[Rand al Thor]

Right I'm getting me a new computer and this is what I've come up with. I know enough about computers to do it (at least insofar as putting it together) but this is the first time Ive actually tried so can I get a few opinions. Is it good, are there any glaring mistakes? I think the price is decent enough as well for the sytem. Eagerly awaiting your thoughts. So I can buy this mother!

Thanks!


Maxtor DiamondMax 10 250GB SATA 16MB 7200RPM NCQ - B-grade
104
   
Samsung 17" LCD Syncmaster 710T TCO03 Monitor, Silver - B-grade
295
   
Cooler Master Centurion 5 Black/Silver (Without PSU)
77
   
NEC DVD±RW burner, ND-3550A, 16x, Dual, Black OEM
44.5

Samsung Pleomax 8x DVD+R 4,7GB 50-pack Cake Box printable
20
   
XFX GeForce 6800GS 256MB GDDR3, eXtreme, PCI-Express, 450Mhz/1.05GHz, Retail
291.01
   
Corsair Value S. PC3200 DDR-DIMM 2048MB Kit w/two matched Value Select 1024MB
193

AMD Athlon 64 3700+ 2.2GHz Socket 939, 1MB, BOXED w/fan
233

Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe, nForce4 SLI, Socket -939,S-ATA,Dual-GbLAN,Firewire,PCI-Ex16
157
   
Creative SB Audigy SE , Bulk PCI, 7.1 Surround, 24-bit/96KHz, EAX2.0
29.9   
   
Creative Inspire T6060 (5.1 Speaker system)
78

Total:    1522.41

[Martinus]

*screams in horror*

"Maxtor DiamondMax 10 250GB SATA 16MB 7200RPM NCQ - B-grade"

Maxtor 10's are pretty flakey. Getting a B grade one is asking for a whole lot of lost info. I advise 2 80gig diamondmax 9's, reliable as hell and easier to work with than one huge disk.

Where are you buying this gear from?

[CP5670]

Looks pretty good, but I would suggest getting a different motherboard. The three original A8N boards all had various bugs and were poor overclockers. The newer A8N-SLI Premium reportedly fixes many of these issues, although an SLI board isn't worth the extra cost if you're not going to use the SLI functionality right away. Also, the prices for that case and memory are rather expensive. I have that case myself and it costs about $50 without the power supply, while the memory can be had for closer to $160.

"Maxtor DiamondMax 10 250GB SATA 16MB 7200RPM NCQ - B-grade"

Maxtor 10's are pretty flakey. Getting a B grade one is asking for a whole lot of lost info. I advise 2 80gig diamondmax 9's, reliable as hell and easier to work with than one huge disk.

Where are you buying this gear from?

They aren't any more or less reliable than other brands, but yeah, I wouldn't use a refurb drive for anything important.

[Rand al Thor]

Yeah that was my big concern. Its listed as fully repaired and Tomshardware gave it a pretty decent review .Still checking out what else there is.

Its all so far from komplett.ie. Was thinking about doing more scouring for prices but it all seems to be pretty decent. I did see that about the case price, again, tomshardware siad aboout 50 at best. But where do you get you ram?

[Martinus]

As I see it it's hard to amass 250gigs worth of nothing important.

I read a lot of reviews of that specific HDD for a friend, lots and lots of bad experiences. You're right about the SLI, throwing money at a feature you probably won't use is a poor choice where you could use it to get a better non-SLI mobo.

[Rand al Thor]

Oh and Maeg, I've already got a smaller drive so that'll be my system one. And its big because I've got loads of stuff to store. And yeah its not critical but Im always really slow about burning stuff.

Buttt, since you pretty much vocalised what I was thinking, I'm gonna go with

Seagate Barracuda 7200.8 250GB SATA 8MB 7200RPM NCQ

I've used them before and never had a problem.

Hmmm, I was thinking I might buy a second card in a couple months. Again Ill have me a think.

Cheers for your thoughts so far.

[Rand al Thor]

I've decided to scrap the monitor too. Went for the next samsung model. Only €15 dearer and a 4ms response time. And the Seagate was only €20 more so....

