Thinking of getting a new PC

[Wolf_Demon]

well i looked around for lots of things, and i came up with this setup:

-ASUS A8N-SLI Premium Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce4 SLI ATX AMD Motherboard

-AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+ Manchester Integrated into Chip FSB Socket 939 Dual Core Processor

-ASUS EN7800GTX/2DHTV/256 Geforce 7800GTX 256MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16 Video Card

-mushkin SP3200 1GB 184-Pin DDR SDRAM DDR 400 (PC 3200) Unbuffered System Memory Model 991130

-Turtle Beach CATALINA 8 (7.1) Channels PCI Interface Sound Card

-ATADC GP550 ATX12V 550W Power Supply

(i made sure that the RAM and Processor are compatible with the motherboard)

so how is this setup? (of course i'll have the OS and cd/dvd drives)

*edit*

with everything there and with 2gb of RAM it adds up to about $1,700

Edited August 17, 2005 by Wolf_Demon

[ripken204]

asus fanboy, lol

do u really plan on going sli?

if you are then get the dfi sli-dr, if not the get the dfi nf4 ultra-d

also if u want sli then get the new evga 7800gtx at newegg, ull see how different it looks, it also has a lifetime warrenty. if u dont want sli then get an evga 7800gt

dont get a 4200, get a 3800, they overclock higher than a 4200 can

for psu get the ocz powerstream 600

why that sound card? you dont want an audigy 2 zs? this is a gaming machine so why dont you want good sound?

and for the ram get 4x512 of mushkin redline 4000, just make sure you have a fan on those

[Wolf_Demon]

personally, i'm a computer nub, so i really don't plan on overclocking.

and for the sound card, a buddy of mine at Overclockers UK said that Creative is no better than Turtle Beach

Edited August 17, 2005 by Wolf_Demon

[lylo]

A tip if you haven't yet decided on where to buy your gear from, OcUK is expensive compared to other places out there. I've come up with a list of what I'd like in a new rig on this forum and some of the bits were originally from there, I looked on eBuyer for the same gear and found alot of my parts significantly cheaper

Edit: Lol, whoops, just noticed you're from the US, my bad

Edited August 17, 2005 by lylo

[ripken204]

who said anything about overclocking? go with the setup i said before

[Xanin]

Regarding the sound system...I'm with ripken. I've got a Creative Audigy 2 ZS....I must say it kicks a**! The sound quality has been excellent for as long as I've used it, and there are loads of different ways to configure it all, I highly recommend it

[Pikea]

Or go for the X2 4400 as had 1Mb (well 2Mb) of cache and can easily overclocked to 4800 - assuming you want to do this.

I like OcUK for looking for products as it usually only has top spec things, often has big pictures and useful specs/direct links to manufacturer's website specs page for the product.

Although, I have to say that I have found some items cheaper on OcUK than other places.

Ebuyer does US as well doesn't it? But I'm sure there's a whole host of US online retailers that I have no idea about

Is the mushkin redline 4000 the ones that need a higher voltage? I read somewhere that some of them need higher than 3v - the A8N-SLI Premium only goes to 3v max. so I'm guessing you'll need the DFI as was suggested.

What about hard drives? SATA raid/ SATA II options.

[ripken204]

the 3800X2 can overclock to 2600-2700 on stock and 2700-2900 with an xp-90

the 4800X2 runs at 2400

[Pikea]

What fan would you use with the xp-90?

They recommend the Panaflo 92mm one, it's quite loud though.

But I guess whilst just idling in windows it could be turned down then when gaming put up to full speed.

[ripken204]

http://www.sidewindercomputers.com/pa92ulhisp.html

that one exactly!

and get a fan controller if u want to

[big poppa pump]

Stick with the Asus. Its an excellent mobo even if you are planning to run everything at stock. The DFI mobos are good but they are just too hyped up and requires a lot of tweakings even to get them running at stock speeds. I know this because I got the DFI SLI-DR before I returned it and got the ASUS SLI Premium. Absolutely stable out of the box without any major tweakings required.

Screw Creative sound cards! Go for the HDA X-mystique Dolby Digital Live 5.1 or a similar DD Live card from Turtle Beach.

[Mekrel]

Theres only one soundcard to get.

and thats the X-Mystique.....

[Wolf_Demon]

heh, to me it seems that sound cards are mostly opinion...but i heard that the newest cards (maybe not out yet...dunno) from Creative will have built in 3.2ghz processors...i'm guessing that will be useful as it won't take as much processing power from the main processor.

[ripken204]

they are amazing, the x-fi, best buy is the only know place that has them in the US.

[Mekrel]

Right, so the cheapest X-FI is like 99 pounds,

when the X-Mystique for a 3rd of the price will give exactly the same results. As for CPU power, when your outputting from a sound card in real time in Dolby Digital you wouldnt noitce any CPU hit anyway.

and I bet I can take a guess at this:

People spending the insane amount on the X-fi will be outputting to crap quality speakers

and those buying 30 quid sound cards (such as myself) outputing via optical after it being encoded in real time in DD will be outputting to much better AMPs/Decoders and experiencing much better audio quality.

The X-FI's are not worth the money creative are selling them for. and creatives drivers.... jesus ... Im not going to even start.