Custom Computer Build

[Danny]

Hey guys,
I've decided to go with this P4 build instead of Athlon, because the
CPU I picked is less than the 3200 XP, and outpreforms it with 800 MHz
FSB. Everyone tell me what they think. Also, could you tell my if
all my stuff is compatable? Thanks.

-Processor---------------------------------------------------------------
[x] Intel Pentium 4 (3.00GHz, 512KB, 800MHz, Socket 478)
$392.00

-Hard Drive--------------------------------------------------------------
[x] Western Digital Enterprise Serial ATA Hard Drive WD Raptor
$169.99
[slave] Western Digital 120 GB 8 MB Cache - 7200 RPM Ultra ATA/100
$129.99

-Mother Board------------------------------------------------------------
[x] ASUS Model# P4C800-E DELUXE 800Mhz FSB $190.00


-Case--------------------------------------------------------------------
[x] Antec Preformance II SX1040BII $119.00

-Ram---------------------------------------------------------------------
[ ] Kingston 1GB Kit HyperX DDR 333MHz DIMM CL2 (x2 512MB)
$240.00
[x] Kingston 1GB Kit HyperX DDR 466MHz DIMM CL3 (x2 512MB)
$338.00

-Video Card--------------------------------------------------------------
[ ] ??????????????????????????????

-Sound Card--------------------------------------------------------------
[ ] CREATIVE Soundblaster Audigy Gamer $79.99

-Speakers----------------------------------------------------------------
[x] Creative Inspire™ 4.1 4400 $50-$100

-Keyboard and Mouse------------------------------------------------------
[x] Logitech® Cordless MX™ Duo
$99.95

-CD-ROM Drive------------------------------------------------------------
[ ] ?????????????????????????????

-Floppy Drive------------------------------------------------------------
[ ] ?????????????????????????????

-Cooling-----------------------------------------------------------------
[ ] ?????????????????????????????

As you can all tell, I also need help on deciding a good video card
(within reasonable price range of $150-$250), CD-ROM drive, Floppy
drive, and cooling units (such as fans and hd coolers).

 

[rAD]

[x] Intel Pentium 4 (3.00GHz, 512KB, 800MHz, Socket 478)

$392.00

Yikes! Oh well. I once spent $300 for 8MBs of RAM

 

[Firebird81]

Go with a Radeon 9600 for your price range, but really it would seem kinda
funny to put a mid-range card in a high end system.

 

[Greg Rice]

What are you going to be using the computer for?

I wouldn't scrimp on the video/audio if you're going to be doing any gaming,
audio playing/editing, video/editing. These are your eyes and ears to what's
going on in everything else.

Hey guys,
I've decided to go with this P4 build instead of Athlon, because the
CPU I picked is less than the 3200 XP, and outpreforms it with 800 MHz
FSB. Everyone tell me what they think. Also, could you tell my if
all my stuff is compatable? Thanks.

-Processor---------------------------------------------------------------
[x] Intel Pentium 4 (3.00GHz, 512KB, 800MHz, Socket 478)
$392.00

-Hard Drive--------------------------------------------------------------
[x] Western Digital Enterprise Serial ATA Hard Drive WD Raptor
$169.99
[slave] Western Digital 120 GB 8 MB Cache - 7200 RPM Ultra ATA/100
$129.99

-Mother Board------------------------------------------------------------
[x] ASUS Model# P4C800-E DELUXE 800Mhz FSB $190.00


-Case--------------------------------------------------------------------
[x] Antec Preformance II SX1040BII $119.00

-Ram---------------------------------------------------------------------
[ ] Kingston 1GB Kit HyperX DDR 333MHz DIMM CL2 (x2 512MB)
$240.00
[x] Kingston 1GB Kit HyperX DDR 466MHz DIMM CL3 (x2 512MB)
$338.00

-Video Card--------------------------------------------------------------
[ ] ??????????????????????????????

-Sound Card--------------------------------------------------------------
[ ] CREATIVE Soundblaster Audigy Gamer $79.99

-Speakers----------------------------------------------------------------
[x] Creative InspireT 4.1 4400 $50-$100

-Keyboard and Mouse------------------------------------------------------
[x] Logitech® Cordless MXT Duo
$99.95

-CD-ROM Drive------------------------------------------------------------
[ ] ?????????????????????????????

