I am about to attempt to build my first computer. What do you think of the configuration I came up with? Do you think it would be a good gaming computer? I also use it for many other things such as pictures, videos, etc. Any input would be gladly appreciated. Thanks.

CPU--
Intel Pentium 4 EE/ 3.46 GHz Extreme Edition 1066MHz FSB, 2MB L3 Cache, w/ Hyper Threading Technology

Motherboard--
ABIT "Fatal1ty AA8XE" 925XE Chipset Motherboard For Intel LGA 775 CPU

Case & PSU--
ASPIRE X-Navigator Black/Yellow Aluminum ATX Mid-Tower Case with side window and 500W Power Supply

Memory--
GEIL DDR2 Series Dual Channel Kit 240-Pin 2GB(1GBx2) DDR2 PC2-4300 w/ Aluminum Heat-spreader

Hard Drive (2 each set at raid 0)--
Western Digital Raptor 74GB 10,000RPM SATA Hard Drive, Model WD740GD, OEM Drive Only

Video Card--
SAPPHIRE ATI RADEON X850 XT PE Video Card, 256MB GDDR3, 256-Bit, Dual DVI/VIVO/HDTV, PCI-E, Model "100101"

Monitor--
NEC/MITSUBISHI FE2111SB-BK 22" SuperBright Diamondtron CRT Monitor

looks good should cost you a fare amount,computers are never ending in improvements,You may want to wait since they are already working on some thing faster than 1066 MHz FSB and this is already new.

Looks good...but i like the AMD 64's when it comes to gaming :haha:

Looks to me like you are going a bit overboard there. You're getting some rather premium products... unless you have a huge wad of money to burn I'd suggest toning it down just a bit. You'd lose no noticeable performance and you'd be spending several hundred less.

I'd also suggest an Athlon 64 over a P4 EE any day. In terms of performance there is just no contest. The price difference isn't that much to write home about though.

Omg Dude Are You Rich?!

Looks like a real screamer. I'm starting my first build too in a month or so and would like to know how yours is going.

i would like to know how it goes also, that thing will kick some *** in games, u have to have a nice chunk of cash, if im not being rood how much did it cost.







swker98

I finished mine a month ago and it works great. Will never buy again. Specs are:
Thermaltake V7000+ case (5 fans)
Asus AN8-SLI Deluxe Motherboard (awesome piece of gear)
1Gb 2xCMX512-3200C2PT Corsair DDR 400 Ram
AMD 3500+ (939 pin) Newcastle Core
2x80gb Caviar Western Digital (8MB buffer) drives in RAID 0
1 XFX 6800 GT (will buy 2nd when price goes down and have an SLI system)
Blue Storm 500 460W PSU
Sony DVD16x/ CD 52 xR/RW
Sony Floppy
XP Home
MS Works Suite
Just over $1500 w/ shipping.

nice computer u got there great job

Thanks. With all the problems people are having getting the A8N SLI Deluxe to work right I feel fortunate that everything is running stable, fast and cool. Learned a lot and the price was right.

cool, im 13 and im building a computer in 6-7 months and its probibly gonna be an intel prosser and eather an AUES or ABIT motherboard

Swker98 I'm not 14, the 14 in Merc14 stands for F-14 which I use to fly, sorry. I'm way over 40. and added the 14 because there is another Merc on this forum. Anyways, the best advice I could give you is use the next 6-7 months to research everything so that when you plunk down the money all the parts are the best for the price and what you can afford and, most especially, they work well together. I can't emphasize enough that the research part is the hardest thing about building a PC. The actual assembly is relatively easy.

Time

:monkey: Time is the most emportant part of computer building I have Built more gaming rigs that I can count at this time with out oditing my own records.
first of all to anyone building a gaming rig go AMD Intel is junk for "M.M.D./G" Multi Media Delivery & Gaming, I have seem more Intel rig make like a christmas tree at LAN Parties then all the O/Ced AMDs put together.

I had an hard core Intel junky buy a rig off of me onetime, not knowing that is was an AMD rig and i realy didnot think to tell him because of the fact he seemed to know his stuff. Well about a day later he came back mad as heck that I sold him an AMD Rig I told him that it was a demo system and it was on a reduced rate, pointing to the "All floor sales final" Posting above me on the wall, I told him that I would give him a the best deal in town on a custom build Rig if he wanted and aside from that he would have to talk to the owner of the store. He seemed to calm down a bit and I called for the owner, who came down. After a bit of chat he walked out of the store with a deal, We would Build a system for him putting the best parts we had in stock one hard drive and ROM for nothing more then the cost of the CPU, MoBo, RAM, AND, GPU that boy walked out of there with a crazy system and it cost him 2Gs and us about 2Gs including loss of retail profit, a week later he came back with a friend and that kid dropped about 3.5G on a system and they are telling more friends. it was the best loss we ever took. the piont is you will see the diffrence with AMD over Intel.

