Help me build a fast PC

[Bob]

Several years ago you all helped me build my first PC (P3 500 mhz) and
it has been great, but I want to start planning for an upgrade and I
want a fast PC that will last a long time.

Here's what I'm thinking and please give me your advice. I'm not to
worried about cost. But I'm thinking AMD is a better value than Intel
and faster.

CPU - AMD 64 FX 55
Memory - One PC 3200 2GB (AMD's speed limit & DDR2 not allowed)
Motherboard - ASUS a8N-SLI Delux
Video - (2) 6800 Ultras PCI 256 MB
Sound - Not sure
Hard Drive - EIDE 400 GB Hitachi
Monitor - Not sure, LCD maybe
DVD - Not sure
CD - Not sure
Speakers - Not sure
Power Supply - Not sure, prefer a quiet one
CPU Cooler - If needed, not sure
Case - Tower, maybe with wheels, ATX
Other - Not sure

Thanks!

 

[Dilbert Firestorm]

(e-mail address removed) wrote:



What do you want the computer for? It seems pretty high spec.




2Gb RAM is loads, I can't think of anything that will use more than
1Gb. It's also best to get two memory modules, and use the dual memory
channels.




It does a lot, do you really need all of what it does




That'll be PCI-E, not just PCI. I'm not sure how the multiple GFX card
thing works though. Do you also reallise how much power these cards
need?




I'd use the onboard sound.




If you're going for this board then I would use the RAID. 400Gb is
also loads. I've got 120Gb and haven't even used half of it yet.
Something like two 120Gb hard disks, or two 200Gb hard disks would be
better.




The monitor's probably the most important part, but you could reuse
your existing monitor.




Personally I'd just go for one optical drive, either a DVD CDRW combo,
or a DVD-RW, depending on what you want. I find that there's little
point in having more than one.




Reuse existing ones?




Get the best you can find especially if you're getting 2 6800's.
You'll need a high power, good quality one. I wouldn't worry about the
noise of the PSU too much though, the two GFX cards and CPU fan should
drown it out easily. You can't go for quite, you've gotta go for a PSU
that provides enough power, and there probably won't be many that do
that.

You could look at :
OCZ PowerStream 600w or the 550w Antec PSU




I think if you get a retail packaged CPU then it will have a cooler, if
it's an OEM one then you'll need to buy one.




One with good cooling because those GFX cards, CPU, and PSU are gonna
get VERY hot.




It's gonna cost you a fortune, are you sure you really want to spend
this amount?

he is obviously going to spend moolah otherwised he wouldn't have picked
a AMD 64 FX cpu and they are expensive. aren't those 940 sockets?

 

[petermcmillan_uk]

Several years ago you all helped me build my first PC (P3 500 mhz) and
it has been great, but I want to start planning for an upgrade and I
want a fast PC that will last a long time.

Here's what I'm thinking and please give me your advice. I'm not to
worried about cost. But I'm thinking AMD is a better value than Intel
and faster.

What do you want the computer for? It seems pretty high spec.

CPU - AMD 64 FX 55
Memory - One PC 3200 2GB (AMD's speed limit & DDR2 not allowed)

2Gb RAM is loads, I can't think of anything that will use more than
1Gb. It's also best to get two memory modules, and use the dual memory
channels.

Motherboard - ASUS a8N-SLI Delux

It does a lot, do you really need all of what it does

Video - (2) 6800 Ultras PCI 256 MB

That'll be PCI-E, not just PCI. I'm not sure how the multiple GFX card
thing works though. Do you also reallise how much power these cards
need?

Sound - Not sure

I'd use the onboard sound.

Hard Drive - EIDE 400 GB Hitachi

If you're going for this board then I would use the RAID. 400Gb is
also loads. I've got 120Gb and haven't even used half of it yet.
Something like two 120Gb hard disks, or two 200Gb hard disks would be
better.

Monitor - Not sure, LCD maybe

The monitor's probably the most important part, but you could reuse
your existing monitor.

