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Planning for my new computer


Darkelve
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<Small rant>

Well, as you know my PC just came back from the shop out of repair. And it went pretty well. 9.3 installed on it without a hitch. I'm thinking the PC repair guy must have been pretty surprised when he saw SuSe 9.1 still happily booting up from Grub after processor and motherboard were changed.

 

Whereas Windoze, it complained about not being able to start up, due to it not being activated. Tell the truth, I don't feel like activating it. And if I do, maybe I have to re-install the thing after all.

</end rant>

 

 

Anyway, I'm already looking to what my new PC will look like. I'll keep this PC for work and internet, "official" stuff and focus the other (the one I'm configuring) one more on gaming. So this'll be my "gaming rig".

 

Of course, it'll have to run Linux.

 

So I had some fun with an online tool called "PC-configurator" on http://www.linuxbelgiumshop.be/nl/

 

And I'd appreciate some feedback on the components I've choosen so far.

 

 

Item: Processor

Model: [skt 754] AMD Athlon 64 3400+ 64bit / 400MHz FSB 512KB / box

Price: 238,67€

 

Item: Motherboard

Model: [skt 754] MSI K8N NFORCE3 NEO PLATINUM DDR400,SATA,Raid,7.1,Glan

Price: 106,20€

 

Item: RAM

Model: [PC3200] DDR400 1024MB Corsair ValueSelect [2x512MB for DUALDDR]

Price: 147,58€

 

Item: PC Assembly

Price: 24,20€

 

Item: computer case

Model: Coolermaster Centurion 5 Tower Case,350W,Black

Price: 85,72€

 

Item: DVD-Rom

Model: LG - DVD-Rom 16x48x - BLACK

Price: 22,78€

 

Item: CD-RW

Model: LG - CDRW Writer 52x32x52x - BLACK

Price: 23,67€

 

Item: Hard Disk

Model: Maxtor 160Gb 7200rpm 8mb Diamond Max +9

Price: 85,36€

 

Item: Network Card

Model: 3com 905C-TX_M 10/100Mbit PCI Card

Price: 30,61€

 

Item: Sound Card

Model: Creative SB Live! 24-Bit Retail (difference with OEM = ?)

Price: 48,54€

 

Item: Power Supply

Model: Coolermaster PSU ATX, 450W + Power Consumption indicator.

Price: 92,01€

 

Item: Graphics card

Model: [PCI-E] Asus Nvidia EN6600TD, 256MB Tv-out, DVI,2*VGA, PCIX

Link: http://www.linuxbelgiumshop.be/en/pc_detai...ac803a8353e04c2

Price: 154,01€

 

Total Price:

1059,34€

 

 

To me, seems really "cheap" for such a powerful system, at least compared to retail boxes. What do you think of it?

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Not a bad deal Darkelve !!

 

For those of you who don't have a clue what 1059,34 € (euro's ) is:

in US about $1400.00

in real money (English pounds ) :P about £725.00

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Darkelve:

I would save money on the CPU...

 

[skt 754] AMD Athlon 64 3000+ 64bit / 400MHz FSB 512KB / box 159,47 €

is much cheaper and the Mobo has lots you don't need like SATA RAID.... however you will probably only save €20 by limiting this and its pretty good alround and nforce3 which works very well for me in linux!

 

IMHO another few Mhz clockspeed will be wasted for the extra cost!

 

Also I would go with:

 

 

LG DVD RW+/- 16x Double Layer 16/16/4/40, OEM, 4163BB 58,82 €

 

honestly once you tried .... for the little bit extra it will save you lots of trouble.

 

instead of

Item: DVD-Rom

Model: LG - DVD-Rom 16x48x - BLACK

Price: 22,78€

 

Item: CD-RW

Model: LG - CDRW Writer 52x32x52x - BLACK

Price: 23,67€

 

 

 

The Mobo I highlighted above has built in nforce sound AND Gbit/100/10 NIC...

I would try them... you can alsways add a better sound card later and different NIC or wireless.

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I think its the same one....

I got

 

Merk ASUS

Type K8V Deluxe

Platform Socket 754 (AMD)

Chipset VIA K8T800

FSB 800 MHz

Geheugen PC3200 DDR

Video slot AGP 8X

PCI sloten 5 x

IDE UltraDMA 133

Serial ATA Serial ATA 150

RAID RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 0+1

Audio 6-kanaals

LAN 1 Gbps

Firewire 1 x

Formaat ATX

Uitvoering Retail

Product code K8V SE DELUXE-EAYZ

 

The King of AMD Athlon 64 MBs

AMD Athlon 64 Processor

VIA K8T800

800 MHz Hyper Transport

Dual SATA RAID

AI NET

IEEE 1394

Wi-Fi slot for optional wireless LAN upgrade

 

 

[skt 754] ASUS K8V Deluxe, Gigabit-Lan K8T800, SATA,Raid,1394,W-Slot 89,92 €

 

And yep seriously the 3000+ is 2Ghz... Im not exactly sure of the 3400+ without looking but what I do know is you will be able to buy one for €50 in a year! and probably upgrade to a 4000+ for 100€

 

I always buy 1-2 behind leading edge nowadays and save the cash..because half the time you end up just having spare CPU's.