-Floppy Drive------------------------------------------------------------
[ ] ?????????????????????????????

-Cooling-----------------------------------------------------------------
[ ] ?????????????????????????????

As you can all tell, I also need help on deciding a good video card
(within reasonable price range of $150-$250), CD-ROM drive, Floppy
drive, and cooling units (such as fans and hd coolers).

 

[JAD]

funny to put a mid-range card in a high end system.

agreed
and one of the reasons of building ones own system, is to upgrade proof yourself, for a little while anyway. Yes?

 

[Conor]

All of the AMD nazis are going to come out of the woodwork, on this
one....Glad I'm going to work, shortly.

Dunno why. At any speed above the mid 2GHz ones you're not going to
notice the difference unless benchmarking or doing AV encoding etc.


--
________________________
Conor Turton
(e-mail address removed)
ICQ:31909763
________________________

 

[Yoric]

Hey guys,
I've decided to go with this P4 build instead of Athlon, because the
CPU I picked is less than the 3200 XP, and outpreforms it with 800 MHz
FSB. Everyone tell me what they think. Also, could you tell my if
all my stuff is compatable? Thanks.

-Processor---------------------------------------------------------------
[x] Intel Pentium 4 (3.00GHz, 512KB, 800MHz, Socket 478)
$392.00

-Hard Drive--------------------------------------------------------------
[x] Western Digital Enterprise Serial ATA Hard Drive WD Raptor
$169.99
[slave] Western Digital 120 GB 8 MB Cache - 7200 RPM Ultra ATA/100
$129.99

-Mother Board------------------------------------------------------------
[x] ASUS Model# P4C800-E DELUXE 800Mhz FSB $190.00


-Case--------------------------------------------------------------------
[x] Antec Preformance II SX1040BII $119.00

-Ram---------------------------------------------------------------------
[ ] Kingston 1GB Kit HyperX DDR 333MHz DIMM CL2 (x2 512MB)
$240.00

I think that this ram is below spec for this board

[x] Kingston 1GB Kit HyperX DDR 466MHz DIMM CL3 (x2 512MB)
$338.00

-Video Card--------------------------------------------------------------
[ ] ??????????????????????????????

-Sound Card--------------------------------------------------------------
[ ] CREATIVE Soundblaster Audigy Gamer $79.99

-Speakers----------------------------------------------------------------
[x] Creative Inspire™ 4.1 4400 $50-$100

-Keyboard and Mouse------------------------------------------------------
[x] Logitech® Cordless MX™ Duo
$99.95

-CD-ROM Drive------------------------------------------------------------
[ ] ?????????????????????????????

-Floppy Drive------------------------------------------------------------
[ ] ?????????????????????????????

-Cooling-----------------------------------------------------------------
[ ] ?????????????????????????????

As you can all tell, I also need help on deciding a good video card
(within reasonable price range of $150-$250), CD-ROM drive, Floppy
drive, and cooling units (such as fans and hd coolers).

 

[Ancra]

Hey guys,
I've decided to go with this P4 build instead of Athlon, because the
CPU I picked is less than the 3200 XP, and outpreforms it with 800 MHz
FSB. Everyone tell me what they think. Also, could you tell my if
all my stuff is compatable? Thanks.

-Processor---------------------------------------------------------------
[x] Intel Pentium 4 (3.00GHz, 512KB, 800MHz, Socket 478)
$392.00
SNIP

As you can all tell, I also need help on deciding a good video card
(within reasonable price range of $150-$250), CD-ROM drive, Floppy
drive, and cooling units (such as fans and hd coolers).

"Everyone tell me what they think"
- Well, I think you have an awfully expensive CPU there, and is
looking to finance it with a "reasonable price" video card.
(That's easy: ATI Radeon 9600, 9600pro. And FX5600, FX5600ultra.)
- But why?

Lets stop for a while and consider what you're going to use your
machine for. Your spec is optimal for mpeg&videoencoding. That's about
it, period.

