Please help with new rig?

[fragless]

Hi All,

in the next few weeks I will be building my first pc ever, in the past a m8 always did my building so after 2 years of no upgrades I decided it was time I got a new pc.

Below are the components and prices I have set, I have a budget of £1200.00 and no more, the case and psu I will be buying next week, and there price is not included in the £1200.

I play a few games, quake, fear and fps game, I dont always play games and mostly the rig will be for burning and converting dvd's and also I'm a sys admin for a popular web host.

(I hooe with the above details that explains better what type of rig I need?)

CPU AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+ 2.2GHz Socket 939, 2MB, BOXED w/fan £337.74
RAM (2x1GB) Corsair DDR400/PC3200, DIMM,unbuffered,CL2, PROseries £202.04
CASE Silver Thermaltake Window Tsunami Dream Case VA3000SWA £69.95*
PSU Thermaltake TR2 430W PSU PC Power Supply Silent £29.95*
GFX CARD Gigabyte GF 7800GT SLI 256MB DDR3, PCI-E, Dual DVI £211.03
MOTHERBOARD DFI LANPARTY nF4 SLI-DR SKT939 £135.00
HARD DRIVE 1 Western Digital Raptor WD360GD 36.7GB Hard Drive £80.00
HARD DRIVE 2 200 GB Maxtor DiamondMax 10 SATA lead free UDMA150 16MB Cache £65.00
DVD DRIVE 1 Lite-on SHW-16H5S-01C beige DL lightscribe DVD +/-R/RW oem +s/ware £40.00
DVD DRIVE 2 Lite-on SHM-165P6S-02C Super AllWrite DL DVD +/-R/RW/RAM Beige, black & silver bezels Retail £40.00
MONITOR 19" Samsung SM930BF TFT 4ms Black/silver+DVI +angle pivot 700:1 3yrs Onsite £250.00

I'm already over budget, so any help on selections I have made, are alt products would be a great help?

Thank You

[kasavien]

Unless you plan to overclock the system i would suggest getting cheaper ram and a cheaper motherboard, most people won't use all the features of that DFI board i would suggest something like this:

LN9153 Asus A8N-SLi (Standard), ATX, DDDR400, PCI-E, Gbit Lan, USB 2.0, 1394, 8ch Audio, 4 x SATA, Raid £82.92 link

LN9106 2Gb (2x1GB)Corsair, DDR400, non-ECC, 2x184 DIMM, unbuffered, 2-3-3-6, Silver H/S, L/T Warranty £174.71 link

you could even get 2Gb of corsair value select which would be cheaper still, just because memory is priced higher doesn't mean you will see much difference in performance at stock speeds.

you may want a better PSU also (430W should be more than enough for that system), i'm not sure how good thermaltake are having not had any experience with them. something with modular cables would be good so you can only have the ones connected that you need and it'll keep your case tidy and improve airflow.

Everything else looks ok although black optical drives would look nicer and you may need a floppy drive for the SATA drivers.

Hope this helps

Andy

[Jonny]

Get a floppy drive, only £5 ish and they do come in useful.
Do you need an SLi motherboard? Are you going to get two GFX cards in future?
Is that the cheapest you can find the Raptor? I swear you can get the 36Gb version cheaper than £80...
Are you going to overclock? If you are, I would suggest a better CPU fan.
Do you want quieter/LED case fans?

[aidanjt]

Just shopping at overclockers.co.uk:
Akasa Eclipse-62 Aluminum Case (£88.07)
Tagan TG530-U15 430W ATX2.01 Easycon SLi PSU (£55.17)
Asus A8N-SLi SE nForce4 SLi (£82.19)
AMD Opteron UP 144 San Diego 1.8GHz 1MB Cache (Retail) (£140.94)
G.Skill 2GB DDR HZ PC4000 (2x1GB) CAS3 Dual Channel Kit (£152.69)
Leadtek GeForce 7800GT 256MB GDDR3 VIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (£211.44)
Western Digital Raptor 74GB WD740GD 10,000RPM SATA 8MB Cache - OEM (£116.27) *NOTE* you're not gonna get many games/software installed on 36GB
Samsung SpinPoint P SP2004C 200GB SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM (£68.09)
Liteon SHM-165P6S-09C 16x DVD±RW/RAM (Black) - OEM (£30.08) *NOTE* Lightscribe disks are very pricy, think twice. and what do you need two burners for?
Samsung SM-913N 19" LCD Monitor - Silver (8ms, fine for games) (£199.69)

Your total: 1460.71
My Total: 1144.63 + you have more reliable components. and a CPU that can clock like an Athlon FX57

[fragless]

Hi Everyone, thanks for the comments....

I will not overclock, so the cheaper ram and different mobo might be a good idea, I dont plan on having 2 gfx cards just the 1 should be more than enough for what I will use the pc for!

I will get a floppy, was looking for a floppy with the inbuilt card reader's but cant find one that offers xd memory reading (yet) I also do want to include some fans and led's to make the case look nice

The prices I quoted were the max, some parts are cheaper when shopping around.

Please keep your comments coming it all helps, and I want to ensure when this system is done its perfect for me

[aidanjt]

Actually you're not really overclocking where the Opteron 144 is concerned, the multiplier is unlocked so you don't even need to touch the HTT bus, you can put the multiplier up to at least that of a 4400+ even with a crappy stock cooler.

[fragless]

Just shopping at overclockers.co.uk:
Akasa Eclipse-62 Aluminum Case (£88.07)
Tagan TG530-U15 430W ATX2.01 Easycon SLi PSU (£55.17)
Asus A8N-SLi SE nForce4 SLi (£82.19)
AMD Opteron UP 144 San Diego 1.8GHz 1MB Cache (Retail) (£140.94)
G.Skill 2GB DDR HZ PC4000 (2x1GB) CAS3 Dual Channel Kit (£152.69)
Leadtek GeForce 7800GT 256MB GDDR3 VIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (£211.44)
Western Digital Raptor 74GB WD740GD 10,000RPM SATA 8MB Cache - OEM (£116.27) *NOTE* you're not gonna get many games/software installed on 36GB
Samsung SpinPoint P SP2004C 200GB SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM (£68.09)
Liteon SHM-165P6S-09C 16x DVD±RW/RAM (Black) - OEM (£30.08) *NOTE* Lightscribe disks are very pricy, think twice. and what do you need two burners for?
Samsung SM-913N 19" LCD Monitor - Silver (8ms, fine for games) (£199.69)

Your total: 1460.71
My Total: 1144.63 + you have more reliable components. and a CPU that can clock like an Athlon FX57

Hi,
I really want to stick with the dual core 4400+ spent weeks looking for what would be the best between intel and amd and then what chip I want from amd, also the SM913N I currently have one, and the monitor I picked to replace it is 4ms (grey 2 grey) and has dvi, which the 913n does not have.