[ernieh]

ok i want to know if i build this would it be very fast and good for playing games

amd athlon 64 3200+ venice socket 939

GIGABYTE GA-K8NXP-SLI Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce4 SLI ATX AMD Motherboard

CORSAIR XMS 1GB (2 x 512MB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM DDR 400 (PC 3200)

ATI 100-435500 Radeon X800XL 256MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16 Video Card

COMPRO VideoMate TV PVR PCI interface

PLEXTOR Black SATA DVD Burner

Microsoft Windows XP Professional X64 Edition 1 package

CREATIVE Sound Blaster Audigy2 ZS Platinum

i know the video card is not sli enabled but i would still like to have that on the mobo so that i might be able to use it in the future
i got a cheap hard driv frow bestbuy its a western digital 80 Gb pata ata100 i think but would it be worth it to get a sata one or two to use raid 0

Edited by ernieh, 30 June 2005 - 11:38 AM.

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I wouldnt get an SLi board A. becasue sli isnt as great as people think sinlge card solutions are always better, B. Sli will undergoe possible revisions in future meaning that in 4 years time it would be even more dificult to imlpement than it is do to so now. Also ATI crossfire system shows much more promise than SLI as well as being near idiot proof. You would be better with a cheaper single slot board and later on you can just get a new one when you upgrade your sytstem.
Try and get a lite-on or LG dvd drive they are the cheapest and best at the moment. I would get a SATA of you want to use it for games the speed advantage is useful and the possibility of putting a RAID array in later is well worth the money: you can also still use the 80GB drive as well for other data that wont benefit the faster speeds.
Windows x64 is by all acounts expensive and rubbish the only advantage for it on a gaming pc is to play the farcry update, otherwise avoid it as it lowers performance. Also windows XP can be reused if you have an old PC with it you wont be using anymore.
And remeber dont buy anything for a computer from a shop as it is always more expensive. Also you dont need a sound card unless you are a real audio buff the onboard stuff is usually quite decent.

What makes the graphics card if you have more money to spend you can get a crossfire enabled one the HIS models are all crossfire enabled and are very fast cards(they cost a liitle more though about 30 quid on average sometimes more depending on the quality of the card in the first place).

[warriorscot]

I wouldnt get an SLi board A. becasue sli isnt as great as people think sinlge card solutions are always better, B. Sli will undergoe possible revisions in future meaning that in 4 years time it would be even more dificult to imlpement than it is do to so now. Also ATI crossfire system shows much more promise than SLI as well as being near idiot proof. You would be better with a cheaper single slot board and later on you can just get a new one when you upgrade your sytstem.
Try and get a lite-on or LG dvd drive they are the cheapest and best at the moment. I would get a SATA of you want to use it for games the speed advantage is useful and the possibility of putting a RAID array in later is well worth the money: you can also still use the 80GB drive as well for other data that wont benefit the faster speeds.
Windows x64 is by all acounts expensive and rubbish the only advantage for it on a gaming pc is to play the farcry update, otherwise avoid it as it lowers performance. Also windows XP can be reused if you have an old PC with it you wont be using anymore.
And remeber dont buy anything for a computer from a shop as it is always more expensive. Also you dont need a sound card unless you are a real audio buff the onboard stuff is usually quite decent.

What makes the graphics card if you have more money to spend you can get a crossfire enabled one the HIS models are all crossfire enabled and are very fast cards(they cost a liitle more though about 30 quid on average sometimes more depending on the quality of the card in the first place).

[ernieh]

1. what is crossfire
2. would this mobo be good MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce4 Ultra ATX AMD Motherboard
3. will be buying from NEWEGG
4. dvd burner is the cheapest w/ sata
5. i will also be using it to do some video editing i think so should i get more ram maybe and a bigger hd
6. i wll lose the sound card
7. would windows xp home or pro be better and is there anything specal i will have to do to make the regular windows xp work with a 64 bit cpu

[warriorscot]

First off the biggest peice of advice i can give to you is start researching the more you research the more confident you will be and you will be able to make your own decisions based on an informed opinion so you can get what you want/need better than us telling you. I personally am a big researcher i am about to buy my new parts after the culmination of several months of light research and just over a months in depth research. There is nothing wrong with asking us questions but finding the answer yourself will mean you understand the answer alot better as we arent going to be writing several pages on specific subjects and you want all the little details as those are thd details that will come back and haunt you in the future.

MSI board is a good one am about to buy one for my own rig.

Windows xp will work: 64 bit cpus dont need anything special OS wise compared to 32bit as they are essentially 32 bit cpus with 64 bit extensions so your normal windows will do like ive said if you have an old pc with xp on you can use its copy/code on the new one, i am as stingy as they come and refuse to pay a hundred quid for something i allready have.

SATA on a cd/dvd drive isnt neccasary it doesnt really do much in terms of performance other than give you a slightly neater cable. This is due to the drives speeds not being high enough to make use of a sata connection speed so just a normal dvd drive will be sufficient and cheaper.

More ram wont do you all that much good really you can upgrade later on if its to slow but as long as you only do a little video editing on the side its fine. If on the other hand you use your computer primarily for video editing (it pains me to say this) then you should buy intel there hyperthreading is a big advantage on that front they suck at games and such but video editing and things like that are what they are good at.

I would get a bigger HD 80GB isnt big enough really, HDs are dirt cheap for up to 200GB after that it gets more expensive but a 200GB SATA hard drive really is peanuts, i bought an 80 gig a few months ago to replace one on an older pc and for 20 pounds more i am getting a 200GB maxtor 10 with NCQ just shows how cheap they are. Also with SATA another SATA hardrive down the line means you could implement a RAID array for increased performance or having a backup of valueable data or of course both if you get four HDs you could do a mirrored and striped array.