DVD - Not sure
CD - Not sure

Personally I'd just go for one optical drive, either a DVD CDRW combo,
or a DVD-RW, depending on what you want. I find that there's little
point in having more than one.

Speakers - Not sure

Reuse existing ones?

Power Supply - Not sure, prefer a quiet one

Get the best you can find especially if you're getting 2 6800's.
You'll need a high power, good quality one. I wouldn't worry about the
noise of the PSU too much though, the two GFX cards and CPU fan should
drown it out easily. You can't go for quite, you've gotta go for a PSU
that provides enough power, and there probably won't be many that do
that.

You could look at :
OCZ PowerStream 600w or the 550w Antec PSU

CPU Cooler - If needed, not sure

I think if you get a retail packaged CPU then it will have a cooler, if
it's an OEM one then you'll need to buy one.

Case - Tower, maybe with wheels, ATX

One with good cooling because those GFX cards, CPU, and PSU are gonna
get VERY hot.

Other - Not sure

Thanks!

It's gonna cost you a fortune, are you sure you really want to spend
this amount?

 

[petermcmillan_uk]

(e-mail address removed) wrote:

he is obviously going to spend moolah otherwised he wouldn't have picked
a AMD 64 FX cpu and they are expensive. aren't those 940 sockets?

To be honest I haven't really looked at the 64 bit CPU's cos I don't
like hot CPU's. I thought they they were just the replacement for the
Athlon XP's though?

 

[Newfdog]

If you're going for this board then I would use the RAID. 400Gb is
also loads. I've got 120Gb and haven't even used half of it yet.
Something like two 120Gb hard disks, or two 200Gb hard disks would be
better.

If he plans on storing any video on board he will need at least 400GB. I
currently have 3 X 120 GB internally and 250GB externally and my unused
space is approaching just 25%.

Newfdog

 

[petermcmillan_uk]

If he plans on storing any video on board he will need at least 400GB. I
currently have 3 X 120 GB internally and 250GB externally and my unused
space is approaching just 25%.

Newfdog

Well, I suppose it depends what it's used for. 120Gb is plenty for me,
but my friend has around a Terrabyte IIRC, and is still looking for
more (seems a little extreme though).

 

[Bob]

I can't come up with a reasonable explanation justifying this much
power and with all of the good advice you have got me thinking I should
scale back.

In fact, my current PC is fine for most of my uses, except that it is
now getting so dated that it doesn't meet the minimum requirements of
newer hardware and software. Also, it seems slow. I could upgrade
some of it, but I need a second PC anyway.

With this in mind, please offer your advice for more reasonably priced
components that would still put me at the advanced end of the spectrum
for a faster PC that would last a reasonably long time.

Thanks again!

 

[petermcmillan_uk]

I can't come up with a reasonable explanation justifying this much
power and with all of the good advice you have got me thinking I should
scale back.

In fact, my current PC is fine for most of my uses, except that it is
now getting so dated that it doesn't meet the minimum requirements of
newer hardware and software. Also, it seems slow. I could upgrade
some of it, but I need a second PC anyway.

With this in mind, please offer your advice for more reasonably priced
components that would still put me at the advanced end of the spectrum
for a faster PC that would last a reasonably long time.

Thanks again!

Now things are sounding more sensible! Your current machine is only
500MHz, so any modern machine will be a big improvement. What I would
consider is getting a cheap machine, and then replacing it every couple
of years time. It would be cheaper than one expensive one.

You still haven't really said what you want the computer for, you've
mentioned 'newer hardware and software'. Even the high spec machines
will probably go out of date quite quickly.

I got my computer less than 3 years ago. When I got it, there wasn't
Serial ATA, there wasn't firewire, there wasn't PCI-E, my motherboard
(which was a VERY good one and cost over £100) cannot use the 64 bit
processors (and I don't think it can use Sempron's either). USB 2 had
also only just come out too, I think if I had brought my stuff a week
or two before I would've had USB 1.1.

