new rig purchased opinions?

[Dataisgod]

Howdy comments on my new rig please

Antec plusview 1000
Antec trueblue 480W
xp 2500+ oem (wanna take it to 3200+)
thermal right slk 947u
abit nf7-s
powercolor radeon 9800 pro
512mb corsair xms 3500 (1 stick knows it not dual channel will get another 512mb later money permitting)
160Gb seagate s-ata hdd
enermax 92mm adjustable fan for heatsink
vantec stealth case fans


drives salavage from old computer and query should i use my audigy as the sound card or the onboards sound of the m/b

cheers

data

[luke313]

Thats a nice spec you got there Its down to personal preference to choose between the Audigy and the onboard Soundstorm. The majority would say use the Soundstorm as it does not use cpu cycles and wont use up precious pci bandwidth IIRC.

[Merlin]

nice rig, i'm about to purchase something very similar myself (2500+ in NF7-S). the audigy will provide better sound quality, but unless you're doing a lot of audio editing or similar, you probably won't notice the difference.

[Austin]

Very nice. IMHO it doesn't make any sense to use the Audigy, sell it on and use that cash to add another RAM stick or something. Have you had much chance to play with your new PC yet?

[Dataisgod]

nah not yet the parts are just arriving and i'm buying the case on friday some one will put it together for me earlier next week and happy days then i hope

[Dataisgod]

question does anyone think i should have gone for a p4 2.6c option with an abit IC-7 mb for an extra £100 pound?

I didn't think the performance gain would be worth it and used the money to put it into the graphics card instead

[Platty]

stay with the AMD if it allows a better GFX card.

[chrisf6969]

Even though I'm an Intel SLUT, I would probably recommend the extra £100 on graphics. Now if you can afford the Intel system plus a $200-$300 graphics card all the better.

But graphics cards do so much for a system.

Then again having 5900Mb/s of bandwidth can help too.

P.S. You can save some money by getting the Abit IS-7 instead. I've built systems with both and the IS-7 is just as fast as my IC-7.

[Austin]

Originally posted by Dataisgod
question does anyone think i should have gone for a p4 2.6c option with an abit IC-7 mb for an extra £100 pound?

I didn't think the performance gain would be worth it and used the money to put it into the graphics card instead

The P4 2.6ghz 800FSB is a great o/c'er like the XP2500+ and would have been faster and esp in general Windows perf where HT really helps ... but £100 better ... not really. As covered if you're into gaming at all the place to spend that extra money is the gfx card (although going for better than a Rad9800PRO is practically impossible). I don't think you can really beat the 'price to perf' and sheer ease of o/c'ability for SktA, you get a LOT for your money.

[iamwhoiam]

i'll give you £100 for it including p&p

[Dataisgod]

what do 2.6c typically overclock to out of interest?

[Platty]

should be getting 3.2 Ghz and over really

[chrisf6969]

the recent ones all hit 3.2Ghz easy some with extra voltage, some at default voltage.

If you're going to get one try to get one from a vendor that sells a lot (high turn over) so you get one "hot off the press" If you go in to a store check the codes for the most recent production dates.

A lot of places are selling the 2.6C at the same price or less than the 2.4C. But just a tip, the 2.4C may overclock more b/c it will probably be a more recent chip since they have been selling like crazy. Where the 2.6's have been sitting on the shelf longer and just recently came down in price. So you may get older inventory chips.

As you can see my 2.4C does 3.6 at default voltage and runs pretty cool with a low noise air cooler. (Vantec Aeroflow 478)

[chrisf6969]