I game with only AMD now I used to go Intel and still use the odd Intel but for very little now the 64 bit AMDs will eat any of the Intels and stay cool ontop of that when I plan to upgrade my AMD I know there will still be chips made with that chipset unlike Intel. Intel has even changed chipsets in mid production (that was dirty) and look at thier BTX case still not a standard after 3.5 years. Why the Athalon 64 3500 will kick most of the topend Intel CPUs and the 3500 still has Big bro; 3800, 4000 and FX55 the there is only one game ANY Intel can Beat the FX55 in and that is by so little it may have been a software glitch or a slightly defective FX55 chip for the cost to perfomance alone AMD is the way to go, But in the end it is your money do with it as you please.

Just at the next forum you are woundering why you got schooled a the benchmarks that realy matter to gaming and the real world you will have an idea why.

A8N-SLI Deluxe?

I have yet to have any problems with the A8N-SLI Deluxe MoBo I hear all kinds of problems with them. Tips Some of them still ship with the old driver get the newones if the are not there, I don't rember the driver numbers off-hand. Make sure your gronds are working and upto par new computers need them holding a computer case just won't cut it anymore. Read your motherboard book just because a company has done something the same way for 11 years don't count that it will be that way on the new mobo... the real big one there is a switch card for single and dual GPU cards before you ever suplie power to the mobo you most put the card to the correct setting and get you vid cards onto the mobo, I find this a good time to put RAM in some people say ram is the last thing to add... go ahead and try it on this mobo I dare you if you can get RAM in there you have smaller hands then mine and that is bad. get the mobo to post with minamum hardware eg ram sound and vid then shut it down and build up from there.

hi all, merc14 i was never under the impression that you were 14, im problbiy one of the youngest one here/ and i have been researching parts and the system will be intel prosser

No problem swker98. Good luck w/ your build amd let us know how it goes. i have to agree with secondguman though that AMD will give you more bang for the buck in a lot of cases. Also, save your $ up and get the guts all at the same tiem, don't spread out the purchase too much as things change rapidly. You can get the case, PSU and keyboards and such piecemeal but try and get the HDD, RAM, MoBo, CPU and graphics card at the same time and as close to build time as possible. Why? Prices go down on the good stuff as time passes (a $270 3500+ will probably cost $195 8 months from now) and buying all at once makes RMA's easier and ensures that all parts are as compatible as possible driverwise (although updating drivers never ends) and such. Also, do NOT skimp on the PSu. Get a good one with more power than you need. See THG for articles on latest PSU's
http://www.tomshardware.com/howto/20050228/index.html
and some bad ones
http://www.tomshardware.com/howto/20021021/index.html

for gaming you'd be best off getting an athlon 64. the board of choice would be the MSI K8n neo2, available for about $120 (USD). before you buy, i advise using google to do a search about your chosen parts and see what others have said.

thinkaththnaks guys for your imput. this is the compsion i think of when i thnik of AMD vs. P4


L2 clach: P4
prosser GHZ: P4
L1 clach: AMD
FSB: AMD
64-bit: BOTH
Price: AMD


This is the compariirison for the 3200+ vs the P4 3.2 GHZ 64-bit


From newegg all the comparesons


http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=19-103-500&depa=1



http://www.newegg.com/app/viewProductDesc.asp?description=19-116-197&depa=1

AMD and Intel utilize cache and RAM in completely different ways and the clockspeeds are not indicative of performance due to this. Think of it this way, for every click of the clock intel does one calculation while during that same click AMD performs 8. This is why a 2.0 ghz CPU is called a 3200, it is comparable to a 3.2 Intel. By running at a lower clockspeed the AMD CPU's tend to be cooler than Intels. They also address the RAM more directly thereby negating the need for large cache (expensive) memory and are 64 bit ready. This is a very simplified explanation but you can go and research it more deeply. Bottomline from all this is that the Intel you refer to is $285 and the comparable AMD is only $175. $100 savings for an arguably better CPU is a big argument.

You're Missing Something

I didn't see a soundcard in there...onboard is ok...but even with everything that you have there even the oldest games might not work. Take me for example I had an old factory IBM as described in my profile and at the time I was farely young and had my mom go and buy the game Aliens Vs. Predator...u know it's an older game. Well it never worked right...the sound would skip horribly on the 1st cinematic scene and I would not be able to play it...well u see the system I have now. Well just recently I bought the Audigy 4 sound card but before I had it...I tried playing the same game expecting the obvious that I'd play it at max settings with my 6600 gt well it did the exact same thing as the IBM did...I asked a friend about it and he told me I needed to get a soundcard. Well I then got the audigy 4 and the game works just fine now...it looks to me like u are going to be gaming with that rig. So I would definately take this into consideration and also get a soundcard.