Much better balance for games&mpeg&video is 2.8GH@800FSB (which I
think you can get for $260) and Radeon 9800nonpro (approx $250).
That's cpu + graphics for about $510, compared to your planned
$542-$642, with performance about equal to your $642 alternative.
Even better game performance for your money then, is mainly achieved
by upping video, up to FX5900ultra, not by upping cpu.

(Stick to the 9600pro, and you get away with $430. And odds may be, by
the time you start feeling limits, it's time for a new generation
videocard anyway?)

To repeat my main message: Maxing out game performance above 2.4GHz,
is not mainly achieved by putting lots of money into the cpu.
Differences between 2.8 and 3.2 are small. The FX5900 and ATI 9800 are
a world apart from everything else as videocards. It makes better
sense to use $100 to $200 to up your video instead.

*******
You also claimed the 3.0@800FSB outperforms the Athlon XP3200???
Well, I can only assume your main interest is in video & media, and
that you have visited anandtech's pages after pages of SSE2-optimized
Mpeg encoding benchmarks, that they for some reason, offers for
"comparisions".
- The P4 excels at mediacontent! It does well on all simple chains of
monotoneous, nonconditional instructions, thanks to its clockrate. But
it does even better with SSE2. It's also a good choice for games,
where the 2.8-3.2@800 often have a tiny edge on XP2800-XP3200.
At least as long as the AI is not too complex. (Interesting
observasion: Most games benchmarks do not include impact from complex
AI.)

Other sides of life are, - that on general applications benchmarks,
the 3.0GHz@800 is no more than a match for the XP2200+ (that's where
the "+" comes in. ). The Athlon also packs a very mean '87 FPU,
which together with its excellent branchhandling (and the P4's
terrible branchhandling) means that on traditional '386-'87 apps,
about every single Athlon XP still in production, beats the top 3.2GHz
Intel P4.

Question is, if that's relevant for you? Are those kinds of tasks the
ones that bogs you down, and you have to wait on? My guess is, that's
not the case. One has to remember, that even at conditions where the
P4 is performing poorly, its screaming GHz still drags it along at
speeds comparable to a theoretical 1500HHz-2000MHz Pentium III.
Most home users probably have media content as their bottlenecks, with
games as the really performance critical app. Between mouseclicks, the
P4's 'poor' general performance is mostly not noticed. The things you
usually have to wait for in graphics&media, are the ones the P4 does
well (provided you have a P4-optimized app). So the P4 makes some kind
of sense for people with lots of money to burn.
(Me, personally. I'm not in that cathegory. I'm in the
supercomputer-need cathegory, with multi hour calculations, so I'm
really pissed tired of my P4's. Never again. I'm really happy with my
XP3000+!)

(Mind you, the Athlons are no sloths, even on media, and XP1700-XP2800
are beyond_terrific value. Chr**, you get the XP2500 for 90 bucks! If
I wasn't waiting for the A64, my old slow P4's (1.5/PC100, 2.4/PC2100)
would get heart&lung transplants today.)


ancra

 

[Night_Seer]

I think I am going with an Barton athlon 3000+ with the 400mhz FSB. I am
building it for my dad. He mainly works with pictures and photo editing
(Photoshop) is this the best bang for the buck?

--
Night_Seer

Hey guys,
I've decided to go with this P4 build instead of Athlon, because the
CPU I picked is less than the 3200 XP, and outpreforms it with 800 MHz
FSB. Everyone tell me what they think. Also, could you tell my if
all my stuff is compatable? Thanks.

-Processor---------------------------------------------------------------
[x] Intel Pentium 4 (3.00GHz, 512KB, 800MHz, Socket 478)
$392.00
SNIP

As you can all tell, I also need help on deciding a good video card
(within reasonable price range of $150-$250), CD-ROM drive, Floppy
drive, and cooling units (such as fans and hd coolers).

"Everyone tell me what they think"
- Well, I think you have an awfully expensive CPU there, and is
looking to finance it with a "reasonable price" video card.
(That's easy: ATI Radeon 9600, 9600pro. And FX5600, FX5600ultra.)
- But why?

Lets stop for a while and consider what you're going to use your
machine for. Your spec is optimal for mpeg&videoencoding. That's about
it, period.

