Build gamer PC help..

[Robert Baer]

I know very little about gamer type systems.
I need to build a computer around the ASI Sapphire Radeon X850 XT
DVI/CRT/TV-out PCI Express video board.
I need to know what specific motherboards support this with no
conflicts like on-board video.
Are there such boards that support the standard IDE drives (CD, DVD, HD)?
Please be kind to give eXplicit recommendations.

I used anandtech with the search terms ASUS and NVIDIA and came up
with two motherboards:
1) Asus A8N32-SLI Deluxe: NVIDIA Dual x 16 for the Athlon 64; the review
seemed a little washy, and it was not clear if it supports 4 IDE devices.
2) Asus A8N-VM CSM: NVIDIA GeForce 6150 (Athlon 64 or Sempron); not much
of a review, but the specs and other info seem to indicate that this
board is better.

And if this second board is better, which CPU: Athlon 64 or Sempron?
What kind of memory?

 

[Mike T.]

I know very little about gamer type systems.
I need to build a computer around the ASI Sapphire Radeon X850 XT
DVI/CRT/TV-out PCI Express video board.
I need to know what specific motherboards support this with no conflicts
like on-board video.
Are there such boards that support the standard IDE drives (CD, DVD,
HD)?
Please be kind to give eXplicit recommendations.

I used anandtech with the search terms ASUS and NVIDIA and came up with
two motherboards:
1) Asus A8N32-SLI Deluxe: NVIDIA Dual x 16 for the Athlon 64; the review
seemed a little washy, and it was not clear if it supports 4 IDE devices.
2) Asus A8N-VM CSM: NVIDIA GeForce 6150 (Athlon 64 or Sempron); not much
of a review, but the specs and other info seem to indicate that this board
is better.

And if this second board is better, which CPU: Athlon 64 or Sempron?
What kind of memory?

For a gamer, you want Athlon 64, somewhere around the 3700+ mark
(currently), and socket 939. With that and your video card, the EPOX
EP-9NPA+ will work great. You need 1 Gig of DDR400 RAM, preferably in 1
stick. I'm not big on Asus, as I support them, and they have an extremely
high failure rate. (IMHO) But the first board you listed is an SLI board,
so it would be inappropriate for what you are building anyway. My
suggestions would be:

http://www.mwave.com/mwave/skusearch.hmx?&scriteria=BA21121
http://www.mwave.com/mwave/viewspec.hmx?scriteria=BA20668
http://www.mwave.com/mwave/viewspec.hmx?scriteria=BA21445
http://www.mwave.com/mwave/viewspec.hmx?scriteria=BA20750

That should be a good start. Just add any decent ATX case and a hard drive
and DVD burner. IMHO -Dave

 

[adsci]

Athlon 64 3700+ or better (NO Sempron!!)
1GB of DDR400 RAM (OCZ, Kingston, Corsair, GeIL)
Asus/DFI/MSI 939 nForce 4 Board NON-SLI PCI-E! (my personal favorite is
the DFI LanParty UT Ultra-D)
Enermax or Antec ~500W PSU
Creative X-Fi Soundcard (optional)

some drives. my favs:
HD: WesterDigital
DVD: Teac (no problems with starforce copyprotection)

and some nice looking case with 2 silent case fans.

just my opinion.

 

[dawg]

I know very little about gamer type systems.
I need to build a computer around the ASI Sapphire Radeon X850 XT
DVI/CRT/TV-out PCI Express video board.
I need to know what specific motherboards support this with no
conflicts like on-board video.
Are there such boards that support the standard IDE drives (CD, DVD, HD)?
Please be kind to give eXplicit recommendations.

I used anandtech with the search terms ASUS and NVIDIA and came up
with two motherboards:
1) Asus A8N32-SLI Deluxe: NVIDIA Dual x 16 for the Athlon 64; the review
seemed a little washy, and it was not clear if it supports 4 IDE devices.
2) Asus A8N-VM CSM: NVIDIA GeForce 6150 (Athlon 64 or Sempron); not much
of a review, but the specs and other info seem to indicate that this
board is better.

And if this second board is better, which CPU: Athlon 64 or Sempron?
What kind of memory?

