Wishlist for NEW computer

[acidosmosis]

Hmm.. I recently made some changes on what I want in my new system at the beginning of the year (around December or January I will be starting to build it).

Instead of going with 5.1 or 6.1 sound I am going to switch to 4.1. At the moment on my current PC I just have 2 speakers which is more than enough for my preference but since you can get 4.1 for a decent price I am going to go with that.

Instead of the Antec Plusview 1000AMG (I already have this on my current machine, why use it on another one? Plus I want a case that is almost exactly the same but with a more square window without the 80mm fan mount) I'm going to go with the Silver Chieftec Server Chassis Workstation Tower.

Still going with AUS A7V8X motherboard, and SoundBlaster Audigy.

I thought about it some today and I figured it would be nice to go with the Radeon 9800 Pro. At the moment newegg.com is selling them for around $415.00 but by December or January they will have went down and I could always look on EBay and get a better price (probably).

I upped my choice for DDR RAM a bit up to PC3200 (400mhz). Still going with 512MB though. If need be, I will throw in a 128 or 256MB chip later on to add a little extra ram, but like we all know for gaming 512MB should be enough (at least in this day and time, maybe not in a few months hehe).



Specs: (prices are from newegg.com)
--------
Chieftec Server Case w/window $75.00
ASUS A7V8X 333FSB PC3200 $111.99
ATI Radeon 9800 Pro $415.00
AthlonXP "Barton" 333FSB 2.16GHz 3000+ $270.00
GeIL 512MB DDR RAM PC3200 $69.00
Hitachi/IBM 120GB 7200RPM Hard Drive $103.00
Hansol 720E 17" CRT Monitor 1280x1024 $107.99
Sound Blaster Extigy Retail $125.00
Cyber Acoustic CA-4400 30w 5pc Black Speakers $38.00



This system is primarly for gaming (same as my currenty 2nd PC)
so I don't need some great hitech sound, just decent sound.
The pc3200 DDR should eliminate the need for MORE ram for a while since it is 400mhz ram as opposed to my current setup with PC2100. I dont need a huge monitor (although a 21" would be nice hehe) and I believe 17" should be enough although I may end up switching to 19" in the future depending on what I can find. I don't plan on getting anything larger than 19" for another 3 years until prices drop to about $160 (long time huh?).



Anyway, what are your thoughts on my new decisions? As always I will be doing a LOT of deal-searching on newegg.com and EBay and some smaller sites depending on resellerratings.com's ratings for the particular site. If I find a better price I will go with it depending on if the hardware maintains retail specs (I won't be buying any underclocked Radeon9800 Pro's or fake Pro's).


Either way I think this will be a monster system.


Total price: about $1350.00 (before deal-searching)

 

[hdmk]

Are those speakers up to the job for only $38? They seem a bit too cheap to me.

As for the 9800 Pro - is it really worth the extra outlay on the 9700 Pro? If you want the fastest thing available (given that the FX5900 isn't out yet)..then sure, but it won't be that much faster...

and the 9700 Pro will be cheaper - but then I wouldn't upgrade from what you've got

Otherwise, it looks good to me

 

[acidosmosis]

Well I'm not upgrading anything, this is a totally new PC.

I thought about the 9800 pro not being any faster really, but then I thought well maybe as they release new drivers the 9800 will gain some extra speed. I'll have to wait and see. If I dont hear anything good out of the new drivers and 9800 Pro performance, I'll probably just go with another 9700 Pro

As far as the speakers.. I dunno I mean I dont need much. I dont want something terribly loud, just something that sounds decent, so I figure those speakers will do pretty well. And considering I only spent about $35 for the speakers I have now with 2 speakers + subwoofer (altec lansing) and they are VERY loud and very nice speakers.. these 4.1's shouldnt be very bad, plus im getting 2 more speakers for the same price that I paid for the ones I have now.

 

[dani_17]

I still don't understand why people always have to downgrade the monitor because of the price. I just recomend you go to at least a 19' monitor.

 

[JSR]

save

about a hundred plus on ebay.......for that radeon

 

[JSR]

no

a 21" refurbished sony flat screen for about 250...........it's a crt so it will deliver higher resolution than the lcd.........

 

[novicegamer]

If you can throw some more cash at your system I would get twinmos pc3200 so you will be running duel

 

[Tarkus]

A Via board over a nForce2 board? Considering the difference I've experienced in stability between the two I don't think I'll ever go back to Via. No accounting for personal taste, eh?

 

[acidosmosis]

Well I dont want a 21". 19" would be more than enough for me and 17" is sufficient. Plus I dont want to pay $250 for a monitor. About $150 is the most that I want to pay. I dunno, I just dont care very much about how great my monitor is as long as its a decent size and I can get at least 1280x1024 then I am fine with it

As far as nForce2 boards, I dont trust them with ATI cards. I dont want to take the risk of having problems. Unless maybe someone here has a Radeon 9700 Pro/9800 Pro with the nForce2 board and hasn't had any problems I might consider it. If so let me know the specific board you went with and I'll take a look at it.

