Looking at building a new PC. Any advice???

[crazyg_sg]

Hi people out there. I am looking to build a new PC and currently have been looking at this configuration. I will be using this for gaming as well as editing of music. Any comments on the configuration below?

1) MOBO - Gigabyte GA8IK110 Intel 875 DDR+SATA Raid
2) CPU - Intel P4 2.8GHz
3) Ram - Kingston Hyper X 2x512@434MHz (does this mean that I have 1GB of ram??)
4) Graphics - Asustek AGP v9180TD 128Mb DDR TV out ( I will be connecting this to a 30 inch TV)
5) Sound Card - Creative Audigy2 Zs
6) Maxtor SATA 120GB (2 pieces)
7) Speaker - Creative Inspire T7700 7.1
8) CD RW - Asustek 52x24x52
9) DVD/CD Rom - Undecided
10) Casing - Undecided

The price for all these is around SGD 2,800.00. I am also looking at how to reduce condensation as the PC will be in my room which is relatively damp. Any ideas?

Thanks Guys

[smokin_pc]

tatz a pretty nice setup. if u aroing to build that system i wouldsuggest buying a DVD burner. it will cost u around 250canadain, but its a good money spent.

[Soulburner]

I don't know if you will have to worry about condensation, the air cooling the computer will have to be quite a bit colder than the inside case temp. Normally only people using chilled water setups and colder have to worry about that.

Will you be overclocking? If so I could suggest a few better components but if not its fine. You won't notice the difference between the 865 and 875 chipsets though, may as well save some money there. It will only account for a little extra bandwidth when benchmarking.

[crazyg_sg]

Thanks for the advice.

DVD burner - Doubt I will be getting that. its about SGD600 here. so its way outta my budget. Anyway DVD burner are slow to take off here and the DVD are expensive and hard to find.

Overclocking - Nope no overclocking.

I heard that it would be better to buy two sticks of 512mb ram rather than 1 stick. How true is this?

MOBO - so wats the deal about "raid" the price difference without raid is tremendous. Am I going to need this?

CPU - Jus saw something about Hyper threading for the P4 cpu. The price difference is alot. I m wondering if there is gona be an noticeable difference if I get the CPU with the Hyper threading

[smokin_pc]

Thanks for the advice.


I heard that it would be better to buy two sticks of 512mb ram rather than 1 stick. How true is this?

MOBO - so wats the deal about "raid" the price difference without raid is tremendous. Am I going to need this?

CPU - Jus saw something about Hyper threading for the P4 cpu. The price difference is alot. I m wondering if there is gona be an noticeable difference if I get the CPU with the Hyper threading

If your motherboad supports dual channel memory ( all nforce2 socket A mobos, and some intel i875 mobos will have it) then is a good idea to 2 sticks of *the same type of ram* becasue then ur rams will run faster . If ur motherboard doesnt suport dual channel , 1 stick will do.

RAID is use for combining 2 or more HD into one whole hard drive, or making mirror images on each Hard drive. example, raid 0 will combine 2 hard drive to 1 hard drive size (so, 2 80gb will ture to 160gb) Raid 0 is good because it combines the cache speed making the hard drives faster. RAid 0 is use for making "mirror" images of each Hard drives. If you have a lot importat and priviate files that u want to keep, then raid 0 is for u. There is also raid 0+1, which needs 4 + hard drives. It is a good idea to get RAID for future, if u run out of ur 80gb HD, u can add 80gb more in the future. *raid 0 onl works if the two or more hard drives ar the same size, or else they will match the smalest GB hd

intel HT tech is good for intensive CPU procedures. I have read reviews about advantages for photo and video editing. If u ar just a gamer, u wont have to get teh HT technogly, the differnce in speed will be very little fo u to notice.

[Chaos]

What kind of video card is that? I looked it up on google and all the sites are Russian? I suppose that is where you are from? Hmmmm i think though that it is a GeForce 4 of some type? Or am I wrong?

[weta]

Chaos: It's an ASUS GeForce4 MX 440-8X.
crazyg_sg: Do yourself a favour and spend a bit more on the graphics card.

[Chaos]

All right Weta, thanx. I appreciate it.

[Mista K6]

Yah, if you're going to be gaming, that card will screw over the nice system you are preparing. Get at least an Radeon 9600 Pro All-in-Wonder. Also, a TV? yah, it's 30in, but the thing is, for games and what not, they're so blurry. I played Ghost Recon for Xbox and was so pissed cause you couldnt see a thing in the distance w/o zoomin in. Something to think about. Anyways, gl with your system :thumb: , : peace2: Mista K6

[crazyg_sg]

Smokin_pc - tks man. all tat info really helps. Guess I won't be using a cpu with HT then. Probably redundant for me cos this is gona be for gaming and music editing only.

Mista - Radeon 9600 pro is gona set me back ard SGD 280 and the 9700 pro is ard SGD600. So wats the diff bet a 9600 and 9700. And wats this "All in wonder" thing about? If i'm gona get a 9600 then I am thinking of the ATI or Hercules cards. Currently the only cards which has the "All in wonder" thing is Sapphire and Power Colour. Are these cards any good?

I guess most of u guys are using Radeon cards. Any idea if the Gforce4 cards are of any good. They are on the cheaper side though.

[crazyg_sg]

Oh one more thing. Wats the diff bet a clk2 and clk3 ram. Just noticced there was such thing when I was going through the price list for the ram

[clarkdevlin]

TwinMOS 256MB DDR PC2700 CAS2.5 (MY-002-TM) x 2

Abit NF7 v2.0 nForce2 (Socket A) Motherboard (MB-035-AB) or Asus A7N8X Deluxe motherboard

AMD Athlon "Thoroughbred" XP 2600+ 333FSB (Socket A) CPU - OEM (CP-030-AM)

Western Digital Caviar 40GB Special Edition 8MB Cache - OEM (HD-004-WD)

Q-Tec 450W Dual Fan Gold PSU (CA-000-QT)

Coolermaster Aero 7 Lite (Socket A) (HS-007-CM)

Coolermaster Aero Blower Fan (FG-004-CM)

Fan Screws - Pack of 4 Screws (FG-002-GE)

AOpen H600B Super Tower 350W PSU (CA-004-AO)

Leadtek Winfast A360TD GeForce FX 5700 128MB DDR (GX-022-LT)

Are these hardware parts compatible, also are they worth buying
and will the likes of Leadtek Winfast A360TD GeForce FX 5700 128MB DDR run doom 3?

[The__tweaker]

Smokin_pc - tks man. all tat info really helps. Guess I won't be using a cpu with HT then.

All forms of multimedia editing will benefit alot from hyperthread cpu's. Get a P4C cpu where the "C" stands for 800Mhz fsb, and all speeds of the mentioned cpu supports hyperthreading.