Questions about choices on rig?

Kind of a lurker here, but a lot of these threads and reviews on this site have been helpful to me. My rig now is o.k. but I am slowly building another one buying a piece each paycheck. I have bought a Visiontek Geforce 4 ti 4400, 2 512 sticks of corsair 2700 ddr ram, and waiting on 2 special edition WD 80 gig hard drives that are in the mail, the 8 m buffer ones. O.K. that is what I have bought so far, Now I am planning on buying these and wanted opinions on products since this is my first rig from scratch!

- Asus a7v333 with raid for the hd's
- AMD Athlon 2200+
- Ling-Hi or Skyhawk Aluminum case with a good size wattage ps
- Probably CDRW cause DVDRW format is still up in the air
- Have LG DVD rom already
- Have soundblaster live 5.1 value, thinking of going audigy gamer
- Monitor will be bought with money from selling current rig, but suggestions would be nice, CRT flat 19 or 21 inch.
- Still looking into speakers

Not planning on overclocking now, but may in the future. Anything I left out, other than basics (keyboard, mouse etc...) or suggestions would be helpful. Mainly a gamer here, and don't want an Intel, know the 4's are now beating AMD, but I am not rich and am an AMD fan.

Unless you buy $300 speakers there is no need to upgrade the sound card. I've got the Samsung Syncmaster 955DF and i am very happy with it. It's 19 inches, with .20mm Horizontal Pitch and .24mm diagonal. It is part of the DynaFlat which means it is perfectly flat, its not an LCD though.

Personally i found the SB LIVE 5.1 card to be reasonable, there is lots of quality and value in it..so basically i agree with phatman.
Speakers.....what speakers do you previously own..what do you use them for gaming or watching dvds?

Speakers, Monitor

Thanks for your input, the Samsung Syncmaster 955DF is one of the monitors I am currently looking at as well as the Vision Master Pro 452 and 454. My speakers now are 5.1 surround generics that work with live but not in surround. I am currently thinking about buying these -http://www.americas.creative.com/products/product.asp?product=188&category=180&maincategory=

So I guess everything else was a reasonable decision on board and cpu, ram etc...?

Thanks

Well, I'd probably say to go with an 1800+ instead and Overclock it.

I'd also ask the main function of this machine. Are you doing graphics and video manipulation or other things that require large amounts of RAM? If not, I wouldn't pour money into RAM that is just going to sit there.
Personally LCDs give me a headache and there is the ghosting and dead pixel problems.

Just a few things to think about.

If you have the space stick with a CRT monitor. LCD screens pixel response times are getting better but for games you still can't beat a CRT. I was going to go with an IIyama monitor but I picked up a Samsung 957DF (European version of Phatmans monitor, apparently slightly better refresh rates) and think its great. Just have to bear in mind that I went from a generic 17" monitor to ths Samsung so I don't have any experience with any other flat monitors to give a valid comparison based opinion (well I have used Dell Aperture Grille monitors with Sony Trinitron tubes which are not bad but they don't seem to have focus controls ). Also worth noting is that if you get a Shadow Mask monitor like the Samsung 957DF then you don't get the couple of balancing wires across the screen that Aperture Grille models display.

CRT Characteristics
Webopedia's definition of :
-Shadow mask
-Aperture grill

CPU... I would possibly follow Stormbringer's suggestion if you are looking at thoroughbred XPs. They haven't shown to yield very great overclocking but if you can find a site that sells them by core type (like with the athlons AYIA, AXIA etc) then you should be able to pick up an XP 1800+ Thoroughbred that should run at least at 2000+ speeds without problem. I haven't read anything yet about the 2200+ overclocking very much at all. Generally the XP Thoroughbreds have been a bit of a disappointment. Just as well I am hanging on until the Hammer/Opteron comes out

thanks guys

I thought that those iiyama monitors were crt flats?? I don't want an lcd, my roomate has one and I do notice the ghosting. I should have been more specific but gaming is my main use, but I also pretty much use my computer as my stereo and my dvd player (svideo out to tv) right now. As I said I already bought the RAM and I figured overkill is much better then underkill, I have 384 now and can't run some games without closing a bunch of tasks that run when I don't need them. The 2200+ is a .13 micron chip that I thought might be more stable and run cooler. When is the hammer due anyway? I might be able to wait, and is it also a socket A chip?

thanks again

The iiyama monitors are CRT flats. Sorry I had picked up on the mention of LCD from a previous reply. I think the Mitsubishi Diamontron M2 screen is a Aperture grill tube which means a very sharp clear display but you will probably have the couple of visible balancing wires running across the screen. I actually wish I had gone for the 454 even though I am perfectly happy with my Samsung monitor. I just couldn't be bothered with ordering it over the web and waiting for it...
Unfortunately due to the huge number of pins for the hammer, its going to be a whole new chipset (AMD8000) and socket. It is not compatible with socket A boards what-so-ever, its going to be a complete system upgrade if and when I switch over to it.

Socket A on future AMD processors?

Hotter?

I have read numerous times that the oc potential of the 2200+ is minimal, yet every review I have read says that the .13 micron core runs cooler, and I did doublecheck many respectable sights before posting. I am still planning on buying the 2200+ as I am interested and curious to check it out. Don't want to wait for the Hammer! The coolermaster fan I will recieve with motherboard and chip should suffice, again thanks for the input.

Just curious but why not go with a P4? Right now they're outperforming the AMD chips and you can OC the heck out of the Northwoods (i.e. 1.6A's). I have an AMD, but if I were to build my system now I would get a cheaper Intel chip and overclock it. Plus, you could get a board that is compatible with the new 533FSB of the Intel's so you can upgrade when the price of the 2.53's come down.

Again this is just a thought, as you could be a die hard AMD fan, but you can't deny that Intel is winning the battle right now, at least until the Hammer's come out. Other than that is seems you've got yourself a nice system with all that ram and hd space.

amd

I like AMD, especially after the tactics that Intel is using to lure the publics clueless toward "higher clock speed is all that matters", is there anyone that has a 2200+ that dislikes it? I am going with AMD and the T-bred is their newest effort, and still very inexpensive compared to Intel chips. Also I've read good reviews on th MoBo that I am ordering and wonder if any of you have used it?

Re: amd

Intel has been using that tactic for years.

Will the Thoroughbred really be much cooler ?

Intel tactics

I was refering to the relatively new tactics of Intel. They paid the Aberdeen Group for a white paper with very biased subjects. Here is a funny view on this lol -

http://srd.yahoo.com/goo/athlon 220...://www.geek.com/discus/messages/321/6865.html

Re: Re: amd

I was a victim of this tactic until I got my hands on my current Duron Rig!


Hmm...refurbished DDT 2200 for around 59.90..i think there is good value but based on stats seems a bit weak. Anyway go for it if you prefer quality sound rather than loudness! The choice is yours.