Unless you're wanting modern games you won't need a very good graphics
card. Onboard graphics chips will perform adiquately for running
Windows, Office etc. I have just upgraded my machine to a Geforce
FX5200 128Mb, which was less than £50. It's a bit slow at high
settings for modern games such as Starwars Battlefront, but I put up
with it because it doesn't have a fan on it making noise. For games
like Counterstrike I can get around 70fps (at high res), which
occasionally drops to 50fps. I have 512Mb RAM, which I don't think
I've ever used fully, and an Athlon XP 1700+. I have no problems with
it at all, it's only a little slow with the most modern games, and
that's partly because I run them at very high resolutions (1280x1024).

My computer's only cost me £1200 over 3 years. That includes a £300
monitor, rounded cables, silent cooling, keyboard, mouse, DVD-RW, DVD
ROM, plus other stuff which I've removed and don't use now, which
could've be sold. I gave away the old Geforce MX420, and put the old
60Gb hard disk and 256Mb RAM into a new machine. I find that the
cheaper stuff is usually much better value for money.

I don't know what you've tried with your machine, but reinstalling
Windows may give a noticeable speed improvement. What are you going to
do with your old machine, do you want to transfer anything over, eg.
mouse, keyboard, monitor speakers, DVD-ROM drive? You could also look
at a small barebones system eg. Shuttle. They are pretty cheap, and
should be good enough for you.

 

[Bob]

Thanks Peter -

I understand the buy low each cycle strategy, but I was thinking going
to the higher end would give me more time before the life cycle ended.

While I could think of times when I've done work on the PC - larger
database manipulation using Access and Excel VBA - my main uses are for
pure home entertainment. I used to buy a few games and enjoy them but
now the PC isn't handling them well. I'm not a hard-core gamer, maybe
a medium-core gamer that would enjoy playing the newer games when they
come out, since the old games get played out and stale. I'm loading up
20 - 30 digital pictures on a weekly basis and could see getting into
video at some point in the future.

My current PC is a P3 500 mhz, 20 GB hard drive, old low speed CD ROM
(pulled it out of an old PC I had after my 72x Kenwood died recently),
384 MB RAM, Windows XP Home edition (recently re-installed), external
cable modem, cheap monitor and video card (recently upgraded to handle
a radio controlled airplane flight sim), a really nice case ATX by
Addtronics. I was thinking of moving this PC to another room so my
wife could use it primarily to get on the net at the same time that I'm
on it.

I looked into getting one of the newer double layer DVD / CD drives and
they all require a faster processor than my current machine. Also, the
games are dragging since I upgraded from Windows SE to Windows XP. A
few months ago broadband cable finally became available so I got it and
now I'm thinking a faster machine might make surfing faster. I'm
finding an increasing number of USB devices to connect and the newer
motherboards I've seen have 4 USB ports which would improve the
connections. I recently added a combo firewire and USB 2.0 board to
connect a new apple Ipod.

I'm hooked on building my own PC and don't want to buy a ready made
one.

None of my applications or files are vital and can easily be reloaded
or replaced, and I've backed up more important pictures on the web.

So maybe a more middle of the road to high-middle of the road machine
will work and give me game access and some shelf life?

- Bob

 

[petermcmillan_uk]

Thanks Peter -

I understand the buy low each cycle strategy, but I was thinking going
to the higher end would give me more time before the life cycle ended.

While I could think of times when I've done work on the PC - larger
database manipulation using Access and Excel VBA - my main uses are for
pure home entertainment. I used to buy a few games and enjoy them but
now the PC isn't handling them well. I'm not a hard-core gamer, maybe
a medium-core gamer that would enjoy playing the newer games when they
come out, since the old games get played out and stale. I'm loading up
20 - 30 digital pictures on a weekly basis and could see getting into
video at some point in the future.

Yeah, a couple of hard disks in RAID should be good, and VERY fast.

My current PC is a P3 500 mhz, 20 GB hard drive, old low speed CD ROM
(pulled it out of an old PC I had after my 72x Kenwood died recently),
384 MB RAM, Windows XP Home edition (recently re-installed), external
cable modem, cheap monitor and video card (recently upgraded to handle
a radio controlled airplane flight sim), a really nice case ATX by
Addtronics. I was thinking of moving this PC to another room so my
wife could use it primarily to get on the net at the same time that I'm
on it.