 

I have 3x spare athlon 1250-1300's right now and proably a spare 2000+ in June..if I upgrade my GF's... because the sockets change you get locked to a mobo so I just try and save the cash....

 

My two main PC's are shuttles now... and they are both easily fast enough....

 

If you have extra cash then I always add memory before a small increase in CPU speed but 1GB seems adequate usually....

(even my 1300Mhz has 1GB RAM)

 

Spend money on monitors because you will staring at it a long time!

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IMHO

 

Wait for the dual core 64 bit CPUs to become mainstream and cheaper. Intel have just released their first one, and AMD's arent too far away.

 

I reckon you should be able to get an intel pentium dual core for a reasonable price by the end of the year.

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Stick with AMD. You can't own some of this stuff unless you pay ther price. I wait for the price to drop, but then I am never current. (I don't have 64bit or sata yet!)

 

I agree with Gowater; forget the cdrw and get a dvd+-RW. (I have done that!) My computer has a dvd read device and dvd record device. (For illegal copies of course!)

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Don't get a Live! 24-bit. The Linux drivers are pants. Get an Audigy 2 or any Envy-based card (Chaintech AV-710 is a good cheap choice). M-Audio Audiophile 2496 for the entry-level audiophile, RME Digi PAD for the true audiophile :). If you care at all about noise, get a Seagate hard drive instead of the Maxtor.

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Okay, new try:

 

Coolermaster Wavemaster Alluminium Casing

130,10€

 

LG DVD RW+/- 16x Double Layer 16/16/4/40, OEM, 4163BB

58,82€

 

[skt 939] AMD Athlon 64 3000+ 3000+ 64bit Skt 939, Retail

158,07€

 

[skt 939] MSI K8N SLI Platin,Nforce4, DDR400,SATA,Glan,2xPCI-X

171,10€

 

Maxtor 200Gb 7200rpm 8mb, SATA Diamond Max 10

106,11€

 

[PC3200] DDR400 1024MB Corsair ValueSelect [2x512MB for DUALDDR]

147,58€

 

Creative SB Audigy 2 ZS Retail, Platinum

191,11€

(OR: get another sound card in some other shop)

 

Coolermaster PSU ATX, 450W + Power Consumption indicator.

92,01€

 

[PCI-E] Asus Nvidia EN6600GT, 128MB Tv-out, DVI,2*VGA,PCIX

201,77€

Total:

1280,86€

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Okay... next round!

 

- [skt 939] AMD Athlon 64 3000+ 3000+ 64bit Skt 939, Retail,

- [skt 939] MSI K8N SLI Platin,Nforce4, DDR400,SATA,Glan,2xPCI-X

- [PC3200] DDR400 1024MB Corsair ValueSelect [2x512MB for DUALDDR]

- IN-WIN X710 F-tower, LED Silver, 430W,2xFan,USB2/Audio

- Pioneer DVD Bur DVR-109 OEM BLACK 16x+/-,6X+/-Double layer

- Maxtor 200Gb 7200rpm 8mb, SATA Diamond Max 10

- [PCI-E] Asus Nvidia EN6600GT, 128MB Tv-out, DVI,2*VGA,PCIX

 

Total: 944,25€

 

 

Hmmm... this looks pretty good! smile.gif

 

Only thing I'm not sure about, is the graphics card. I want a card with good performance, without having to spend gazillions (i.e. €400-700) on it.

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What happened to the sound card? Don't buy that 191EUR audigy. That's a good 150EUR more than you need to spend on a soundcard.

 

6600GT is an excellent choice for a midrange graphics card, but bear in mind this is 'midrange' by graphics geek standards, i.e. it will be quite capable of playing Doom3 at 1280x1024 or higher. If you don't really need THAT much power, get a regular 6600 or even a 6200.

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"What happened to the sound card?"

 

Well, someone adviced me to use the on-board sound at first, said he did not notice much difference anyway. And I kind of agree: the onboard sound I've had was always satisfactory. If I want to, I can still put in a sound card quite easily later.

 

And I'll probably will need that much power for a couple of the games that I'm anticipating.

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Gowator, you mean this one (MOBO)?

 

http://www.linuxbelgiumshop.be/en/pc_detai...e46d89c14cad161

 

If someone wants to have fun helping me choose my parts, you can go here:

http://www.linuxbelgiumshop.be/en/pc_conf.html

 

 

Yep that was it....

 

I used to be more into top of the range mobo's but now the socket designs seem to change... and computers are so much faster all round that I go for price.

Like Ix says save now wait for the prices to drop and replace a component at a time....

 

Like with the soundcard.... try out the nforce.. if your not happy then you can buy a better one and hopefully drivers will have got better.

One annoying thing with my nforce is skype seems to take it over complately...I don't know if this is skype or the driver....

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