New Gaming Rig...

[Ben_]

try playing it on this beast :

p4 2.66, 512mb ram, radeon 7500 pro

not a pretty sight

[Ben_]

ok, having given this a bit of thought i have decided i cant be bothered to wait for conroe, and i dont want the hassle right now of building my own. So i will buy a panther from Scan and that should do me fine for the time being. Then when conroe is released and the price has dropped a bit, i will buy a conroe and a new mobo and ram, and install that in my panther. I will also transfer the amd board (from the panther) into my current pc along with the ram and cpu. This will give me a bit of experience in messing around inside pc's, for when i decide to build my own (maybe round vista time? or a bit sooner if funds allow)

im interested to know what u guys think to this idea, but bear in mind im really impatient and my hols are coming soon so i really want a new box to play with! The only other alternative i can think of is to buy a 360 to keep me going until the conroe comes out. But the problem with that is ive never been mad into consoles due to the controls. i can realistically see myself playing with a new pc for a week of my holiday tho!

So heres the panther spec:

Default Products
1 Abit AN8 32X NF4 SLi, S939, PCI-E (x16), DDR 400, SATA I / II, SATA RAID, ATX
1 AMD Athlon 64 3800+ Socket 939 ,Manchester ,2x 2.0 GHz ,1MB Cache, Retail
nVIDIA Graphics
1 1GB XFX GeForce 7950GX2 - IF SELECTING TWO CARDS YOU MUST SELECT 900W PSU!
System Drives
1 250 Gb Samsung SP2504C SpinPoint P120, SATA300, 7200 rpm, 8MB Cache, 9.0 ms, NCQ


upgrades:

there are a few things that need upgrading, just need to choose to what:

AMD Athlon 64 4400+ Socket 939 ,Toledo ,2x 2.2 GHz ,2MB Cache, Retail (£139.95) add £49.96
AMD Athlon 64 4600+ Socket 939 ,Manchester ,2x 2.4 GHz ,1MB Cache, Retail (£139.89) add £49.90

monitor

20" Dell 2005FPW TFT ,1680x1050 ,12 ms ,600:1 ,300 cd/m2 ,Grey (£318.89) add £318.89
20" Viewsonic VX2025wm TFT ,1680x1050 ,8 ms ,800:1 ,300 cd/m2 ,Speakers, Silver/Black (£240.99) add £240.99

thinking of adding a mouse too:

Logitech MX518 Silver Gaming-Grade™ Optical Mouse (£27.79) add £27.79
Razer Copperhead Laser Gaming Mouse Tempest Blue LED - USB - 800/2000 dpi, 32KB Memory, Onboard Bios (£39.93) add £39.93
Razer Diamondback Optical Gaming Mouse Plasma Blue LED - USB, 800-1600dpi on the fly (£27.95) add £27.95

or one of these packs:

ZBoard MERC Gaming Keyboard Black (£21.99) add £21.99
Microsoft Wireless Desktop Comfort Curve Design Keyboard Mouse V3 (£27.32) add £27.32
Logitech Ultra-X Cordless Media Desktop Midnight Black (Keyboard+ Optical Mouse) PS2/USB (£26.49) add £26.49
Logitech Cordless Desktop S 510 (£26.49) add £26.49


the MERC looks pretty cool ?

ive held a logitech mouse before and it didnt feel very natural to me, probaly due to years of microsofts, so maybe i should avoid these

i think ive included most of the important upgrades but there are others incl. fan and psu and OS (upgr to xp pro..)

the page is here if anyone wants to look:

http://3xs.scan.co.uk/ConfigureSystem.asp?SystemID=469

i await your advice again!

edit: i forgot to mention that the ram seems a bit slow (ddr 400mhz) ... how much of an issue is this? the box will mainly be used for gaming

[rainbow]

yeah scan seems a good place

building urself seems a bit tricky tho
i dunno how u know where the plugs go and which way the screw the motherboard into the case n stuff

mate an idiot could build a pc these days it so easy, and as for screwing in and plugs and stuff, imo i bought a haynes manual ( the ones that do cars) that was building a pc, i mean if you payed me the postage i could send it too you as i dont need it anymore

its like an idiots guide to building a pc. is good though i was 15 and built my first with it and worked fine

[Ben_]

dont u think the panther is good enough for that price tho?

if i was gonna build my own i'd just use this guide:

http://sysbuild.corsairmemory.com/re...spx?id=2&sid=1

and the motherboard manual

but the panther seems cheap to me? and it would be here with me playing on it by mid next week

[rainbow]

its always ALWAYS cheaper to build it yourself. scan dont pay gu7ys to build the macines if there is no mark up on the system, you vcould be playing on a built system by you on weds too, takes about an hour and a half to build a pc, and then you have learnt how to do it, so when u need to change the ram, gfx card ect, u know exactly how and just wack it out. plus its more satifsfying doing it yourself. why [ay some1 money to do a job you can do?

[rainbow]

just saw the other thread and they said dispatch is the 14th of august lol so that isnt weds, if you buy all the parts monday u have them tuesday build it weds and then play it thurs and beyond, why are you scared about building one for yourself?

[Ben_]

im scared of having no warranty and messing it up somehow. ur right that it would take longer to arrive if i order a box from scan. u think i could build the pc using just this guide here:

http://sysbuild.corsairmemory.com/re...spx?id=2&sid=1


i dont wanna start buying books and waiting for them to arrive etc, wanna get goin with this straight away

if i build my own i guess i would order the stuff today so could u reccomend a spec for me (of stuff thats available now)

for example the x2 5000+ is out of stock

[rainbow]

erm that link doesnt work, man you cant mess things up thess days it really si so easy, and i would just say buy whats in the panther with a differnt case and see how much less it is??

[Ben_]

i fixed the link it should work now

[rainbow]

that will be fine

[Ben_]

ok, i looked at the individual prices and its £281.56 cheaper to build myself.. quite a saving, especially when that represents a substantial amount of the total price of all the components.. .

so u think that guide alone would be enough for me to build the box?

only things im unsure about is how you know which way the mobo slots in, and also how u know what to configure in the bios.. seems they had to change latencys and stuff (without overclocking), i dont even know what latency means

there would be a big saving tho and it would probaly be quite interesting

if you think i could do it with that guide alone then what components should i go for ? it seems it would make sense to upgrade to AM2, the 5000+ looks good. and what gfx card, mobo, ram etc.. i know bugger all about this stuff so im not aware of what anything means and any compatability issues, so if im gonna build it myself i really need someone to say right, u have 1100 heres what to get

[No.72]

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatal..._Monitors.html look at those and diside what you want

[Ben_]

thanks i need more than just a monitor tho

[No.72]

hay ben make sure you get a x 1900 xt from oc uk for like £240 under offer!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[No.72]

2gb of ram like G.Skill 2GB DDR2 LA PC2-5400 at http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatal...ll_Memory.html

[No.72]

looky here dont buy a seprate unit. ok, ask your self are you are scared retard. No so plz buy your computer in bits, you will fell bad after spending sooo much and not doing a thing, and that you could have got better making it the custom way. Do it you will thank your self. I did