I looked into getting one of the newer double layer DVD / CD drives and
they all require a faster processor than my current machine. Also, the
games are dragging since I upgraded from Windows SE to Windows XP. A
few months ago broadband cable finally became available so I got it and
now I'm thinking a faster machine might make surfing faster. I'm
finding an increasing number of USB devices to connect and the newer
motherboards I've seen have 4 USB ports which would improve the
connections. I recently added a combo firewire and USB 2.0 board to
connect a new apple Ipod.

You can buy external USB hubs which split the USB ports into more (if
necessary). Get on of those new double layer DVD writers, I've just
got one and I think they're around £50-£60 now.

I'm hooked on building my own PC and don't want to buy a ready made
one.

Yeah, go for it!

None of my applications or files are vital and can easily be reloaded
or replaced, and I've backed up more important pictures on the web.

So maybe a more middle of the road to high-middle of the road machine
will work and give me game access and some shelf life?

Yeah, high-middle will probably be best, although I don't really know
much about the high end of the market. Other people will probably know
more about that then me.

 

[Conor]

With this in mind, please offer your advice for more reasonably priced
components that would still put me at the advanced end of the spectrum
for a faster PC that would last a reasonably long time.

AMD 64 4000.
1GB RAM
ONE Nvidia 6800GT
Western Digital Raptor 74GB SATA drive for OS and applications and any
other 300GB SATA/PATA drive for data storage.
Keep everything else.

 

[petermcmillan_uk]

AMD 64 4000.
1GB RAM
ONE Nvidia 6800GT
Western Digital Raptor 74GB SATA drive for OS and applications and any
other 300GB SATA/PATA drive for data storage.

Nah, two 36Gb SATA RAID :-D
and 300Gb for storage!

His board has dual RAID, so I would expect that he can have two SATA's
in RAID, and then another HD and optical drives on PATA. My friend has
two Raptors in RAID!

 

[petermcmillan_uk]

AMD 64 4000.
1GB RAM

Make the 1Gb = 512Mb x 2. With two memory modules it'll be twice as
fast because it'll be using both memory channels.

 

[Timbertea]

Several years ago you all helped me build my first PC (P3 500 mhz) and
it has been great, but I want to start planning for an upgrade and I
want a fast PC that will last a long time.

Here's what I'm thinking and please give me your advice. I'm not to
worried about cost. But I'm thinking AMD is a better value than Intel
and faster.

CPU - AMD 64 FX 55

Big bucks..but your money! Nice chip though.

Memory - One PC 3200 2GB (AMD's speed limit & DDR2 not allowed)

You want 2GB on a single stick? Ouch, that will cost you. There are 2GB
sticks available though, they tend to run in the 850-1100 a piece
range and almost always are ECC as the only people buying 2GB sticks are
scientist and people running very high end servers. It's vastly
cheaper to get 2 1GB sticks of very fast ram & enjoy the advantages of
dual channel. You'll probably have to settle for 2.5-3-3-6 to get 1GB
sticks as far as best timing possible. You might actually do better to
get 2 of the PC4000 Ballistix 1GB and see how aggressive of timings you
can get out of them at PC3200 speed.

Motherboard - ASUS a8N-SLI Delux Decent.
Video - (2) 6800 Ultras PCI 256 MB

Make sure you get both of them the exact same kind or you will have all
kinds of SLI problems.

Sound - Not sure
Hard Drive - EIDE 400 GB Hitachi

I understand for price reasons, but you get better RAID options on that
board with SATA. Either way, I wouldn't settle for just *1* 400GB
Hitachi, you might as well get 2 and put them in a raid.

