completly new comp on a budget

do hardrives really affect gaming though?

and also what r some other good socket 939 boards that dont use SLI.

i plan on getting a 2nd card next year and will only be using 1 till then so i was thinkin i could get a non sli board now to save money now

hard drive speed really doesn't affect gaming that much. Don't believe the hype about burst rates - often advertised on the packages. What really counts is SUSTAINED rates. A regular 7200rpm hard drive will be fine for most people. IF you MUST have a faster hard drive then sure, a faster speed is better.... you might shave a second or two.... a WHOPPING second or two..... whooppee....

Very true, but deny a second here, a second there, and pretty soon your hardware is lagging behind by 30 seconds!

I would think it could help for games in the sense of, when the game first loads, and all those hundreds of megabytes are being dumped into RAM. And when levels change and so forth, when new data is being retrieved. But it would be debatable whether it helps your FPS any, I doubt it.

Still, a faster hard drive, think of it, Windows boots up faster, your programs load faster, defrags are done quicker, drive searches finish faster. Almost every task you perform on your PC, starts with some data being retrieved from the hard drive. The added speeds, over time, could very well be noticeable.

THE RAPTORS ARE GOOD BUT THE MEMORY IS KINDA LOW FOR GAMING, I suggest getting western digital 160 GB if u r a hardcore gamer,

my computer is for gaming and video editting hence i use 2 seagate 400 GB SATA's which are very good and large storage as u can see.

but within your budget i would suggestv the Western Digital SATA 160GB

if u r changing your mind and wanna break your budget

then get wat i have, my gaming computer is in the IS this a good computer thread, my video editting computer is just 4 GB ram with the 400 GB memory

Good luck with your computer choice anyways!!!

well if one has the buckazoids to spend money ad naseum on technology then sure, get a faster drive. As far as I am concerned a few seconds isn't worth the added expense and it isn't really noticable.

400gb hard drives? I can't conceive of even filling up 60gb. I have several rediculously huge hard drives on my computers and I don't think I have ever filled up more than 40gb... even with all my games.

Reading is Fun!

good post. Yesturday i cudnt speil grageate. 2day I r one.

Okay that expains it thanks maybe just maybe I will get one. I am going to check out ebay

any suggestion about ram? i had wanted to get 1gb stick so i wont have any 512 sticks left over when i upgrade to 4gb but what ever is cheaper NOW.

Who needs 4gb of RAM?? I played some of the latest games of today, HL2, BF2, Doom3, none get even close to filling my 1gb. Perhaps tomorrow's games will reach 1gb. Or if you are a video editor, or work on extremely large graphics, perhaps you may want 1.5 or even 2gb. But I really don't think there is practical purpose these days for 4gb of RAM in a home computer. It won't be used. And Windows ALWAYS uses hard drive cache, whether you like it or not.

If your mobo has 4 slots, consider getting 2 1gb matched pairs (2 * 512). Get Corsair or OCZ. With a lifetime warranty. Matched pair 1gb kits are usually better value then a single 1gb chip, but not sure on that point, haven't looked them up in a while. Or if your mobo has only 2 slots, well then go for the 1gb chips.

That's my take anyway.

hey thanks for the info about ram. i guess i do some browins for corsair and ocz and i guess ill just fill up 3 slots with 512 sticks. if ill never really need 4gbs.

anywyas here is a case i was thinkin about getting. Thermaltake Soprano VB1000SWS.

heres it on newegg.com http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16811133146 . most of the reviews seem alright besides having a flimzy front panel but they say it is cool and quiet.

check it out and tell me what u think. or if u got any other suggestions.

Hmm, if you have 3 slots, it may be worth while to invest in just one 1gb stick. Or put 1*1gb with 2*512. Cause with hard core gamers, 2gb is not uncommon. But if you do 3*512mb, well......1.5gb may be on the middle lower end of a high-performace gaming machine.

With 3 slots, does the mobo handle Dual Channel? If it does, then Dual Channel will NOT be supported on 3 slots if you have all three filled. Thus the better way to go would be either get a 4slot mobo so you can fill all four and have dual channel. Or with a 3 slot board, get 2*1gb and leave the 3rd slot empty, so you can have dual channel with 2gb of RAM. That would be optimal I think.

As for the case, I was looking at that one myself, I'm leaning away from fancy do-da so called "gaming" cases with loads of plastic and huge side windows which makes the side panel flimsy. I'd like a simple, elegant case, with solid construction.
But any sub-$100 case is bound to have some flimsy pieces. A $150+ case, perhaps aluminum, would be my next choice.

If you want to see a handfull of awesome cases, minus all the really junky ones Newegg has, check out the offerings at www.xoxide.com. Tell it to show all cases, and see what they got. Pretty cool stuff there.

have fun!

im plannig on gettin a 4slot mobo that supports dual channel. i was just saying fill 3 slots with 512 mb sticks.

and also im not into fancy cases either. i just chose that one cause it is cheap and it has good cooling.

also my budget is 1000 dollars. NO MORE. thats all i can spare.