Much better balance for games&mpeg&video is 2.8GH@800FSB (which I
think you can get for $260) and Radeon 9800nonpro (approx $250).
That's cpu + graphics for about $510, compared to your planned
$542-$642, with performance about equal to your $642 alternative.
Even better game performance for your money then, is mainly achieved
by upping video, up to FX5900ultra, not by upping cpu.

(Stick to the 9600pro, and you get away with $430. And odds may be, by
the time you start feeling limits, it's time for a new generation
videocard anyway?)

To repeat my main message: Maxing out game performance above 2.4GHz,
is not mainly achieved by putting lots of money into the cpu.
Differences between 2.8 and 3.2 are small. The FX5900 and ATI 9800 are
a world apart from everything else as videocards. It makes better
sense to use $100 to $200 to up your video instead.

*******
You also claimed the 3.0@800FSB outperforms the Athlon XP3200???
Well, I can only assume your main interest is in video & media, and
that you have visited anandtech's pages after pages of SSE2-optimized
Mpeg encoding benchmarks, that they for some reason, offers for
"comparisions".
- The P4 excels at mediacontent! It does well on all simple chains of
monotoneous, nonconditional instructions, thanks to its clockrate. But
it does even better with SSE2. It's also a good choice for games,
where the 2.8-3.2@800 often have a tiny edge on XP2800-XP3200.
At least as long as the AI is not too complex. (Interesting
observasion: Most games benchmarks do not include impact from complex
AI.)

Other sides of life are, - that on general applications benchmarks,
the 3.0GHz@800 is no more than a match for the XP2200+ (that's where
the "+" comes in. ). The Athlon also packs a very mean '87 FPU,
which together with its excellent branchhandling (and the P4's
terrible branchhandling) means that on traditional '386-'87 apps,
about every single Athlon XP still in production, beats the top 3.2GHz
Intel P4.

Question is, if that's relevant for you? Are those kinds of tasks the
ones that bogs you down, and you have to wait on? My guess is, that's
not the case. One has to remember, that even at conditions where the
P4 is performing poorly, its screaming GHz still drags it along at
speeds comparable to a theoretical 1500HHz-2000MHz Pentium III.
Most home users probably have media content as their bottlenecks, with
games as the really performance critical app. Between mouseclicks, the
P4's 'poor' general performance is mostly not noticed. The things you
usually have to wait for in graphics&media, are the ones the P4 does
well (provided you have a P4-optimized app). So the P4 makes some kind
of sense for people with lots of money to burn.
(Me, personally. I'm not in that cathegory. I'm in the
supercomputer-need cathegory, with multi hour calculations, so I'm
really pissed tired of my P4's. Never again. I'm really happy with my
XP3000+!)

(Mind you, the Athlons are no sloths, even on media, and XP1700-XP2800
are beyond_terrific value. Chr**, you get the XP2500 for 90 bucks! If
I wasn't waiting for the A64, my old slow P4's (1.5/PC100, 2.4/PC2100)
would get heart&lung transplants today.)


ancra

 

[DeMoN LaG]

I think I am going with an Barton athlon 3000+ with the 400mhz FSB. I am
building it for my dad. He mainly works with pictures and photo editing
(Photoshop) is this the best bang for the buck?

Probably not. The sweet spot right now is in the mid 2000's, like the
Athlon XP 2500+ and around there. It won't be as fast, but compare prices
of the chips as you go up in ratings, and look at the HUGE jump in price
for a relatively small increase in performance.

 

[Calvin Crumrine]

"Night_Seer" <ecamacho4 at hotmail dot com> wrote in (e-mail address removed):




Probably not. The sweet spot right now is in the mid 2000's, like the
Athlon XP 2500+ and around there. It won't be as fast, but compare prices
of the chips as you go up in ratings, and look at the HUGE jump in price
for a relatively small increase in performance.

A shortcoming of this analysis is that it only measures *current*
cost/performance. Over the long term your costs are frequently minimized
by minimizing your labor.

IOW how do you expect your dad's needs to change over the years? If he
always moves up to the latest version of Photoshop when it comes out
then you might get another couple of years' use out of the 3000+, and
putting off your labor of building his next machine for an extra 2 years
might well be worth the extra current cost.

