We've already got one pretty good machine (Ahlon XP 3200, Radeon 9700 Pro), but Neuro's hijacked that one (
) and the laptop I've been using for both work and gaming just can't hack the games anymore !So, I'm seriously thinking about a building a second PC from scratch.
I don't want to upgrade the whole lot anytime soon, so I'm looking at the AMD 64 bit gear (I prefer AMD to Intel from past experience).
I'm not really up to speed on current specs, prices or compatability (starting to read up on this now !); but from a quick scan on Dabs, I've come up with this as a starting point:
- Processor: Athlon 64 3500+ (939) 512k Cache £ 237
Motherboard: ABIT Socket 939 K8T800Pro ATX Audio LAN RAID £ 85
Memory: Corsair 2x512MB 184Pin DIMM PC3200 DDR Non-Parity CL2 £ 195
Graphics: Radeon 9800Pro 256MB AGP DDR DVI VO £ 188
Sound: Audigy 2 ZS PCI £ 62
Total: £767 (all inc VAT)
(plus obviously other bits like PSU, Case, HDD, DVD, Monitor,etc)
My reasoning...
Processor: I understand the 939 pin AMD 64 bit processors are the ones that are going to become the standard in the future, with other pin configs being phased out.
Motherboard: Compatible (I think !), and I've found ABITs to be good in the past. I dont care about RAID though so would be interested if anyone knows of a cheaper, comparable model.
Memory: Seems expensive, but it's the only set I found that appears to be compatible with the Dual DDR400 mobo.
Graphics: I'd like something a bit chunkier, but I'm aiming for a decent system without extending the mortgage and the newer models seem a hell of a lot right now. From past experience, I naturally lean more towards Radeons and away from GeForces.
Sound: I hate Creative with a passion- their drivers used to corrupt my old systems but this model gets great reviews and there doesn't seem to be many affordable competitors.
So, comments please if you know what you're talking about.
I'd welcome any suggestions of where I could get comparable gear cheaper; and any feedback if you think any of the above is mis-matched or just plain crap.
I'd also be interested if you know any good suppliers (all the above are Dabs prices and include VAT); and also where you can get cheap PSUs, Cases, HDs and Monitors (CRT is fine for now, trying to do this as cheaply as possible - ideally keeping it around £1k for the whole system).
Obviously a 32 bit system would be cheaper right now, but if I'm gonna build a new system I'd like to go 64 bit and be done with it; even if I have to go back and upgrade some components at a later date when the prices come down.
Comments ?
)
Great performance , not as good as ATI image quality (AF is a bit strange).