Monitor - Not sure, LCD maybe

IIyama Vision Master Pro 512, yeah, its $600 and some change, but since
you are going to be using SLI and SLI only drives one monitor you want
that monitor to be the best it can be. The IIyama Vision Master 512 is
one of the most beautiful and powerful 22" monitors ever made. Or you
can step back to reality and realize that
99.999999999999999999999999999999999999% of applications don't support
SLI and you'll have 2 very capable graphics cards capable of supporting
4 CRTs and order yourself either 1 Vision Master Pro 512 and 3 Vision
Master 1451 19" CRT's at $140-160 a piece, or maybe even 4 vision master
1451's. I do, however, reccommend you look into having a custom desk
built to support these as 4 of these monitors carries a lot of weight
and takes up a lot of space. Ideally you want a semi-circle shaped desk
made of oak with quality joints and sturdy bolts holding it together. NO
IKEA.

DVD - Not sure
CD - Not sure

Since you've got 8 SATA channels, might as well put of them to use and
get the best burner you can get. I reccommend the Plextor 16X Dual Layer
DVD+/-RW Sata Drive, Model PX-716SA/SW. (It has both a black and a white
face plate ...so it will match no matter what case you put it in). With
a flash update it can burn at: 6X DVD+R DL, 16X DVD+R, 8X DVD+RW, 16X
DVD-R, 4X DVD-RW, 48X CD-R, 24X CD-RW. It's not a bad reading drive
either, 48X CD-ROM and 16X DVD-ROM. You might want to add another
DVD/CD combo drive as well if will be copying a lot on the fly. Around
$130.

Speakers - Not sure
Power Supply - Not sure, prefer a quiet one

Thermaltake makes a 680 Watt "W0049 RUD" that also has tripple +12V
rails 2 at 15A and 1 at 8A that is SLI ready (has 2 6 pin connectors).
It has active PFC. It is not cheap, expect to pay $200 for this supply,
but it should handle anything you can throw at it. It has 2 PCIE-6 pin
connectors (for your video cards), 24 pin main, 4 pin +12V, 10 4 pin
peripheral connectors (plenty!), 2 4pin floppy connectors, 4 sata power
connectors ... I think that fits the bill.

CPU Cooler - If needed, not sure

With this much invested in the thing are you really going to overclock
it? You might as well use the one AMD ships and keep the warranty on
that chip.

Case - Tower, maybe with wheels, ATX

Look at what Super Micro has to offer. I don't think you'll be
disappointed, just might get sticker shock. They are nice cases though.

Other - Not sure

Understanding wife/girlfriend. She better be, this is running into a
huge chunk of change.

Thanks!

Good luck,

-Timbertea

 

[Steve]

Can someone explain why the recommendations are all for the AMD ?
Please don't say because AMD are the best (yawn)

The guy (like me) has a Pentium (I have a Pentium 4, 1.7GHz at the mo)
and no one has mentioned Pentiums... despite the heat problems with
the Athlon 64.
Also, it seems to me, that Athlon 64's are just slow (up to 2.4GHz)
processors that expected to be overclocked with all the associated
heat, reliability and life expectancy problems ?
Also are the new Atlon boards capable of using DDR2 ?
The board I am looking at for my Pentium 4 is the ASUS P5GDC-V Deluxe.
It has inbuilt Video and sound, and has slots for both DDR and DDR2
(you cant use both !). AND it has PCI-Express slot plus 3 PSI slots
too, so if you are an avid gamer you can put a video card of your
choice into the PCI-E slot (x16)
According to just about every magazine I read DDR2 and PCI-E are THE
way to go !

I am going to ignore 64 bit until things have settled down more, and
go for a Pentium 4 3.4GHz.
Someone once said "If you are going to upgrade, always upgrade to
twice the speed"

Anyway, we all have a choice, so I AM NOT knocking AMD, just pointing
out there is Intel around and for my purposes it looks better, so
don't go saying I don't like AMD, I have looked at both sides and for
me Intel is fine !

I do play games (Doom 3 and Half-Life 2 are on my list) but I am not
an avid gamer, and I do use office and want to do some Video Editing
(from My Sony Digi-Cam).
I have bought most of the stuff I want Case, 650W Power Supply, DVD-RW
etc. and will be buying the rest soom when finances allow.. the
moherboard I want is out of stock at the monent, was 8 in stock
yesterday, none in stock this morning when I went to buy it !
Total cost : £650 which includes 1GB DDR2, and new 120GB Western
Digital Hard Drive.
I MIGHT buy a reasonable video card for around £140 if the onboard is
no good with Doom, which seems to be the benchmark for video cards !