Hmmm ending up a bit more expensive then I thought. Ah well wasnt actually planning on getting an LCD.

[CP5670]

I read a lot of reviews of that specific HDD for a friend, lots and lots of bad experiences. You're right about the SLI, throwing money at a feature you probably won't use is a poor choice where you could use it to get a better non-SLI mobo.

On second thought, I think I know what you're referring to. A lot of people have reported problems with certain nforce4 boards and this drive, and the optional Nvidia IDE driver doesn't like it either. That Seagate does look like a better choice and most likely is quieter too even if it's slightly slower.

Its all so far from komplett.ie. Was thinking about doing more scouring for prices but it all seems to be pretty decent. I did see that about the case price, again, tomshardware siad aboout 50 at best. But where do you get you ram?

Try Monarch or ZipZoomFly, if you're in the US. They both have those sticks for $164.

Hmmm, I was thinking I might buy a second card in a couple months. Again Ill have me a think.

The 6800GS is actually reported to be a limited production run that may be discontinued once Nvidia brings out lower end versions of the G70. You might be better off getting one of the stock overclocked 7800 GTs for about $300, especially since SLI in general has some big issues with vsync. I have an SLI setup but will be going back to a single card when the G71 comes out in a month.

[Rand al Thor]

Unfortunately like Maeg, I'm Irish so we have to add about 20% to american prices. And thats on top of the exchange rate. Ah well, its the price we pay for inefficient government spending and a derelict country transport system (but I live in dublin so what do I care, Mwahahaha).

Ill have a look at another card and motherboard so. I haven't used sli since the voodoo2. Although that may have been on of the (previously) last capable cards. It went out of practice for a long time right?

Cheers!

[Rand al Thor]

Hey, one more question if anyone else is gonna read this. Will I need to get a separate heat sink or will there be one included with the processor?

[Rand al Thor]

No, I got another one. About graphics cards. Why is the 6800GS so much cheaper than the 6800GT, even though its core clock is 75MHz faster? About €50 cheaper.

[Martinus]

Hey, one more question if anyone else is gonna read this. Will I need to get a separate heat sink or will there be one included with the processor?

Well the description says w/fan thus I'd assume that you're getting the retail version, it comes in a nice 'shop' box whereas the OEM versions are cheaper because you just get the chip. The heatsink also has a handy wee square of thermal paste on the base so it's a tidy job to get it installed.

As for the being Irish bit, I'm technically also a UK citizen, unfortunately since I'm not UK mainland I pay an extra £15 to £20 for postage. They charge even more if you live in the Republic. Gits.

[Rand al Thor]

Well you can understand that, you got the overseas shipping cost and then the extra boarder crossing expenses :.

Well I think Ive done enough himing and hawing. Time to buy.

[CP5670]

Ill have a look at another card and motherboard so. I haven't used sli since the voodoo2. Although that may have been on of the (previously) last capable cards. It went out of practice for a long time right?

The old 3dfx SLI is actually quite different from Nvidia's current SLI and they only really have the name in common. In general, I've found that SLI (the modern one) gives tremendous performance increases in almost every game as long as the resolution is high enough, but due to the half-broken vsync, several older games have so much tearing that they are nearly unplayable and only work well in single card mode. In it's current state SLI is only really suitable for newer games because of this problem.

No, I got another one. About graphics cards. Why is the 6800GS so much cheaper than the 6800GT, even though its core clock is 75MHz faster? About €50 cheaper.

The GS has 12 pixel pipes and 5 vertex shaders while the GT has 16 pipes and 6 vertex shaders, which make up for its lower core frequency. Their actual performance is very close; the GT is slightly faster overall, but the difference is very small and they both overclock equally well. The GS is a better choice for the money right now, at least on PCI express.

[Stealth]

diamondmax10s have a ton of problem with nforce4 boards, yes... i just recovered from the exact same problem.  basically the only real fix is to upgrade the firmware on the drives, which you have to RMA to maxtor to get done