£1000 budget, advice please

[Rave]

i would do it mate personally If you wait then it comes to upgrade something new is round the corner and its like hmmm maybe I should wait....

Yeah, but right now something major is around the corner, and that's PCI-E. After that there's not so much to be waiting on; DDR2 boards/A64 processors will probably be the next major change, but you'll be able to use your PCI-E graphics card with them.

PCI-E A64 boards aren't gonna be out for a while iirc not as soon as Intel boards and current gfx are pap for PCI-E X300/600 anyone!

Um, A64 PCI-E boards are due later this year. NVidia are planning on making their NForce 4 chipset SLI compatible (unsurprisingly enough).

Remember AMD isn't planning a socket change again for a while so if you go A64 3500+ now you can always switch the board to a PCI-E board when they arrive

Um, that depends on how you define 'a while'. They'll need a new socket to support DDR2, and with PC3200 likely to be the last JEDEC standard, they'll need to support DDR2 at some point, probably next year.

Why is now not worth the upgrade to A64. It seems ripe to me tons of new stuff coming out all the time!

Why is it not worth going now? Because an overclocked barton/9800 type system still plays the latest games perfectly well.

I'm largely parroting Ed from www.overclockers.com here, but he's usually right in my experience.

Rich :¬)

[Riley]

But what's the point in PCI-E right now? It's like the change from AGP 4X to 8X it's not really necessary and it doesn't offer any performance advantage. It just future proofs for the graphics cards which can make use of the extra bandwidth the PCI-E gives, which "old" AGP 8x will not be able to give and it would be a bottleneck. This isn't going be for a few graphics card generations yet. You are basically paying a premium for something that isn't needed.

If you used a Nvidia 6800 in AGP 4x, I doubt that the performance would be hit much, if not atall compared to AGP 8x, or PCI-E.

DDR2 is crap, what's the point in it if doesn't offer any performance advantage and in some cases it's slower? Just look at the new Intel 925 chipsets...

[Riley]

Updated from earlier:

Asus A8V Deluxe (Socket 939) Wireless Edition Motherboard (MB-063-AS)
£75.50
AMD Athlon 64 3500 (Socket 939) - Retail (CP-086-AM)
£214.95
NEC ND2510A Dual Layer 8x DVD±RW ReWriter (Black) - OEM (CD-008-NE)
£46.50
Antec Sonata Piano Black Quiet Case - 380W TruePower Silent PSU (CA-003-AT)
£69.95
AOpen GeForce 6800 GT 256MB DDR3 TV-Out/DVI (AGP) - Retail (GX-001-AO)
£255.00
Samsung SpinPoint P SP1614C 160GB SATA 8MB Cache - OEM (HD-012-SA)
£59.95
Subtotal £721.85
VAT £126.33
Total £848.18

+

Crucial Ballistix 2x512mb (1GB) DDR PC3200 • CL=2 • Non-parity • DDR400 £170 Delivered with the discount

Total: £1020
EDIT: Replace the Asus A8V with a MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum (nforce 3), for £20 more

Not a bad system overall...

[Aaron]

Looks good, but please consider buying from a website other than overclockers.co.uk. Their customer service/returns system is woeful.

[[GSV]Trig]

I've never had a problem with returning stuff to OcUK, infact I've never had any trouble with them whatso ever, this thread isnt an OcUK bashung thread, maybe hes getting it from there as they have all the parts he wants, usually its easier to get everything from 1 place than to get bits and bobs from 2-3 different places then what u save in cheaper bits u end up paying in delivery...

[Aaron]

Ask Vaul about problems with ocUK.

There's lots of places where you can get the same/similar gear. Dabs, Komplett, etc. The one advantage of ocUK is that they've got a pretty good range of cases and they provide images/info on them (though don't trust any external links they provide as their stock is sometimes difference - the Sonata case they stock does not come with an SATA power cable on the PSU). If you can find the same case elsewhere, then my personal opinion is that it's not worth risking buying it from ocUK.

Link to ocUK's rating on Hexus Trust.

As I said, nice computer spec though.

[joely]

i just got 750 quids worth of stuff from scan the other day and they were great, quick on time etc etc they even threw in some free speakers, were cheap as anyone else too.

[[GSV]Trig]

Dab's wouldnt be so bad if there website wasnt so shi, rubbish....

[Rave]

But what's the point in PCI-E right now? It's like the change from AGP 4X to 8X it's not really necessary and it doesn't offer any performance advantage. It just future proofs for the graphics cards which can make use of the extra bandwidth the PCI-E gives, which "old" AGP 8x will not be able to give and it would be a bottleneck. This isn't going be for a few graphics card generations yet. You are basically paying a premium for something that isn't needed.

Yeah, but the current 6800/X800 generation are likely to be as good as AGP cards get. The reason for buying PCI-E now is not that it performs any better than AGP, it's that if you want to upgrade to a top of the range card next year you'll be SOL if you've got an AGP-only board.

DDR2 is crap, what's the point in it if doesn't offer any performance advantage and in some cases it's slower? Just look at the new Intel 925 chipsets...

The point is that it uses lower voltages and in future will be able to ramp up to 400MHz+ (800MHz DDR). 4-4-4-8 timings at 800MHz = same/faster latencies than 2-2-2-6 at 400MHz, and for reading/writing large chunks of data it'll be a lot faster. DDR2 is not much use now, which is why AMD don;t support it yet. It'll be good in the future, and at that point AMD will respin the K8 architecture to support it. If you read my post again, you'll see that I didn't advise him to wait for DDR2 A64 boards, just PCI-E boards. I merely noted that sometime in the future, there'll be a new socket for DDR2 A64s.

Rich :¬)

[redbird]

if u are looking for a quiet syatem seagate sata is best(www.quietpc.com)
also the sonnata case interior space is small power supply only 380w if u are getting the ulta u prob need a higher psu.
socket 754 only uses single channel memory

[Leo]

AMD Athlon 64 3500 (Socket 939) - Retail (CP-086-AM) £214.95

MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum (Socket 939) Motherboard (MB-027-MS)£89.95

GeIL 1GB (2x512MB) PC3200 Value Dual Channel Kit CAS2.5 (GE1GB3200BDC) (MY-005-GL)£104.95

Galaxy Glacier GeForce 6800 GT 256MB DDR3 TV-Out/DVI (AGP) - Retail (GX-003-GL) £269.95

NEC ND2510A Dual Layer 8x DVD±RW ReWriter (Black) - OEM (CD-008-NE) £46.50

Samsung SpinPoint P SP0812C 80GB SATA 8MB Cache - OEM (HD-010-SA) £41.00

OcUK Value Floppy Drive - Black (HD-001-OK) £6.50

Antec Plus 1080AMG Metallic Gray File Server Case - 430W TruePower PSU (CA-001-AT) £77.50

Subtotal £851.30
VAT £148.98
Total £1,000.28

[Galant]

A little extra work, but you might end up saving inspite of the postage - www.pricewatch.com

Very cheap prices, USA stores.

It might be worth a look-in.

[vk2003]

Just wondering whether a SATA drive is worth it ...
I know they are faster and there is little price difference with an IDE drive but sure I read somewhere (anandtech: http://www.anandtech.com/guides/show...px?i=2138&p=11 ) that SATA drives not so good for ocing.
My money is on seagate barracuda 8mb cache drives as v quiet, reliable and excellent warranty..

Am watching this thread with interest as am in process of building an fx53 machine myself, and have yet to order an HD!