£1000 budget, advice please

[Rhodan]

Hi all,

I'm looking to build a gaming rig, so some advice would be appreciated. I've priced up the following at overclockers.co.uk:

MSI K8N Platinum nForce3 250 (Socket 754) Motherboard (MB-022-MS) £69.95
GeIL 1GB (2x512MB) PC3200 Value Dual Channel Kit CAS2.5 (GE1GB3200BDC) (MY-005-GL)
£104.95
AOpen GeForce 6800 Ultra 256MB DDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI (AGP) - Retail (GX-002-CO)
£329.95
NEC ND2510A Dual Layer 8x DVD±RW ReWriter - OEM (CD-007-**) £46.50
Samsung SpinPoint P SP1213C 120GB SATA 8MB Cache - OEM (HD-011-SA)
£51.00
Antec Sonata Piano Black Quiet Case - 380W TruePower Silent PSU (CA-003-AT)
£69.95
AMD Athlon 64 3400 (Socket 754) - Retail (CP-071-AM)
£179.95
Total £1,001.40

Now i'm not sure what to go for really, socket 754 or 939 ? I don't want a VIA board, so only nforce will do. I have a monitor, keyboard and mouse. Suggestions please ?

[mike_w]

I would recommend Socket 939 over Socket 754. Socket 939 is faster (and more expensive, although prices should drop in the near future), and will let you upgrade in the future.

[daniel_owen_uk]

You not having a cpu?

[mike_w]

You not having a cpu?

Then what's this?

AMD Athlon 64 3400 (Socket 754) - Retail (CP-071-AM)
£179.95

[daniel_owen_uk]

My word I am going blind

I take it all back

System looks good although you may be without a graphics card for a while.

[LayZeh]

Water cool it all.

[Riley]

Asus A8V Deluxe (Socket 939) Wireless Edition Motherboard (MB-063-AS)
£75.50
GeIL 1GB (2x512MB) PC3200 Value Dual Channel Kit CAS2.5 (GE1GB3200BDC) (MY-005-GL)
£104.95
AMD Athlon 64 3500 (Socket 939) - Retail (CP-086-AM)
£214.95
AOpen GeForce 6800 GT 256MB DDR3 TV-Out/DVI (AGP) - Retail (GX-001-AO)
£255.00
LG GCE-8525BL 52x/32x/52x CD-ReWriter - (Black) OEM (CD-018-LG)
£17.30
Sony DRU-700A Dual Layer 8x DVD±RW ReWriter - OEM (CD-031-SO)
£51.60
Hitachi Deskstar 7K250 160GB SATA 8MB Cache - OEM (HD-020-IB)
£57.50
Antec Sonata Piano Black Quiet Case - 380W TruePower Silent PSU (CA-003-AT)
£69.95
Subtotal £846.75
VAT £148.19
Total £994.94

What have you got against VIA? There chipsets are currently faster than any Nvidia chipset out currently.

Hope this helps.

[BenW]

i think that riley's system looks better except i would go for the samsung hard disc, scrap the CD-RW, keep the NEC DVD-RW instead of the Sony

You will then have a bit left for something like an after market heatsink for the CPU

[Riley]

i think that riley's system looks better except i would go for the samsung hard disc, scrap the CD-RW, keep the NEC DVD-RW instead of the Sony

You will then have a bit left for something like an after market heatsink for the CPU

Just outta interest why are the Samsung hard discs better? Same for the NEC DVD-RW?

[BenW]

i don't have any of the bits i said about but from what i've read......

Samsung Drives are very quiet (I asume thats important to Rhodan because of the Sonata) and are meant to be very fast

The NEC seems to be more popular than the Sony, thats all

[mike_w]

For hard drives, I prefer Seagate. They're reliable (never had one fail), come with a five year warranty, and, in my experience, are pretty quiet as well.

[Rhodan]

Thanks for all the replies and advice !

Yeah i want a quiet system, so thats why i'm going with a Sonata. What do i have against VIA ? Well i had a VIA chipset motherboard in the past, and was not all that impressed with the incompatibilites and problems i encountered, they may have improved since then, but i will only consider the nforce for now.

So do i go with the socket 939 then ? Sigh, decisions, decisions ....

[[GSV]Trig]

TBH I wouldnt bother going AMD64 atm...

Mobile Xp2500
NF7S-2
1Gb PC3200
9800Pro
17" TFT
80Gb Maxtor SATA boot
200Gb Storage
DVD/RW

[Rave]

Wait until PCI Express boards and graphics cards come out for A64. Much better upgrade potential that way, plus you'll probably save a bit.

If you need a PC now, buy a cheap Athlon XP setup* and OC the hell out of it, then sell it on for a small loss when the PCI-E stuff comes along. I reckon you'll still come out ahead overall.

*EG NF7, 2400 mobile, s/h 9700 or 9800.

Rich :¬)

[Firelord]

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....

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!

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

Trig, his obviously out to built a high end system so why would he get a 9800 Pro?

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

At the end of the day if you have the money and you want to do it, do it. If not then wait abit but imho now is a fantastic time to be upgading

[Firelord]

Imho give ocuk a miss and use a decent e-tailer like Komplett, scan or micro direct. They are far better companies, check out romulous2 if you don't believe me and peoples comments on here

Also A64 loves CAS2 and really uses it well (in my findings doing video encoding and benchmarking) so I would consider some CAS2 ram