[kasperl]

I'm looking at my next system, it's going to be a 64 bit comp for sure, and it should last me for the next 5 years.
My dad will buy me a AMD64 3k+, with a Asus K8V SE Deluxe DDR400 AGP8x LAN 1394 mobo, 512 megs of RAM, 80GB HD, DVDCDRW and a quite ****yy vid card, if I pay for all the custom stuff like extra mem, a proper vid card, and a DVD burner,
Now, my total top in spending is 250 euro, and this is going to be divided between upgrading mem, HD, vid card and optical drive.
HD's and mem, I can add later, when the price is lower, so waiting isn't bad. Sides, I get to keep my old 40 gigger out of my old box, so I'll have 120 GB. My only concern is the mem, I am not sure what will happen to the price of DDR mem, if it will stay where it is, or change a lot.
Vid cards are more expensive, however, if I add one now, I'll get the price of the crappy one off of the price of a good one (I'm using some configurator dealy). A R9800 is €170, aR9600XT 128MB €100, and a R9600 256MB 50 euro. These are all after trading in a GFFX5500.
A DVD burner is €80 if I buy it directly but only €30 if I trade the combo drive, so I'd very much like to have those 30 euro left over on the budget.
The basic system is this, all quite OK, but I'd like to upgrade it a bit.

* Paradigit Extreme X164 zwart
* AMD Athlon 64 3000+ Socket-754 + Cooler
* Asus K8V SE Deluxe DDR400 AGP8x LAN 1394
* Mem Dimm 512 MB PC3200 DDR 3 j. Gar
* WD 80,0 GB UDMA100 7200RPM 2MB Cache
* LG ComboDrive 52x32x52x16x IDE OEM Zwart
* XFX GeForce FX5500 128MB TV AGP8x OEM
* Sound On Board
* Network On Board
* Floppy Disk Drive 3,5" 1.44 MB Zwart
* PARA miditower ATX V-06BG 300W U-LN Zwar
* Microsoft® Windows® XP Home NL OEM + LIC
* Panda Titanium 2004 OEM Antivirus 1 jr u
* Software bundel incl. POP, IL2 & HW
* MS Works 2003 NL V7.0 OEM CD + LICENTIE
* Creative 2.0 SBS230 Zwart OEM
* Logitech Internet Keyb. OEM PS/2 Zwart
* Logitech Optical WheelMouse Prem. OEM Zw
* Garantie: 3 jaar Carry-In
(zwart=black)

Idea's, tips, stuff like that?

[aldo_14]

5 years?  It'll last about 1....

(not a criticism, just an observation of the computing market)

[kasperl]

I know, but I'm running a P3 800, 128MB SDRAM (64 originallly) with a R7k 64MB (TNT2 16MB orig.) and a 20GB+40GB(just the 20 gigger orig.) right now, so I think it'll semi-last.

[JR2000Z]

It's been said to death before, but get socket 939 for the motherboard. It will last much longer than 754.

[Grey Wolf]

Cost is higher though. If you're on a budget, then get S754 (but get a more reputable brand, preferrably Asus, Abit, Gigabyte, or MSI). If you can afford a 370+ USD CPU, get the S939.

[Stealth]

naaa that system will last you a long time.

get a second 512 MB stick of RAM.  the exact same one as your dad has.  thus you'll have 1 GB.

the motherboard you have is good, you'll be very happy with it.

save and get a relatively good graphics card.

[Grey Wolf]

Wait a moment, I misread the list. I thought the Paradigit thing was a motherboard. Shows what I get for skimming....

[Cyker]

Sorry, what did he want to know?

I was too busy drooling at the spec...
(*looks sadly at my old and busted compy *)

[Grey Wolf]

Hmm... Try getting to at least a Radeon 9800 Pro, if not a GF 6 6800 or 6800 GT.

[Kosh]

Radeons own!

And I know what you mean about having an outdated system. My desktop has a 3 year old Celeron & a cheap 3 year old motherboard (fastest memory it will support is DDR266).

