering my hard drive to 120GB or should i get the cheaper one. My budget is $1,500 AU which converst to $1,054.85 USD. I am willing to spend the bulk of that on a powerful graphics card, however i dont want to skimp too much on the other parts because gaming effects every aspect of your computer, however you must remember i have Keyboard,mouse,monitor,speakers i am not too sure the ones i am using now are ok,i can use my sound card from my computer now or use the motherboards onboard sound card. So what i need is
1. CPU - Which will be an AMD Athlon 754-pins
2. 120 or 160 GB Hard drive
3. RAM undecided
4. Motherboard undecided
5. Graphics card undecided
6. Case with powersupply
7. DVD +/- RW which can burns CD too
anything else? Also do you reckon my budget is big enough because i can go 100 or 200 over.

Thanks for all your help.

[Ntd]

True true soxrok getting the parts is the hards part (no pun)

[Ntd]

Just one more thing, with the AMD Athlon 64 3200+ Socket 754 Retail Boxed CPU 3YR
does it run at a speed of 3.2Ghz or lower? Is a P4 3.2 GHz faster?

Also where is the edit button?

[admin]

AMD Athlon 64 3200+ Socket 754 Retail Boxed CPU 3YR
does it run at a speed of 3.2Ghz or lower?

It runs at 2ghz.

Is a P4 3.2 GHz faster?

Depends on the application, but the AMD is faster in most everything.

[Ntd]

How is the AMD faster if it runs at a slower speed? Or does that mean that AMD has like two 32 bit processors running at 2GHz?

[admin]

Processor performance isn't all about speed. AMD's chips operate more efficiently, and have a better design with shorter pipelines. Intel has recently acknowledged this, and changed their naming scheme to remove the emphasis on operating speed. Another example is the P4M (mobile), a 1.8ghz P4M will perform on par with a 3ghz P4 desktop chip. Future P4's will be based on the M's design.

Maybe a better benchmark (at least for gaming) is Floating Point performance. Again, the AMD64 easily beats the P4 at equivalent clock speeds.

[Ntd]

i Like the sound of that .
Well this is my Current list::
:: AMD Athlon 3200 , Cost $325
:: Seagate 160 GB 8MB Buffer SATA, Cost $165
:: 512 MB PC3200 Kingston RAM, Cost $145
:: Asus K8V SE Deluxe, Cost $199
:: Sony DRU700A Dual layer, Cost $175
:: Samsung 52/52/32+16xDVD, Cost $75
:: Asus X800 Pro TD, Cost $769
Total Cost:: $1853
(All in AU dollars)

So what do you guys think?
Also what should i look for in a DVD burner whats this DVD +/- R/RW business and should i get a CD-RW also?
Also is there are major difference between the Athlon 3000 and the Athlon 3200 because the Athlon 3000 is almost $100 cheaper?
www.cpl.net.au is where i am going to buy all my stuff.