[Hemal]

Hey Guys,

Never thought I would be posting this haha but I have seen to lost the free time and was looking to build a couple machines

I was wondering if some of you out there who had the time- if you could come up with some specs for me

Of course I will be overlooking and tweaking them but if you would be so kind...

Mobo- looking for something for the AMD- nothing fancy- maybe 4-8 usb but it seems standard, onboard audio, probably X16- i dont need the SLI, mem slots- doesnt matter- just want to support pc3200 for the mem- 3-4 slots would be nice though

Processer- 64 bit def. nothing to powerful- I dont think dual core with this budget of course...

HD- not sure- if you find somethign cheap let me know- i have a 120 and a 160 lying around here still in the box so if you cannot find anything its fine

Mem- as said above- pc3200 is fine- i dont like going lower and I think it does the job for most- you can find it cheap so if you see any good deals let me know

Case- nothing expensive- no antec as they are on a limited budget- I did like the p180 but it is not my build -- something with a PSU would be nice

Graphics Card--- heres the toughy- im looking for recommendations- he would like to play most games - call of duty 2- age of empire 3...but nothing like the 7800- too expensive- maybe the 6600 or 6800?

Budget of around 800-1200 give or take again

I think he would like to stay around 1K, but give or take is fine

What ever you guys think- let me know and post it here- as I said I really have little time to look and shop around for the parts and what I would want

All posts are appritiated

Thanks Guys

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Im pretty sure you could put a system like mine together for less than $800 that would do what you want.

The 3200+ is a good chip to start with and then overclock not to slow its needing overclocking but fast enough that its not got to go to far before its amazingly fast.

If youre one a budget for gfx i would definately say get 6800GS new card very cheap and as powerful as the GT version but for less money and its properly compatible with SLI. Although without beefing the cooling up on the card i dont think youll get much more speed from it, its allready very fast (it uses a 7series core though so it should go a bit higher than it is maybe).

You said no antec but the sonata II is a good deal over here and would fit the budget i think. Antec actually have an excellent range of cheap cases, its actually where they make all their money.

I like the MSI neo series boards as they are utterly solid built with common sense layout and features and the vanilla nf4s are a good price, but gigabyte boards are cheaper and maybe of not quite so good but still good enough.

And then stick in some corsair XMS in 1gig for a $100 if i remember correctly.

Im sure JRM will pop along and give you a shopping list.

[warriorscot]

Im pretty sure you could put a system like mine together for less than $800 that would do what you want.

The 3200+ is a good chip to start with and then overclock not to slow its needing overclocking but fast enough that its not got to go to far before its amazingly fast.

If youre one a budget for gfx i would definately say get 6800GS new card very cheap and as powerful as the GT version but for less money and its properly compatible with SLI. Although without beefing the cooling up on the card i dont think youll get much more speed from it, its allready very fast (it uses a 7series core though so it should go a bit higher than it is maybe).

You said no antec but the sonata II is a good deal over here and would fit the budget i think. Antec actually have an excellent range of cheap cases, its actually where they make all their money.

I like the MSI neo series boards as they are utterly solid built with common sense layout and features and the vanilla nf4s are a good price, but gigabyte boards are cheaper and maybe of not quite so good but still good enough.

And then stick in some corsair XMS in 1gig for a $100 if i remember correctly.

Im sure JRM will pop along and give you a shopping list.

[Hemal]

I made a little total from New Egg Shopping Cart--

Antec LifeStyle SONATA II Case 450Watt SmartPower- $99

Gigabyte GA-K8N Pro-SLI Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce4 SLI ATX AMD Motherboard - $106

CORSAIR 1GB (2 x 512MB) (PC 3200) Dual Channel Kit System Memory - $75.50

AMD Athlon 64 3200+ Venice 1GHz FSB Socket 939 Processor- $165- comes with the stock heatsink I think which should be fine for this build

NEC Black DVD Burner- $37.99

eVGA Geforce 6800GS 256MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16 Video Card- $189

I believe that comes to around $673.48

What other little add- ons do you all suggest? Of course cooling- system fans...maybe a 120?

