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[67thRaptorBull]

Ok, im gonna start building my custom pc once i start getting paid this summer, but a few side notes

- These are just the main components (ie, no case, psu, cables, or sound/network cards, etc)

Anything i list here, i need some help on finding a alternate to it (like lets say i list a AMD Athlon 64 3200, i need a less expensive alternate to it, but still have it up to par with the original i listed) or even a site offering a better price

ok, heres what i had so far


CPU - AMD Athlon 64 3200+, 1MB L2 Cache ( i wanna stick with AMD)

Motherboard - ASUS K8T800 Chipset Motherboard for AMD Socket 754 CPU, Model "K8V SE Deluxe" (i think i wanna keep this one, but if theres any other cheaper ones that are just as good let me know)

Memory - Corsair Value Select 184 Pin 512MB DDR PC-2700 (but the mobo im getting has 3 slots, so i was gonna get (3) 512MB sticks, and i wanna stick with 512MB, so if theres a better/cheaper brand to get let me know)

Video card - ATI RADEON 9800PRO Video Card, 128MB DDR, 256-bit, DVI/TV-Out, 8X AGP (anything cheaper thats still as good)

CD/DVD ROM - Samsung Black 16X DVD-ROM Drive, MODEL SD-616EEPB (this peice doesnt matter much at all)

CD burner - Samsung Black 52X32X52 CD-RW Drive, Model SW-252FENB (same as above, this dont matter much)

Hard Drive - Maxtor 250GB 7200RPM SATA Hard Drive, Model 7Y250M0 (i wanna stay with 250GB, but the maker of the hard drive dont matter to me, just need a 250GB for cheaper)


thats basically all i need help on, i need to slim down the price, as everything i have added up so far = $1,200 bucks, but i need to drop it to around $900 or $1,000

thanks.

[havocaose]

wait like a month for btx or everything in your system will become obsolete faster than usual

[67thRaptorBull]

btx?

[Chicken Scratch Boy]

replacement for atx, also wait for pci express....

anyway, as for the hdd, bad choice! ($177 for a 250)

get 2 120 gb hdds and you raid (same price, double proformace, only 10 gb less space)


or get 2 80 gb sata, (best gb/$ ratio) for proformace purposes (your games, photoshop, chaches) and 2 160gbs (best gb/$ ratio, again) for sotrage for ~290, 2x speed for rthe cache drives, and you get 480gb...

so... yeah

i am the hard drive masta!!!

[Dagoth]

you could probably move down to an AMD64 3000+. the performance difference is approx 6-10 fps in Quake 3.

give it a couple of months and the prices will be lower (as the new AMD64 chips arrive & the next gen ATi & Nvidia cards hit the market)

[melon]

ive got the hard drive you mentioned and its rapid. its quicker than 2 ide hd's in a raid setup. Id stick with it and in the future add another one (so your more future proof).

I would definetly go for an nforce 3 board over the kt8 its far superior in terms of speed and functions.

i would just get unbranded ddr and if you get the nforce mobo you can set the memory  as dual channel which increases the speed. You would only need two 512mb sticks

as for graphics Gforce have just realsed a new card which destroys the 9800XT so wait a month or two and the radion will come down in price to be more competitive.

screw a cdrw buy yourself a dvd-rw i didnt think it would be usefull but it really is. brilliant for backing up data.


As for where to buy it from use ebay. not the auctions but the buy now sales, its mainly people with computer shops making a few extra quid and you can get really cheap stuff. (audigy2 for £25 - v.cheap for England) i bought my maxtor sata hd from ebay for about £130 and at the time the cheapest i found it in the shops was £220

i know we get ripped off with prices so take them figures comparatively.

[Chicken Scratch Boy]

too bad it's not as good as 2 sata drives
when you can raid, just go for best $/gb and then array them for super speed, then get even mopre inexpensive drives for storage if nessasary

currently, i am running 2 120gb sata drives in a raid array, very fun, fast as hell

[67thRaptorBull]

well first off, yes i wont be buying any of this shit (except for hard drives and cd/dvd drives and burners) for about 2 months, so ill wait on prices

2) i was gonna use buy it now on ebay for alot of shit, since most of those people have shops and lots of good feedback

3) melon, could you link me to the mobo youd prefer? and 1024MB is good enough RAM? (this comp is only used for gaming and internet)?
and i already have a external dvd burner  

4) im not that g ood with computer programmer or setup (advanced setup or programming) so i dont know what or how to use RAID, can someone help me out there?

thanks.

[Chicken Scratch Boy]

raid is pretty easy, all you need to do is when you install windows, tell it you have custom scsi or raid drivers, and put in the disk with those drivers, th ebios should pretty automaticly configure and create the array

[67thRaptorBull]

whats the advantage of RAID

[Chicken Scratch Boy]

basicly double speed, it combines both drives into one big one...

so a search in google to get a fews hits

also it allows you to buy multiple drives with lower $/gb, unlimatly allowing you to save money and get more performance/storage

[67thRaptorBull]

ooo, sounds good


melon, could you link me to the mobo youd prefer? and 1024MB is good enough RAM? (this comp is only used for gaming and internet)?

[Chicken Scratch Boy]

i doubt you'd need 1024, i'd go with 512, then upgrade if really nessesary

i have 512mb and it doesnt hold me back at all, i encode divx, game, everything no problems, you'd only need it if you plan working with HUGE  photo shop files and other memory intesive stuff

[67thRaptorBull]

ok, and should i upgrade from the kt8 board, or is that a good one?
any better ones out, or coming out.........?

[havocaose]

well... like i said before btx is coming out soon, it has the new pci-express slot on it so you can use the upcomming grahpics cards on it (you said it was for games) and raid is really easy to setup.. just make sure you motherboard (or the new one you buy) has raid on it, its a pain to have to buy a seperate card and those are often harder to setup.