need advice on a new system please

[wuzza]

hi, i'm buying a new system this week, and have been out of the game for too long.

On a budget and just wondering out of the following choices, which should I take, and also what elements can you afford to go cheap on, and which ones should you definitely not...?
i've been offered a system for a good price, and it is fairly set though allows some changing around as you can see below.

I realise it's a lot of questions, so I appreciate anyone answering some or all of them. Opinions and hearsay are just as welcome as fact. Thanks guys.

CPU Pentium 4 2.4 or Athlon 2400XP? Please don't say neither as i have no other choice atm. Athlon is cheaper, but not by much.

CDRW is standard, but I want a DVD player. Should I get a combo of both, or is it better to buy a dedicated drive for DVD-ing? Are DVD-R's worth getting into yet, or should i wait?

Nvidia GeForce MX 440 64mb or ATI Radeon 9000 or avoid both?
same price.

i'm not mad into gaming, but do like it on occasion. I would really like a TFT monitor but is it really that bad for gaming? I'm willing to splash extra cash on a monitor as I do a lot of photoshop and illustrating, and tend to look at it for a very long time.
i'm in korea and TFT's are probably cheaper here than anywhere else.

Skate Barracuda 80GB HDD. yay or nay?

Is there significant difference between PC2700 and PC3200 RAM?

Motherboard is a Unitech KT 400 Pro. it has built in sound so should i save on buying PCI soundcard, or pay an extra 10 dollars for a Yamaha? (the only one on offer)

 

[muckshifter]

I’ve never heard of Unitech KT 400 motherboard … so my first reaction would be to change that to something I know, say an MSI KT4 Ultra FISR (DDR M/Board) LAN / 1394 / SATA 6 Chn Audio / DDR400 / USB 2.0 / 8X AGP / 333 FSB or the MSI K7N2G ILSR (DDR M/Board) Nforce2 / LAN / 1394 / SATA 6 Chn Audio / DDR400 / USB 2.0 / 8X AGP / 333 FSB

or an ...

Asus Asus A7N8X-D (DDR M/Board) Nforce2 / dual LAN / 1394 / SATA 6 Chn Audio / DDR400 / USB 2.0 / 8X AGP / 333 FSB and I know with any of these motherboards you would not need a separate sound card.

Now to make use of the SATA I would go for either 80Gb Maxtor D'Max Plus 9 - SATA (8MB Cache) Model: 6Y080M0 - 7200rpm - 3 Yr Warranty - SATA/150 - 8MB Buffer or get two 36.7GB W/Digital Enterprise SATA HDD (8MB Cache)
WD Raptor - WD360GD - 10,000 RPM - 5 Yr Warranty - 8MB Buffer

I would opt for an Nvidia GeForce 4 Ti4200 it won’t let you down.

Monitor … well I don’t like TFT’s I would spend my money on a Sony

Yes there is a difference between PC2700 and PC3200 … 2700 is 333 and will work well in the motherboards I mentioned, however, 3200 is DDR400 memory and although you would be lucky to see a 2% improvement I would fit 3200/400 where possible. Get good quality ram make sure you MB is capable of running it.

An AMD 2400 would be fine to go with the above.

DVD ?? I don’t have one, not interested, however, I would recommend a Lite-on RW and a DVD drive be fitted. As for a DVD RW … wait, there are still two options out there, if you need one, get one that does it all.


Oh, and make sure your case has at least a 400/500watt PSU in it.


Mucks. 8)

 

[DarkJedi]

Other motherbaords I'd recommend are:

Abit NF7-S: N-force 2 chipset, similar to the Asus the Mucks talks about, has raid, s-ata, onboard 6 channel audio firewire etc, very reliable, and good for overclocking, if you're into that kind of thing.

Epox 8RDA3+, again, similar to the above baord, just a couple of variations on the theme.

A friend of mine has recently bought a new gigabyte board, though for the life of me can't think what the model is. It came with everything he needed to get his 2200+ working, and clocking straight out the box to a 2700+ equivalent.

