gOOters December 17, 2002 Share gOOters Member December 17, 2002 Well, I have the opportunity now to finally upgrade to a new computer. I am too Nub to know what to get though! My current comp is very out of date and I will be needing a new mobo/processor, RAM, and video/sound. I already have a case and all the drives... What should I be looking at for around $500? Should I splurge for a great nForce2 mobo? Thx for the advice! So far I am thinking Asus nForce2 Mobo (built in sound for now) AMD XP 2000 ATI 9500 Pro (unless I can wait till 9700Pro price drops) 512 DDR (PC3200) Total: $566 Most importantly, WHERE should I buy from??? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fatty December 17, 2002 Share Fatty GC Founder December 17, 2002 I'm right with ya, bro. Yesterday I informed my family that cash and major credit cards will be accepted this season. Where I get messed up is the motherboard/case/cpu deal...what goes with what.... I think I'm just going to keep my existing PC and add one more to my collection....not sure though... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fatty December 17, 2002 Share Fatty GC Founder December 17, 2002 I'll be using A 2 Z Computers which is somewhat local. I'll lose on tax, but I can still reach them. NoGood used them...they put whatever you buy together for you free of charge. When I do the build your own thing though, I get lost at, as I said above, the motherboard part and what case matches up with it. I'm sure they would tell me if they weren't compatable.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Playaa December 17, 2002 Share Playaa Member December 17, 2002 yeah...I know how to build pc's and do it cheap...but when it comes to mobo/power supply/cases I'm a newb and always but a pre-built bare bones system that includes all those combined... *shrug* I just learned yesterday the nForce mobo has an onboard Geforce2 MX Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gond December 17, 2002 Share Gond Member December 17, 2002 Well, I always like using the Mid-Towers...usually have plenty of room to work and lots of extra spots for drives. Best bet is to get a 300w power supply in it. Usually under 90 bucks for a nice one. Motherboard...well, pick a chip and then find the board that works for it. You can go crazy with some boards and get them with RAID support & all. I used to hate the integrated sound and all but now I'll build on the integrated sound and integrated network. Just make sure you DO NOT GET A MOBO WITH INTEGRATED VIDEO. These usually don't have AGP slots. You also want one with 2x4x8x AGP. I've been very happy with the 9500 pro video card I got last week. All games I could not play before I can now...BF1942, Jedi Outcast. I can even put the smoke nades on slowest, best looking and have no lag!!! Hope that helps some...I'm sure if you post the chip you want here someone will suggest a good mobo. Also, I've used Gigabyte and Asus in the past with good luck. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Draco December 17, 2002 Share Draco Member December 17, 2002 too..... much..... computer..... information Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DJ Premier December 17, 2002 Share DJ Premier Member December 17, 2002 www.tomshardware.com Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest ZDamage December 17, 2002 Share Guest ZDamage Guests December 17, 2002 You have the right step. I have been building computers for years. THis is what I normally do for people who asks these types of questions. Go higher quality but with a lower price. The Asus nforce-2 board is nice but waaaay over priced. The EPoX 8RDA+ which is the nforce board by them is very nice and highly acclaimed in its price and over clockabilty and speed and stability. These are all plusses no matter how you look at it. AND unless you will be doing proffesional sound studio stuff that requires the inputs, you will not need a new sound card at all. The onboard sound of the nforce-2 is top notch. When it comes to a case. Just make sure it is ATX compatible and most of them are now days. Your board will fit just fine. Look at the chieftech towers. I got mine for 65 with shipping several months ago. Mine has a window on the side and came with 4 fans. The window side pops right off, the full towers are easier to put together and has more room for air flow. If i want to put in a new drive, it is easy. I pull the lever, pull out the mini adapter thingy (what it is called is beyond me), pop in the HD or Floppy, put in a few screws, put it back in the case and pop the lever back on. SO easy. The CD-ROMS are the easiest to put in. no power supply but that is easy. you can get a 350-400 watt ps for 20-50 bucks. You do not want to go any lower than 350 though. I will