SLI is for Nvidia cards.Two video cards running a single game.But that
doesn't mean you can't use an ATI card on a "SLI" motherboard. ATI has
Crossfire for Dual video cards but it's only supported with ATI
motherboards.Confused yet?
The two motherboards you looked at are from different ends of the spectrum.
One is high end,the other is budget w/onboard graphics. BTW, onboard
graphics get turned off when a PCI or AGP or PCI-e video card is installed.
Now what I will say is don't skimp on the power supply. For a decent gaming
rig with one video card I'd say an Antec 380w would be the lowest you should
go.Something in the 450-500w would be better.

 

[Robert Baer]

For a gamer, you want Athlon 64, somewhere around the 3700+ mark
(currently), and socket 939. With that and your video card, the EPOX
EP-9NPA+ will work great. You need 1 Gig of DDR400 RAM, preferably in 1
stick. I'm not big on Asus, as I support them, and they have an extremely
high failure rate. (IMHO) But the first board you listed is an SLI board,
so it would be inappropriate for what you are building anyway. My
suggestions would be:

http://www.mwave.com/mwave/skusearch.hmx?&scriteria=BA21121
http://www.mwave.com/mwave/viewspec.hmx?scriteria=BA20668
http://www.mwave.com/mwave/viewspec.hmx?scriteria=BA21445
http://www.mwave.com/mwave/viewspec.hmx?scriteria=BA20750

That should be a good start. Just add any decent ATX case and a hard drive
and DVD burner. IMHO -Dave

Wow! Virtually complete system!
I know some about their failure rate; one board i bought failed after
about 1 hour, got a replacement which had the same problem.
Got a replacement and it had another problem; i gave up and live with
the problem.
The only reason i picked ASUS is that they were "recommended" by ATI
the video board maker.
Now some motherboards support what i call dual banking; with a pair
of RAM boards ("sticks"), it accesses one, then the other in a back and
forth manner, which effectively doubling the data rate.
Does the "dual channel" designation for that Epox EP-9NPA+ board mean
what i call dual banking?
If so, i would be better off using two 512Mbyte sticks for speed, if
one limits oneself to 1Gbyte of RAM total.
Also, that lower clock rate useage on each bank or stick keeps it
cooler than whacking away at full bus speed for a "single banking"
configuration.

Thanks again!

 

[Robert Baer]

Athlon 64 3700+ or better (NO Sempron!!)
1GB of DDR400 RAM (OCZ, Kingston, Corsair, GeIL)
Asus/DFI/MSI 939 nForce 4 Board NON-SLI PCI-E! (my personal favorite is
the DFI LanParty UT Ultra-D)
Enermax or Antec ~500W PSU
Creative X-Fi Soundcard (optional)

some drives. my favs:
HD: WesterDigital
DVD: Teac (no problems with starforce copyprotection)

and some nice looking case with 2 silent case fans.

just my opinion.

Thanks for the input; i was going to consider Benq as a good way to
"vote" against Sony.

 

[Robert Baer]

SLI is for Nvidia cards.Two video cards running a single game.But that
doesn't mean you can't use an ATI card on a "SLI" motherboard. ATI has
Crossfire for Dual video cards but it's only supported with ATI
motherboards.Confused yet?

** That is a bit confusing, but fortunately, the person mentioned only
one video board.

The two motherboards you looked at are from different ends of the spectrum.
One is high end,the other is budget w/onboard graphics. BTW, onboard
graphics get turned off when a PCI or AGP or PCI-e video card is installed.

** Now *that* is good to know; a number of boards (especially the
cheapos) that have on-board video do not allow or make it rather
difficult to add a video card.

Now what I will say is don't skimp on the power supply. For a decent gaming
rig with one video card I'd say an Antec 380w would be the lowest you should
go.Something in the 450-500w would be better.

As a Baer would say, "FUR sure!"; the CPU eats a lot of power, and
having a fancy video card eats more power - gotta have some dregs for
the MB and drives...

 

[creAtive oBscura]

I'd like to add some products you should consider. Whenever I am
building a system for a customer, I only use this one power supply, as
it is found to be one of the best and most reliable.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817103931

Also, this is the only motherboard I use for my ATi customers, It is
from ASUS, and from all of the systems I have built (each with ASUS), I
have never had a problem, each build was flawless, none have called
back with problems yet.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813131530

I am not sure on how much you are planning on spending on the
processor, but I'd recommend going to dual core, its not too much more
expensive, and you won't have to upgrade later when all the 64bit and
multi-threaded software comes out.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819103562

Hope any of that helped you out.

