To anyone who keeps up with current tech

[redrovermine7]

I am a FPS gamer for 5 years now. My son plays Half-life2 and its Mods on his own older 1.6 P4 with 256 mgs of RDRambus memory (this memory is not worth updating on this system because of the old processor/ MB and expense of RDRambus). I want to build him a new system using just three of his old parts (Western Digital 200 GB HD, Ratheon 9800 Pro Video card, and his Dual layer DVD burner). I usually go with Pentium, but only because of the old overheating issue that AMD had several years ago. I don't want to spend more than $1,100. I see articles on the new SLI (Dual graphic card) boards and on AMD and Intel 64 Bit CPU's. Is this unneccessary? I would like some advice from anyone who knows the current options. I need to buy MB/Processor and memory (at least 1Gig). Most of the articles I read favor SLI MB's and AMD 64 FX (but this proccessor alone is $800 dollars).

 

[Asus]

I'd recommend just getting into the Athlon 64 line. You don't need to get expensive parts to get great performance. If you want something with a really good value/performance then check out the Athlon 64 2800+ through 3200+ models (Socket 754) as you can get them for well under 200$ from newegg.

Now if you want to have the ability to upgrade the CPU again within a year or so then maybe you should look to Socket 939 with CPU models like the Athlon 64 3200+ or 3500+. Dualcore CPUs are coming out in the near future and AMD will have them be compatible with Socket 939.

Either way, I'd recommend the nForce3 or 4 boards with an AGP slot. Since you want to use the 9800 gfx card he already has, you will not want a board with PCI Express.

It should be easy to build a PC for under 1000$, especially since he already has the GFX card! You will notice a big difference in performance between any Athlon 64 and his PC now or even a current Intel system for gaming.

 

[Janet Reno]

Hello,
It is nice that you're getting your son a new computer. If you finish reading and still have questions or anything is left unaswered, please feel free to ask anything.


Generally, if you were looking at AMD chips seven-eight years ago I would agree in that they were flakey, or overheated, or whatever the case may be, but now they offer better performance for the dollar with the exception on stuff like encoding media and editing media and such. Gaming though and most other regular stuff is AMD's territory and they absolutely offer better performance per dollar in this area and have chips equal to that of Intel in terms of stability. They have the fastest chips for gaming now, and some might say they run cooler than the top end Intel chips(data shows yes), which means you won't have a problem with overheating unless you run the chip without a heatsink and fan. I think the system would not work in that situation though. I think the large majority of gamers right now purchase AMD chips over Intel.

You can get an AMD 64 3000+ model on the Socket 939 as well, which is cheaper yet. The new AMD 64 Venice core CPU's are coming out soon, supposedly sometime in May, which are better than the current AMD 64 Winchester core CPU's.

1gig is a good choice for memory unless you want to shell out larger amounts of money into memory for the future and get 2gigs. Most games are fine with 1gig currently though, like Half-Life 2. Only few new game(s?) that have huge loading areas like Everquest2 or will see improvement with 2gigs of ram. In other words, for FPS games 1gig is fine.

You may notice there are large differences in prices on memory. If you purchase 1gig of memory with an AMD chip, I suggest getting two sticks of 512mb(512mbx2 is common with gamers) and then you can use it in a dual channel configuration for better performance on a motherboard that is dual channel capable. Most motherboards that can run AMD 64 chips have this option. There is lower-end memory which is cheaper, then, you can get higher performance memory which will run faster but is more costly.

You may, however wish to go with Intel. In this case, I do not know much about Itel.

Yes, the AMD FX chips are the fastest out, and very costly. Most people don't need these though. You can run Half-Life2 on AMD 64 3500+ chips at maximum settings and get good performance with an ATI x800 recent video card. The SLI video cards configured with two are the fastest, yes, but again they're very costly and most people don't even need them as it seems a single high-end ATI card will run most games as well as they can be.

Hopefully this helps somewhat.

 

[redrovermine7]

Thanks for the great info..

I'll be sure to get socket 939. Maybe I should get a PCI express card and MB (may run faster than 9800 crad we have now, for a little more investment).

Thanks for your help

 

[T.H.C.138]

from what I understand it will definitely be better than the card you have now..and it will be longer before you HAVE to upgrade it

 

[redrovermine7]

T.H.C. 138 need more info

I appreciate your response, but which graphic card are you talking about? the X800 listed by Reno's thread?

from what I understand it will definitely be better than the card you have now..and it will be longer before you HAVE to upgrade it

 

[holydeadpenguins]

GET THE X800XL!!! $300 or less U.S. Very nice card, got one soon after it came out. It equals the 6800gt whichi s 100 dollars more. Remember to get low latency ram, it usually is the same price as other ram but is often overlooked. My friend built a pc with an athlon 64 3500, 512mbs ram and a 6800nu for about 1100 dollars. I'd recommend getting the 3500 because it's the highest clocked winchester, but if you're not willing to spend that much money, then go for the 3000 or 3200.

 

[Muhahahaha]

I bought everything, as seen below, but my drives, for only about $1100-$1200 dollars (oh, and besides the LCD monitor ).

 

[Janet Reno]

There are several x800 cards out at the moment. From lowest performing to highest they list like this:

x800 pro <-----lowest performing x800 series, least costly
x800 xl <-----newer x800 card, offers pretty good performance for the dollar
x800 xt
x850 xt
x800 xt pe
x850 xt pe <-----highest performance but costly, less bang for buck I think


http://www.newegg.com has all these cards most likely. There are also Nvidia cards of similar performance but at the top end I think in most situations the top end ATI card outdoes a single top end Nvidia card. There are also lower levels of cards out from ATI and Nvidia like the 6600 series(Nvidia) and x700 series by ATI. And over the 9800pro card, the x800 series cards would be a jump in performance by like 2x or more.


Here are some charts showing card performance, pretty much comparing all of the PCI Express cards out right now on Half-Life 2.

http://graphics.tomshardware.com/graphic/20041222/vga_charts-09.html



Here are some other charts from a while back showing what other AGP cards can do in Farcry. Not as many x800 cards were out then.

http://graphics.tomshardware.com/graphic/20041004/vga_charts-08.html

And Doom3, which is where Nvidia shines. Probably the only case of which, though.

http://graphics.tomshardware.com/graphic/20041004/vga_charts-07.html

 

[redrovermine7]

Thanks Muhahahaha

I like your system, is there any part you regretor is it an all around good mid level system? Thanks I'll check it out, and i'll check out any further feedback.