Of course it could be a labor of love & then who counts the cost. Or he
might be the kind that holds on to his current programs until he really
needs to upgrade in which case the 2500+ would probably last just as
long as the 3000+ would. Lots of other factors besides the current
price/performance ratio-but the price/performance ratio is probably the
only one that strangers are qualified to evaluate.

 

[Night_Seer]

Probably not. The sweet spot right now is in the mid 2000's, like the
Athlon XP 2500+ and around there. It won't be as fast, but compare prices
of the chips as you go up in ratings, and look at the HUGE jump in price
for a relatively small increase in performance.

Actually the 3000+ is 250 bucks right now...that's not too bad IMHO. As
opposed to almost 500 bucks for the 3200+. He will be using this same
computer far into the future, so I want it to last that long, and I don't
think a mid 2000+ is gonna cut it this time. I guess I was asking more
along the lines of this or an Intel (as far as photo editing is concerned)
as I think the 3000+ is at the right spot for me right now price and speed
wise. Also, I'm hoping the regular athlons start dropping in price when the
new athlons 64's come out. We'll see.

 

[LeeB18509]

Actually the 3000+ is 250 bucks right now...that's not too bad IMHO. As
opposed to almost 500 bucks for the 3200+. He will be using this same
computer far into the future, so I want it to last that long, and I don't
think a mid 2000+ is gonna cut it this time. I guess I was asking more
along the lines of this or an Intel (as far as photo editing is concerned)
as I think the 3000+ is at the right spot for me right now price and speed
wise. Also, I'm hoping the regular athlons start dropping in price when the
new athlons 64's come out. We'll see.

A $92 Athlon XP Barton 2500+ easily made to run at 3000+ speeds is the best
bang for the buck....

 

[Michael-NC]

A $92 Athlon XP Barton 2500+ easily made to run at 3000+ speeds is the best
bang for the buck....

There's no guarantee that an overclocked machine will perform correctly. If
a machine is used for anything other than a test bed for overclocking, one
should not overclock. This is true for almost all CPU's with very few
exceptions.

With the speed of the CPUs' today, overclocking is nothing but an enjoyable
hobby and not at all necessary for running everyday apps.

IOW, OC'ing is _not_ a solution, it's a game people play.

 

[LeeB18509]

FSB.

There's no guarantee that an overclocked machine will perform correctly. If
a machine is used for anything other than a test bed for overclocking, one
should not overclock. This is true for almost all CPU's with very few
exceptions.

With the speed of the CPUs' today, overclocking is nothing but an enjoyable
hobby and not at all necessary for running everyday apps.

IOW, OC'ing is _not_ a solution, it's a game people play.

I think of it as more like a game AMD and Intel play, namely selling
perfectly functional chips "rated" at slower speeds that have no discernable
difference to their more expensive brethren.

 

[Michael-NC]

I think of it as more like a game AMD and Intel play, namely selling
perfectly functional chips "rated" at slower speeds that have no discernable
difference to their more expensive brethren.

Till you get a corrupted registry, _then_ you can tell the difference. If
you overclock, you _will_ get a corrupted registry. After all, that's the
edge of the envelope. Like I said, it's not something for the mainstream,
it's a specialized avocation.

 

[Ancra]

snip

I guess I was asking more
along the lines of this or an Intel (as far as photo editing is concerned)
as I think the 3000+ is at the right spot for me right now price and speed
wise. Also, I'm hoping the regular athlons start dropping in price when the
new athlons 64's come out. We'll see.

Well, a P4-optimized edition of Photoshop is one of the applications a
2.8GHz P4 HT @800FSB would do well on. I'm firmly on the Athlon path
nowdays, but I wouldn't want to hide that from you.

If you get the XP3000+@400FSB look around for tests on nForce2 400
mobos like A7N8XX. I haven't seen any myself, but it might be an idea.


ancra

 

[Night_Seer]

Yeah I was just looking at that...they say the Gigabyte and MSI boards
are really good (Tom's hardware) but I am skeptical about MSI (mine at home
is MSI, and have had problems in the past) I hear nothing but good things
about the asus deluxe, and the 2.0 pcb supports 400mhz fsb out of the box,
so I think I know what I am going with .