[warriorscot]

Yeah 1 extra 120mm and a 92mm for the cpu duct if you want one, so i would go for maybe the vantec stealth fans for quietness. And maybe go up to the full XMS ram i think its a $100 and worth the little extra, the client may want 2gigs of ram you might ask them if they want to spend the extra money for that.

Stock HSF is pretty good on the venice cpus so you dont need a different one.

Hard drive you say you have them but you could always get a new 200gig or 250 SATA II one for them to give them a nice HD. Up to you though i dont know what you have lying around, maxtors are always the cheapest drives ive found and performance isnt the best but its very good and considering the saving you make they are very good.

I say you sit down with the person your building it for and see what they want in terms of little upgrades, youve still got a bit of leeway in your budget so you can upgrade the cpu if they want it or the ram. Whatever you want, maybe you might try getting an Arctic silencer but i dont know if the 6800gt ones fit on the GS you would have to check that with arctic.

[Hemal]

Thanks for your help man

I think it will be a great build!

[jrm20]

The arctic silencers are good video card coolers. I bought one for my 6800 gt flashed to a 6800 ultra bios and I will get it sometime today.. They are great.

Another good company is zalman.

[warriorscot]

Yeah zalman is good the silent coolers from zalman are quite nifty, they are quite expensive which always put me off zalman.

[Hemal]

I think for my next personal build- i will get the Zalman 120mm HSF-- its like a cereal bowl!

[warriorscot]

lol, yeah its quite funky looking, im thinking of getting the new vapochill HSF thats like a big radiator inside the PC, its either that or the thermal take SI-120 but with these big 120 mm HSFs you cant see the motherboard or the memory anymore.

[Hemal]

I might go with some type of artic cooling or water cooling

haha they came out with new air conditioned cases- but they are pricy running atleast of 250 or more

[jrm20]

I have the top of the line 120mm cpu zalman fan. Its great and worth it.

[warriorscot]

Yeah if you have that much money you could bite the bullet and get that zalman all heatsink fan free case.

[Hemal]

Hey

Totally new idea for this build

Same budget- around 800-900 except im stretching I think for this next part so stay with me

Same parts - 1 gig of RAM, DVD burner- Antec Sonata (though I would like the p180)

That leaves the graphics, mobo and cpu

For the CPU-- call me crazy- and yes I will take it with this budget...

I wanted to find a way to add in the x2 series for AMD-- of course it would only be 3800+

With Newegg buying that CPU, with the Sonata II with 450 psu and a 16X DVD burner it comes to around 453.98

I have a spare 160 SATA at home I will use in this

Adding around 60 AR dollars for 1 gig dual channel (2 sticks of pc3200) of RAM (http://www.tigerdire...4&CMP=ILC-FOT04) - used it before- nice ram actually

Thats around 515... So im left with around 285-335 for the MOBO and Graphics not to mention any other seperate cooling

As we know haha around 300 dollars to spend for a good mobo with preferable SLI is rare to find with a decent gaming card...

I was just wondering if any of you had any suggestions or good links...

I think I might have to end up going with a single core and then that would allow me to invest into a bigger card- maybe even the 7800 but only the GT

Thanks

[Hemal]

with a XFX Geforce 6800GS 256MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16 Video Card (195) comes to around 715 which leaves the mobo and cooling -maybe a zalmans 120 for the case but im not sure I would need it with the sonata if it came with fans itself- I would stick to stock HSF right now as well

[warriorscot]

If you get an SLI mobo(which you dont need to, Nvidia are supposed to be releasing at least a couple of updates to SLI this year) the 6800GS is the way to go, its one of the few cards thats truly SLI optimised its very fast with two of them. So i would get one of those, Mobo MSI, Abit or DFI just please dont get an ASUS weve had so many people come through here in the last couple of weeks with them not working out the box.

The stock AMD hsf is actually very good, its not like the cheapo ones you used to get and intel still use it will keep the CPU cool i can even get some very high overclocks with mine using the stock its a good HSF better than it looks for sure.