And you can save many hundreds of Euros of you DL Office and Winblows, they are way overpriced. I don't recall if OEM versions have WPA, but if they do it is very easy to find cracks for it. I'd also recommend XP Pro over Home (if you are going to go that way).

I would recommend Windows 2000 over XP (if something says it will work on XP, then it will almost certainly work on 2k as they use the same kernel).


EDIT: If the motherboard sound uses AC'97, you might as well get a sound card. Lives are good and cheap (but their drivers need to be installed first, or else wierd things happen), but go for the Audigy if you can afford it.

[Grey Wolf]

The power for each company waxes and wanes in opposition to the other. For the last 3 generations, we've had this:

GF 4 Ti series beats the Radeon 8xxx series.
GF FX is massacred by Radeon 9xxx series.
GF 6 has a very slight lead over the Radeon Xxxx series.

Next generation, NV50 vs. R520, is, of course, still up in the air. All we know is they'll have PS3.0 or better. I'm personally hoping for 512bit memory access.

[Liberator]

Radeon does not massacre the 5900 series GF FX.  Everything I've read says that they break even on all but the max quality(all settings pegged) benchmarks and that the FXes are faster in most.

[Grey Wolf]

I was actually referring to the first generation of FXes, the 5800 series. There's also the fact that the FX line had image optimizations permanently locked on, similar to the current line of Radeon Xxxx cards.

Also, you also have to consider the midrange cards, where all but the most recent were behind the 9600s, IIRC.

[Kosh]

I was actually referring to the first generation of FXes, the 5800 series. There's also the fact that the FX line had image optimizations permanently locked on, similar to the current line of Radeon Xxxx cards.

Once the drivers were "optomized" for DX9 games, then the FX line could compete with the Radeon 9xxx. The 5800's were just jokes, and bad ones at that.

[kasperl]

Paradigit is the company /name on the case.

Office, I truly can't skip on. I might end up buying a student version together with my dad (meaning I'm the student, he pays, and everybody uses it), but windows has to be legal.
The only other mobo this store has to offer is a  MSI K8MM-ILSRB DDR400 AGP8x M-ATX S-ATA, which has only 3 PCI slots.

As for the RAM, is there any reason why I should skimp on the graphics card to get it? I mean, I can addd RAM later, easily, but if I don't get the cash from the current graph card, there is no way in hell for me to afford a R9800 or equivalent for the next few years.

I can upgrade the processor too,a 3200 instead of a 3000 costing €50. The rest are priced so much more I can't afford it.

[kasperl]

OK, that  sucked.

My dad just figured out some numbers after learning that the Dutch government just dropped some tax advantage for company's buying PC's for the employees. Now I pay 500 euros for the system listed above, with a mem upgrade, Radeon 9800 128MB and a 17 inch TFT. Mind, I get to keep some other old HD I bought earlier, so I'll have 120GB total, but still, I was hoping for a better deal.

[Ace Pace]

The specs are fine, the only 2 things I would change is the GPU, from a 5500 to atleast a 5600 or maybe a 5700 if you want to stay Nvidia, or a 9600Pro, the 5500 is based off the 5800 core, probebly the worse core reletive to the time that Nvidia launched.

The other thing would be the AV, but thats a personal preferance.

[Kamikaze]

ClamWin (using ClamAV), free AV program
Openoffice

[Grey Wolf]

Originally posted by kasperl
OK, that  sucked.

My dad just figured out some numbers after learning that the Dutch government just dropped some tax advantage for company's buying PC's for the employees. Now I pay 500 euros for the system listed above, with a mem upgrade, Radeon 9800 128MB and a 17 inch TFT. Mind, I get to keep some other old HD I bought earlier, so I'll have 120GB total, but still, I was hoping for a better deal.

Decent setup. Just make sure you have PC3200 memory, preferrably with a CAS Latency of 2.

[Ace Pace]

Well, if you got a 9800 I drop my objection, that card is a kickass card.

Grey Wolf, the CAS 2 latency is less importent if he's getting a 64 bit AMD which has a memory controller.
*rereads* ah, 754 socket, my bad, so the CAS is still importent.