Just my $0.02...

 

[DarkJedi]

Also, for your systems memory, I would go for TwinMOS PC3200 DDR WinBond CH5 as it's fairly cheap, but it's some of the best performing memory out there.

As for the graphics card, I'd go with the Ati card, but if you're budget can stretch, get a 9500 pro as these can be clocked almost as high as a 9700 standard, and also you can flash their bios to a 9700 spec too...

 

[1nteger]

Originally posted by wuzza
CPU Pentium 4 2.4 or Athlon 2400XP? Please don't say neither as i have no other choice atm. Athlon is cheaper, but not by much.

CDRW is standard, but I want a DVD player. Should I get a combo of both, or is it better to buy a dedicated drive for DVD-ing? Are DVD-R's worth getting into yet, or should i wait?

Nvidia GeForce MX 440 64mb or ATI Radeon 9000 or avoid both?
same price.

i'm not mad into gaming, but do like it on occasion. I would really like a TFT monitor but is it really that bad for gaming? I'm willing to splash extra cash on a monitor as I do a lot of photoshop and illustrating, and tend to look at it for a very long time.
i'm in korea and TFT's are probably cheaper here than anywhere else.

Skate Barracuda 80GB HDD. yay or nay?

Is there significant difference between PC2700 and PC3200 RAM?

Motherboard is a Unitech KT 400 Pro. it has built in sound so should i save on buying PCI soundcard, or pay an extra 10 dollars for a Yamaha? (the only one on offer)

I would go for AMD over Pent, simply for future ease of upgrading, but I haven'r got a clue about that motherboard you mention. (I would not buy an off-the shelf system if the motherboard was not right as it's the single most important part of the system to ensure smooth running of the whole thing). If you had a choice, i'd say get an Asus A7N8X and try and get an XP2700 cpu (I know...u say have no choice...but you always have the choice not to buy)

Optical drives...I always try to avoid combo drives. A separate DVD-ROM and CD-RW means you also have 2 CD-ROM’s – handy if one fails, and you have a serious system crash, ‘cos u can always boot from the other. Lite-On are good budget opticals.

I’d leave DVD writing alone for a while until standards and prices settle…what are u really going to do with it?? Does it justify the extra cost that you would get more benefit from by investing in a faster cpu, better hard drive or more ram?

GeForce 4 MX….NEVER BUY ONE OF THESE! Even an older top end GeForce3 is better. Out of the 2 you mentioned the ATI would be the choice, but I’d recommend something like a GeForce4 Ti4200 or 4400…or a faster ATI Radeon…prices are coming down as new cards are currently being released.

TFT Monitor – if you’re not really into games, you need the space etc, then TFT is ok, but I reckon they’re overpriced and nowhere near the visual quality of cheap end CRT’s. TFT prices in Korea may be lower, but if, as you say, you do a lot of illustrating/graphics stuff, I would go for a top end 19” Iiyama CRT.

HDD…Don't know much about Skate Barracuda, but I wouldn't buy one if there were Western Digital or Maxtor drives available. The Western Digital ‘raptor’ that Mucks mentioned is the first 10,000rpm SATA drive but it’s under 37Gb, and if you have big graphics files and illustrations, you might need more space. I’d go for a Maxtor or Western Digital 120Gb (both do 8Mb cache, 7200 rpm)...if you have the option.

RAM…not a vast performance difference between PC2700 and PC3200 except in some prices! If you’re on a budget, but running heavy software like Illustrator, Photoshop etc…then I’d go for 1Gb of PC2700..tried and tested and very reliable...but go for branded (Samsung, for example) rather than generic (unbranded) if you can. (Check the motherboard maker's web site for RAM compatibility and recommendations though).

On the one hand you say you are on a budget, but then you are considering DVD-RW and TFT. I would save yourself cash on those items and go for more investment in the core components...mobo, cpu, ram. I don't understand why you are limited to the things you mentioned in your message, but always glad to offer more advice if you want to come back again!


8)