Steve

 

[JAD]

Can someone explain why the recommendations are all for the AMD ?
Please don't say because AMD are the best (yawn)

AMD folks are 'motivated'. I heard a rumor that everybody that puts in a
good word for AMD gets a loyalty check in the mail.

That and the miniscule price differences.

I would be more concerned about having HD over 200 gigs. I would rather have
3 200gig'rs, than all my beans in one pot.

 

[Timbertea]

I can't come up with a reasonable explanation justifying this much
power and with all of the good advice you have got me thinking I should
scale back.

In fact, my current PC is fine for most of my uses, except that it is
now getting so dated that it doesn't meet the minimum requirements of
newer hardware and software. Also, it seems slow. I could upgrade
some of it, but I need a second PC anyway.

With this in mind, please offer your advice for more reasonably priced
components that would still put me at the advanced end of the spectrum
for a faster PC that would last a reasonably long time.

Thanks again!

Well, to be honest, I thought you were building the ultimate gaming rig.
But it sounds more like you want the ultimate workstation ...and I do
too, you might consider going dual xeon 800FSB, and you can still have
your SLI. I think you would be even happier with the results of that as
far as day to day use and quickness. It just cost a ton to build right.
Ahhh, sigh. For that much money, that is the way I would go if I wasn't
out to play video games on it. Way better for day to day massive
multitasking, video editing. I like a machine where you can burn a DVD,
record a TV show, watch a DVD, have you mail, word processor, spread
sheet and chat in IRC at the same time spread over 4 beautiful
displays... So if you really want to spend $4,000-5,500 on a very nice
rig, I know what I would get.. I just need $5,500 and a custom made
desk to support it and maybe an electrician to come in and put in some
extra grounded outlets...

But on a reasonable note:

The motherboard you picked out is a great board, and it has way more
features than you will probably ever use. Nothing wrong with having an
SLI board, they support 2 graphics cards and make very nice multimonitor
units. I'm a big fan of dual and tripple heads. When I have to work on
a machine with only a single monitor it's like torture to me. As far as
actually using the SLI, okay there are a few games that support it, but
most of the time you would be better off taking advantage of multiple
displays. Currently the only applications supporting SLI are games. SLI
doesn't even let you use both graphics cards to trade off task between 2
displays, it's locked to driving a single display unit. The ability to
have 4 monitors going and actually be able to drive them properly is not
to be taken lightly. Before dual PCI-E16, the only real option for 4
displays was from Matrox and while Matrox cards are beautiful and
wonderful 2D and the sharpest text you will ever see, they are dismal at
3D. (They do, however, have Powerdesk software, and Matrox does it
right. NView and Hydravision don't even come close to the niceness of
Powerdesk.)

I think it really comes down to what you actually want to use the thing
for. Do you game a lot? Do you multitask a lot? What kind of
applications are you wanting to run? Video editing? Multitrack digital
recording studio? Or just a rockin' workstation that all your friends
are jealous of? How much is reasonable cost wise for you?

 

[petermcmillan_uk]

Can someone explain why the recommendations are all for the AMD ?
Please don't say because AMD are the best (yawn)

The guy (like me) has a Pentium (I have a Pentium 4, 1.7GHz at the mo)
and no one has mentioned Pentiums... despite the heat problems with
the Athlon 64.
Also, it seems to me, that Athlon 64's are just slow (up to 2.4GHz)
processors that expected to be overclocked with all the associated
heat, reliability and life expectancy problems ?

I have an Athlon XP at the moment, but I have nothing against Pentiums.
Personally I have just been aiming for max MHz/Watt so that my system
is cooler (only a PSU fan and one other fan in my machine). When the
time comes I will look at the options. Last time I looked the P4's
went up to around 100W which I think was more than the AMD's. I can
also remember reading somewhere that Intels power ratings are only 75%
of max power, but I haven't been able to find any evidence of this on
Intels site.