As always suggestions welcome.

 

[young&wild]

Originally posted by acidosmosis


Specs: (prices are from newegg.com)
--------
Chieftec Server Case w/window $75.00
ASUS A7V8X 333FSB PC3200 $111.99
ATI Radeon 9800 Pro $415.00
AthlonXP "Barton" 333FSB 2.16GHz 3000+ $270.00
GeIL 512MB DDR RAM PC3200 $69.00
Hitachi/IBM 120GB 7200RPM Hard Drive $103.00
Hansol 720E 17" CRT Monitor 1280x1024 $107.99
Sound Blaster Extigy Retail $125.00
Cyber Acoustic CA-4400 30w 5pc Black Speakers $38.00



This system is primarly for gaming (same as my currenty 2nd PC)
so I don't need some great hitech sound, just decent sound.
The pc3200 DDR should eliminate the need for MORE ram for a while since it is 400mhz ram as opposed to my current setup with PC2100. I dont need a huge monitor (although a 21" would be nice hehe) and I believe 17" should be enough although I may end up switching to 19" in the future depending on what I can find. I don't plan on getting anything larger than 19" for another 3 years until prices drop to about $160 (long time huh?).



Anyway, what are your thoughts on my new decisions? As always I will be doing a LOT of deal-searching on newegg.com and EBay and some smaller sites depending on resellerratings.com's ratings for the particular site. If I find a better price I will go with it depending on if the hardware maintains retail specs (I won't be buying any underclocked Radeon9800 Pro's or fake Pro's).


Either way I think this will be a monster system.


Total price: about $1350.00 (before deal-searching)

I'd say ditch the extigy....useless cpu hogger and buggy too, get something cheaper and reasonable like the Hercules Fortissismo 3 7.1 Digital(bang for buck), M-Audio Revolution 7.1(Low CPU ultilisation) or Philips Acoustic Edge 5.1. Your system aint gonna be a monster, it lacks something special, a set of 4.1 Z560 Surround Speakers ($109.48).


Just me $0.02.

 

[acidosmosis]

Sarround sound speakers don't make a system a monster. It's power. Well, each person has his own definition of a "monster".
But, I mean seriously like I said regular 4.1 speakers are enough for me. Besides I have parents that would complain if I played something too loud. I can't wait to move out (again).

Hmm.. maybe I should change my mind about the Extigy, but I cant find ANY good reviews on sound cards anywhere. What I really want is something with lots of power (I dont care about all those extra useless features) just something that will make my CPU happy. Lately due to the lack of good reviews anywhere (yea Ive read probably 50) I just kinda decided to take the Extigy.

If you have some links to some good reviews let me know, but like I said I dont care about features just as long as the sound card runs on its own power as much as possible instead of my CPU.

 

[MrGaribaldi]

Sounds like sweet system, though I'd recheck everything when you're ready to buy...

One word of warning though... If you go with PC3200 on the A7V8X, you can only use one stick...
This means that adding in more ram at a later date would require you to either get a new mobo, or get a much higher density stick...
(I was thinking about doing the same as you recently, but after reading the manual decided for 1GB of PC2700 instead...)

As far as soundcards goes, the onboard sound does support 4.1 you know...
And it doesn't create any conflicts with anything, and doesn't hog resources

And you might want to check out the prices on an lcd... They've come down quite a lot lately... And by the time you start building they should have come down even more (and still be good enough quality...)

.02$

 

[JSR]

acid acid acid

no wonder you are a colonel......hehe..............what the friggin use is it to get a top notch video card and run lower rez on a smallish screen...........dude, you might as well just use the onboard video of some nforce 2 board..............I MEAN, you can have a butt kickin' graphics display for what you are spendin..........just use your noodle and make the pieces work............know your fsb and what is the limit.......which is pc2700...not 3200.....unless you are goin' to overclock..........save a few here and there.....go on ebay...........and shop that monitor........you WILL NOT be sorry...........i try to run all my games in 1600x1200.....and sony is the best.........seeing is believing.....of course i guess you military guys have to go at it with bread and water.....whatever floats your boat...........well, you ASKED........

 

[JSR]

nothing beats nforce's soundstorm

so there........it's onboard too.......more money to waste..........it beats audigy 2..................so why buy?

 

[acidosmosis]

Don't lecture me. What I do I do for a reason. Dont come in other person(s) threads with an attitude. Besides the point of this community is that everyone doesnt know everything. I posted this thread for suggestions. The suggestion to use onboard sound with the A7V8X was a good one and I am going to try that before going with a sound card.