 

[Robert Baer]

I'd like to add some products you should consider. Whenever I am
building a system for a customer, I only use this one power supply, as
it is found to be one of the best and most reliable.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817103931

Also, this is the only motherboard I use for my ATi customers, It is
from ASUS, and from all of the systems I have built (each with ASUS), I
have never had a problem, each build was flawless, none have called
back with problems yet.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813131530

I am not sure on how much you are planning on spending on the
processor, but I'd recommend going to dual core, its not too much more
expensive, and you won't have to upgrade later when all the 64bit and
multi-threaded software comes out.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819103562

Hope any of that helped you out.

This is great!
Now i have a number of eXplicit recommendations - all which sound good.
So now a lot of homework to pick the creme a-la creme from them.
Thanks again!

 

[Squibbly]

I know very little about gamer type systems.
I need to build a computer around the ASI Sapphire Radeon X850 XT
DVI/CRT/TV-out PCI Express video board.
I need to know what specific motherboards support this with no conflicts
like on-board video.
Are there such boards that support the standard IDE drives (CD, DVD,
HD)?
Please be kind to give eXplicit recommendations.

I used anandtech with the search terms ASUS and NVIDIA and came up with
two motherboards:
1) Asus A8N32-SLI Deluxe: NVIDIA Dual x 16 for the Athlon 64; the review
seemed a little washy, and it was not clear if it supports 4 IDE devices.
2) Asus A8N-VM CSM: NVIDIA GeForce 6150 (Athlon 64 or Sempron); not much
of a review, but the specs and other info seem to indicate that this board
is better.

And if this second board is better, which CPU: Athlon 64 or Sempron?
What kind of memory?

the fastest mobo, the fastest cpu, preferably amd, and SATA with 16mb cache,
the fastest memory and the fastest graphics card, now what you buy is up to
you and down to the budget you have, if you got alot of money, then the
world is your oyster in the pc world

 

[Dave]

For a gamer, you want Athlon 64, somewhere around the 3700+ mark

Wow! Virtually complete system!
I know some about their failure rate; one board i bought failed after
about 1 hour, got a replacement which had the same problem.
Got a replacement and it had another problem; i gave up and live with
the problem.
The only reason i picked ASUS is that they were "recommended" by ATI the
video board maker.
Now some motherboards support what i call dual banking; with a pair of
RAM boards ("sticks"), it accesses one, then the other in a back and forth
manner, which effectively doubling the data rate.
Does the "dual channel" designation for that Epox EP-9NPA+ board mean
what i call dual banking?
If so, i would be better off using two 512Mbyte sticks for speed, if one
limits oneself to 1Gbyte of RAM total.
Also, that lower clock rate useage on each bank or stick keeps it cooler
than whacking away at full bus speed for a "single banking" configuration.

Thanks again!

Dual channel is essentially using two sticks of RAM as one (they are both
accessed at the same time). If you think of RAM organized like an excel
spreadsheet, dual-channel doubles the width of the spreadsheet so that more
information can be read at once. This doubles the bandwidth and (in theory
at least) allows RAM to be accessed faster. In actual real-world use, you
won't notice the speed difference unless you run some intensive benchmarks
which have no relation at all to the way most people use their computers.


Also, I am not a huge fan of using multiple sticks of RAM when one will do
to start. Increasing the number of RAM sticks increases the chances that
one of them might go bad. It also can make future upgrades a bit harder,
sometimes. It's better to have as many OPEN RAM slots as possible, at all
times. IMHO

However, if you don't plan to upgrade RAM in the future, there is nothing
wrong with running a dual-channel mainboard with 2 sticks of RAM to use the
dual-channel feature. Just be sure that whatever RAM you buy is a good
brand like OCZ or Geil or Kingston. Oh, and don't fall for the dual-channel
kit gimmick when you buy the RAM. You can buy any RAM you like, just order
2 at once (not necessarily 2 in the same package), if you want dual-channel
capability. -Dave