post more later. I need to get to work. Before you buy a video card, do not touch the GF4's. they are waste. You can get a Radeon 9500 Pro for the same price or cheaper and it out performs them all. and it supports DX9. Ask Gond. =) ZD Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fatty December 17, 2002 Share Fatty GC Founder December 17, 2002 I don't mind putting the computer together, but what I do mind is buying from several different places. Sometimes things just go bad or are bad, and I hate shipping stuff back or doing RMA's. That said, the aforementioned company A2Z Computers gave me the following online quote. What I would ask is for you to tell me this is way off, because I can select all these same things from anywhere. Also, if there's something in here that's bad, tell me. Thanks for allowing me to piggy back on your post, g00! AMD Athlon XP 2100+ (OD256k) 266 1.73 GHZ BO - $99 ABIT AT7 Athlon/Duron/XP Socket A ATX 3GB D - $124 Thermaltake Dragon ORB 1 for ATHLON 1.5GHZ+ $24 DDR 512MB PC-2700 333MHz Memory Micron/Sam $129 WD WD400BB Caviar 40GB UltraDMA-100 7200Rpm $89 ATI RADEON 9700 PRO 128 MB AGP VIDADPT AGP W - $329 TEAC 1.44mB INT FD PS/2 GRN LED - $14 SONY (DDU1621) 16x DVD-ROM 40x CD-ROM INT A - $42 3Com 3c905B-TX-NM Fast Etherlink XL PCI Rj4 - $55 Creative Lab Sound Blaster Audigy X-Gamer P - $85 ANTEC SXB35II CHAS ATX FT 12V 350W P/S 3.5 $89 Microsoft Windows XP Home ED CD Full VERSION $86 (upgrade was same price? weird) Grand total: $1165 I've decided I don't want to tear my existing PC apart because it's still a very good PC that can be utilized as is, and the other PC that I have also functions well. Ok, guys, rip it apart and learn me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gOOters December 17, 2002 Author Share gOOters Member December 17, 2002 NP Fat. Looks good to me!? One thing, for about $20 more, you can upgrade to the NF7-S this has AGPX8 and allows you to upgrade your processor later to one with a 333MHz frontside bus. I dont know if the regular NF7 has these options. Of course, I really don't know what AGPX8 and 333FSB really are anyway! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Playaa December 17, 2002 Share Playaa Member December 17, 2002 the only thing I wouldn't buy out of that bunch is the Hard Drive Fatty... I paid the exact same price for my 80gig IBM hard drive which is MUCH better than a non-name-brand 40gig Hard Drive and compatability issues aren't a big thing there.... also make sure the mobo doesn't have onboard LAN capabilities before you buy the extra PCI card Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gond December 17, 2002 Share Gond Member December 17, 2002 I think the HD is a good one...It's a Western Digital...probably with the 8mb buffer...nice drives. Per the posts from a previous topic & research on the video card...you can save $100+ and get the 9500 pro. It's a nice card. It ranks up with the GF4 4600 performance wise. I got mine at CompUSA for 218 but I'm sure some online place would have it down toward 180. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gond December 17, 2002 Share Gond Member December 17, 2002 Here...you can see the difference. 9700 is a faster card... http://www6.tomshardware.com/graphic/20021...on_9500-03.html http://www6.tomshardware.com/graphic/20021...on_9500-07.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Playaa December 17, 2002 Share Playaa Member December 17, 2002 oh I didn't see the WD...saw the "Caviar" and thought no-name company... though I would still recommend getting the HD elsewhere on the fact that you can get twice the size for the same price.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fatty December 17, 2002 Share Fatty GC Founder December 17, 2002 Good comments. Yes, I haven't compared prices with anything. Please keep em coming, this helps so much. Hope this helps the g00man too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mrX December 17, 2002 Share mrX GC Alumni December 17, 2002 AT7 KD7-RAID Is the KD7 a better board? Guess I should say, I think it is, but any comments? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gOOters December 17, 2002 Author Share gOOters Member December 17, 2002 I woulda thought lawyers were good at reading Look at my last post ^ the same applies to these 2 cards you mentioned. I think the RAID would be able to support more upgrades in the future, it supports more CPU FSB speed and AGP8X vs. AGP2X again, I have no idea what all this means. and yes Fat, we are in the same boat so this is helpin alot! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mrX December 17, 2002 Share mrX GC Alumni December 17, 2002 yeah, I saw that goot, but...... It appears the KD7 is only $5 more with better specs, more pci slots, etc. Just seemed strange it'd only be that little more for that much more. I dunno. Don't think I'm missing anything, but put it out there to see. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
