Help me build a gaming system

[Poirot]

Hey all, Im New so hello to you all, I came here looking for advice on building a gaming system. This is going to be a ramble of a post but please bare with me lol.

I've been out of the PC 'Game' for a while (no pun intended) so kind of lost track with all the new stuff.

My last system was a
P4 2.8 Ghz
Radeon 9800 pro
2gb Crucial DDR400

It served me really proud but i've long since sold it and now have £1000 to get a new one.

I've read Vauls sticky to building a new rig and that REALLY helped me alot so many thanks on that vaul... real good idea.

Mainly need asisstance on Graphics card, and RAM. As im going to go with what vaul said and get the sockt 939 mb and an amd 64 (3400+)

But with graphics cards...i get really stuck, I dont really want to opt for SLI so don't worry about that area.

Now I'm kind of thinking ATI as my 9800 pro served me great so wouldn't mind sticking with ATI(and pci-e im assuming is the route to go for new hardware), But my problems are on the scan website there are absolutly LOADS of ATI x800s (which i would prob be going for, unless someone has a good reason for me to consider the nvidia route, which im open to by all means)

HELP??? lol

256mb, DDR 3, DDR 2, pipelines this, clock speeds that. I know what it all means but it doesnt help me upon choosing a card.

For example, Some of the x800 cards have what appears to be almost extact same specs but have almost as much as £80 price differences...

Can someone, ANYONE point me in the direction of a superfast graphics card at a relativly sensible price, (£300 mark)

RAM, another issue i need help on.

DDR 2, ,533mhz etc what do i get?? im thinking 512 to a gig, but of what lol?

I wont be overclocking really...just want quick, stable ram...

If i can get those two main issues sorted i can cope with the rest on my own (HD's, Sound, Monitors etc)

Thanks for anyhelp you can offer me.

H. Poirot.

[mike_w]

Personally, I wouldn't go for ATi - the 6800s seem to be the better option. However, both the 6800GT and X800 Pro are decent cards. Sorry I can't be more specific, just saying that nVidia should be a consideration.

As for RAM, you want to get at least 1GB. You can get expensive low latency RAM - however, I don't think this is worth the extra money (+50%) over decent budget RAM like Corsair Value Select. In games, it is only supposed to be about 5% faster at the most.

[Stephen B]

I've owned both X800 and 6800GT's, both my current rigs have X800XT and X800XTPE respectively, not because they are significantly better than the 6800GT, just that they are less power hungry and quieter with stock cooling than my 6800GT was

You will get tons of people who will fight to the death telling you one is better than the other and if you care about that issue good luck deciphering the facts from the bsht. Bottom line is one card will outperform the other in one test and vice versa

memory I would get 1 gig minimum, my Shuttle rig has 1 gig BH5 with 5,2,2,2 timings and my Dell system has 512 meg 400mHz DDR2, again if benchmarks are your thing get the faster stuff, my own preference would be for more rather than the fastest, i.e you could maybe afford 1.5/2 gig of Value ram as opposed to 1 gig of the absolute fastest available and I find more ram helps with map loading in games

I should point out that neither of my rigs are currently overclocked, my Shuttle has a 3.4EE chip XTPE and a Gig of fast DDR and since I got the EE haven't bothered clocking it, as it has more than enough grunt at its disposal, with the AMD chip you will have even more power if you are playing HL2 for example. My other machine is a Dell one and the 2.8 P4 really slows it down in comparison, so I'd personally get the fastest cpu you can afford and pick up a reduced or 2nd hand x800xt and forget about the 850 series as it don't appear to offer much of a performance increase for the extra cash

going rate for 2nd hand x800xt on a PCI-E £200-£240, i got one from ebay last week for £220

[nvening]

£1000 inc monitor? 17" gaming tft £250. nforce4 ultra mobo £90, the dfi when it comes. 3500+ £180, the 3400+ is not skt 939. The x800xl is abt the same performance as the 6800gt and is just £220. A seagate 200GB £75. £140 on some matched ram, 1GB. A tagan psu £70. Nec dvd DL £40. Case £80. £1145, bit much, but its a start at what ur looking at.

[Poirot]

Hey all, thanks for the replys all very helpful, but especialy Stephen B, yours i found most helpful.
Sorry i forgot to mention i already own a monitor... So thats not a problem.

:-)

[nvening]

Hey all, thanks for the replys all very helpful, but especialy Stephen B, yours i found most helpful.
Sorry i forgot to mention i already own a monitor... So thats not a problem.

:-)

get a raptor (HDD) for game loading then

[spazman]

£1000 inc monitor? 17" gaming tft £250.

Wernt Aria doint 17" 16ms screens for less than £150?

[Poirot]

and who said anything about tfts anyway, Everyone rules out CRT nowadays, but for image quality etc a toprange crt that costs about as much as a midrange tft still can't be beaten in my opinion.

[BlueMagician]

and who said anything about tfts anyway, Everyone rules out CRT nowadays, but for image quality etc a toprange crt that costs about as much as a midrange tft still can't be beaten in my opinion.

Very well said, sir..

S.

[nvening]

I said that because most people what a tft. It would be stupid if i said abt a crt is it was unlikely that he wanted one. I agree that crts are better in some ways but people want tfts.

[RDL]

I also agree with you on the CRT front. I'm still a proud owner of many, although I do also have myself a TFT.

As for RAM, if you have no plans to overclock then get some Scan OEM PC3200. 1gig costs £80 incl. VAT (with 3-3-3-8 timings) so you might even be able to afford 2gigs of it.

There are a lot of X800s being sold around the place, so keep a look out for a deal. Like Stephen said, you can get a bargain, so check out ebay etc.

[LouG]

Does that scan oem ram really go to 2-2-2-5? What voltages does it need to get these timings?

[RDL]

It goes to 3-3-3-8 (edited). It just doesn't overclock well. They are standard timings, so standard voltages.

[LouG]

Cool, I might get myself some of that then. Which ram is it on the page they have several OEM ones, is the gig just one stick or is it two 512 sticks?

[RDL]

It's two sticks.

[RDL]

Sorry about that man, it's actually 3-3-3-8, I just checked as I got mixed up. I'l edit as appropriate.