If you can't make worth while suggestions and help others here without getting cocky then stay out because we don't need you.

 

[Arris]

Abit NF7-S v2.0 and Sapphire 9700 Pro 128mb.
No problems here running 8x AGP, Fast writes enabled etc...

 

[Mictlantecuhtli]

Originally posted by acidosmosis
I dont want a 21". 19" would be more than enough for me and 17" is sufficient. Plus I dont want to pay $250 for a monitor. About $150 is the most that I want to pay. I dunno, I just dont care very much about how great my monitor is as long as its a decent size and I can get at least 1280x1024 then I am fine with it

I'd get the highest quality monitor I can afford - after all, that's what you're looking at all the time when you're using the computer. It's not the case leds or 6.1 speakers or something. It's much healthier for the eyes too than cheap (and small) monitors.

 

[acidosmosis]

Ok, based on opinions and ideas of members posts here and in the chatroom I've decided on a few things:

I'm going with the A7N8X instead of A7V8X, and will be benchmark testing the onboard sound to see how well it will work for me, so I won't be going with a sound card right off. If the onboard sound works well for me I will stick with that.

I've decided on a 19" monitor with max resolution of 1600x1200.
I do realize the hz is something I need to pay attention to so I am getting a monitor with good specs. At the moment I've decided on a Orion 19"(model 9E9) for $157.00.

Also, for now I've bumped the ATI card back down to the Radeon 9700 Pro.

If you don't mind, take a look at the system specs changes that I've decided on for the moment, and if you have any further suggestions, let me know.

Click here for my NewEgg wishlist:
http://secure.newegg.com/app/WishR.asp?ID=313903


Again, thanks for your ideas and suggestions, and as always further ones are requested and appreciated

 

[Elcarion]

I think you've made good decisions with the 19" monitor, built-in sound, and 9700; however, many of these decisions are likely to change between now and December(7-8 months).
There are some things that you can use for a long time that don't get outdated quickly as do memory, cpus, mobos. Those things are: monitor, keyboard, mouse, and speakers. My suggestion is to spend more on these items and maybe even buy them ahead of time.
I don't recommend buying speakers or monitors based on specs. Most specs, if there is any industry standard, are typically open to interpretation. Good examples are dot pitch, watts, and distortion. They are only slightly useful without knowing how the test was performance and under what conditions. What I'm saying is that you should see and hear before you buy a monitor or speakers and that you should spend a bit more on these components. Definitely go with 4.1 surround sound at a minimum; this added much to the original Half-Life, IMO. Monitors are the #1 PC item that gets damaged in shipping. Be sure to buy from a place with a good return policy or consider buying locally.
I would go with a cheaper CPU that is a good overclocking candidate, spend a little extra on CAS 2 RAM over CAS 2.5, carefully decide on speakers and monitor with your eyes and ears, and upgrade the mouse to a Logitech MX700(or something you can touch). I consider the mouse very important as a gamer. Wait to consider the CPU and mobo until it's time to buy. Today's choices on these will change before you buy...

 

[acidosmosis]

Yea, I know prices will change, but I won't be buying everything at once. I will probably start buying the parts around August, and building them the latest in December. The only reason I am waiting this long is because I am going to Florida this summer and then possibly Canada around September.

And, I know my decisions may change, but this is a basis for me to start from. I make it a point to have a starting list of items that I buy and go from there instead of just one day looking and buying that day. This way you end up with a much nicer system when it is finished.

I buy all my parts from www.newegg.com www.frozencpu.com and EBay. If I happen to buy from any other source I check www.resellerratings.com before hand. Although some parts I buy from local stores such as OfficeMax. Usually I buy keyboards, mouse, and other smaller items from there because the prices most of the time are the same as www.newegg.com for the exact same item. Such as the network card I bought recently was the exact same card for the same price, just no shipping charges so I came out cheaper. I think about all these things before I buy anything. I end up coming out very cheap compared to a pre-built system that doesn't even have such high quality components as what I put in my system.

Overclocking -- may possibly do that in the future but I don't plan on it. If I do that I may use another system that is just laying around in case something goes wrong, as opposed to messing with my primary system.

Keyboard/Mouse -- hey I like that mouse, it's neat and for a good price hehe.

Sound.. hmm.. not looking for anything more than 4.1.. even a 2 speaker w/subwoofer setup is fine for me. I dont care that much about how great the sound is as long as its not crappy sound like you get from 2 cheap speakers. I definately have to have a subwoofer, but thats my prime concern. Although I would like to sample some 5.1/6.1 sound in games and see what the difference is. I may check out Best Buy and see if they have any options as far as testing out different sound setups in a game with 5.1/6.1 abilities.

Thanks for the help guys.