Also are the new Atlon boards capable of using DDR2 ?

IIRC I don't think so.

The board I am looking at for my Pentium 4 is the ASUS P5GDC-V Deluxe.
It has inbuilt Video and sound, and has slots for both DDR and DDR2
(you cant use both !). AND it has PCI-Express slot plus 3 PSI slots
too, so if you are an avid gamer you can put a video card of your
choice into the PCI-E slot (x16)
According to just about every magazine I read DDR2 and PCI-E are THE
way to go !

I am going to ignore 64 bit until things have settled down more, and
go for a Pentium 4 3.4GHz.
Someone once said "If you are going to upgrade, always upgrade to
twice the speed"

Anyway, we all have a choice, so I AM NOT knocking AMD, just pointing
out there is Intel around and for my purposes it looks better, so
don't go saying I don't like AMD, I have looked at both sides and for
me Intel is fine !

I do play games (Doom 3 and Half-Life 2 are on my list) but I am not
an avid gamer, and I do use office and want to do some Video Editing
(from My Sony Digi-Cam).
I have bought most of the stuff I want Case, 650W Power Supply, DVD-RW
etc. and will be buying the rest soom when finances allow.. the
moherboard I want is out of stock at the monent, was 8 in stock
yesterday, none in stock this morning when I went to buy it !
Total cost : £650 which includes 1GB DDR2, and new 120GB Western
Digital Hard Drive.
I MIGHT buy a reasonable video card for around £140 if the onboard is
no good with Doom, which seems to be the benchmark for video cards !

I wouldn't expect the onboard GFX to be very good with Doom 3, but I
may be wrong.

 

[petermcmillan_uk]

Big bucks..but your money! Nice chip though.

You want 2GB on a single stick? Ouch, that will cost you. There are 2GB
sticks available though, they tend to run in the 850-1100 a piece
range and almost always are ECC as the only people buying 2GB sticks are
scientist and people running very high end servers. It's vastly
cheaper to get 2 1GB sticks of very fast ram & enjoy the advantages of
dual channel. You'll probably have to settle for 2.5-3-3-6 to get 1GB
sticks as far as best timing possible. You might actually do better to
get 2 of the PC4000 Ballistix 1GB and see how aggressive of timings you
can get out of them at PC3200 speed.
Make sure you get both of them the exact same kind or you will have all
kinds of SLI problems.
I understand for price reasons, but you get better RAID options on that
board with SATA. Either way, I wouldn't settle for just *1* 400GB
Hitachi, you might as well get 2 and put them in a raid.
IIyama Vision Master Pro 512, yeah, its $600 and some change, but since
you are going to be using SLI and SLI only drives one monitor you want
that monitor to be the best it can be. The IIyama Vision Master 512 is
one of the most beautiful and powerful 22" monitors ever made. Or you

can step back to reality and realize that
99.999999999999999999999999999999999999% of applications don't support
SLI and you'll have 2 very capable graphics cards capable of supporting
4 CRTs and order yourself either 1 Vision Master Pro 512 and 3 Vision

Master 1451 19" CRT's at $140-160 a piece, or maybe even 4 vision master
1451's. I do, however, reccommend you look into having a custom desk
built to support these as 4 of these monitors carries a lot of weight

and takes up a lot of space. Ideally you want a semi-circle shaped desk
made of oak with quality joints and sturdy bolts holding it together. NO
IKEA.

I can't understand why you'd want 4 monitors! I had 2, one for each of
my machines, but decided to go down to one because it was extra
clutter. You can't use more than one at the same time, and all apart
from one would be in a bad position which would proably give you a neck
ache.

 

[JAD]

I can't understand why you'd want 4 monitors! I had 2, one for each of

my machines, but decided to go down to one because it was extra
clutter. You can't use more than one at the same time, and all apart
from one would be in a bad position which would probably give you a neck
ache.

4 is much, but AFA using them, they are all usable with the mouse stretching
across all of them. I use two for palleted user interfaced software.