[Mmmm]Homer December 17, 2002 Share [Mmmm]Homer Member December 17, 2002 Fatty, The AT7 does have on-board LAN, so you don't need the NIC. Personally, I'd go with the Caviar SE drive - the WD400JB. It has a 3 year warranty vs 1 year (just replaced my 4 IBM Deathstars with WD SE drives) and 8mb cache. I have pairs in RAID 0, very fast. For only a few bucks more you could have a CD-RW drive, I never watch DVDs on my PC. But I do burn discs. Make sure the PSU is AMD compliant! Things I will always spend more money on, but it's your call: 1) PSU with RAID and all I use an Enermax 431w that is fairly quiet 2) Full tower case I need the room, better for cooling 3) Heatsink[/u] I'm using an SLK-800 and it works very well, put a slow turning fan on top of it. 4) Extra fans adjustable ones, so I can turn down the noise. 5) IBM or whoever took them over are out. If you have one go buy a replacement from another manufacturer! Looks good Fatty and I know you are going local, but www.newegg.com for everyone else! If you've heard people rave about them before it's for good reason. I am one of those that will not buy from anyone else online. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Killer December 17, 2002 Share Killer Member December 17, 2002 all I have to say is http://www.atek2000.com GO THERE ITS THE BEST! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gOOters December 18, 2002 Author Share gOOters Member December 18, 2002 Here is what I chose...Fat Asus A7NX8 Nvidia MoBo AMD XP 2000 Chieftec Case (looks sweet) 256 MB PC2700 RAM GeForceIV 4600 (to tide? me over until I save for the upcoming FX) All together, with FedEx...$520 Not bad, eh? All easy to upgrade. I am scavengiing from my heap of a comp also. Do you guys think I will be able to limp on my 16GB HD for awhile? Either going with newegg.com or MWave.com My buddies use MWave with no problems so far. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NOFX December 18, 2002 Share NOFX Member December 18, 2002 hrm..... building comps is my hobby....check out www.pricewatch.com just whatever you buy do research on it.... like...goot posted at the beginning he was gonna get pc3200 RAM, i dunno, but the mobo probably cant handle that fast, doesnt mean it wont work, its just that 2700 would work fine. Just go to the mobo's site and read up. The new AMD clawhammer's are coming out sometime after x-mas, so expect a big price drop in the AMD xp series. You get alot of your performance by the chipset of your mobo. Kt333 is nice, but i think the KT400 is out now. Also, 8x AGP is out now on mobos You defianlty want to 512 DDR RAM!!! Windows xp can take up to 250!!!(that is if you have enough) I got around 768. The performance in your video card is determined by the memory bandwith.....so look that up when your lookin at vid cards. Are you trying to get CS running smooth as can be? or are you trying to get prepared for future games? If your trying to prepare for future games, go with a better video card. You said you was gonna wait for the price drops for the 9700pro, well...you can get the 9500 pro for 160 and the 9700 for 195. 35 bucks isnt that much difference for the performace. But if your trying to get a rock solid vid card for thebest price and will probably do good with future games, i think you can find a Geforce3 128 RAM for 100 bucks. What you wanna do is watch for the price jumps between the technology, like the XP2400 is $160, the 2200 is $135 and the 2100 is $85. Go with the 2100!!!! You save 80 bucks for dropping 200 Mhz difference. I would go with a Western Digital Harddrive. That is all I have ever used and the only one to ever mess up on me was one of the first 2 GIG drives i had. go with a 7200 RPM only cost a few dollars more. Well, thats about all the stuff where your performance comes in. All the other stuff such as CD-drives and cases wont make any difference how smooth your games are Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fatty December 18, 2002 Share Fatty GC Founder December 18, 2002 g00t! you're lucky to be done, and yes, different situation if you're gutting your current pc.....good luck Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
[Mmmm]Homer December 18, 2002 Share [Mmmm]Homer Member December 18, 2002 Tom's Hardware video benchmarks on all video cards, out new today. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gOOters December 18, 2002 Author Share gOOters Member December 18, 2002 Cool, my current GFII isnt in last place! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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