Wanting to build a new PC.

Pope Viper

Pope Viper

This ghoul has seen it all
Orderite
Here's what I'm looking at:

Lian Li PC-65B case
Asus P5AD2 Premium
Pentium 4 3.6Gb 560
2 Gb Crucial DDR 2 PC-4200OU
PC Power and Cooling Turbo Cool 510Express
Sapphire Radeon X800 XT Platinum Video Card

Now. That being said, I'd like to know what the AMD alternatives are to the above setup.

Help a Pope out?
 
my advice: DON'T GO FOR AN INTEL SETUP!

that being said ... what's the pricepoint you're aiming at? that's pretty expensive hardware :)

AMD is starting to ship out their new S939 CPUs btw
that + nforce 4 motherboard = r0xx0r :p

(the ATI & VIA motherboard chipset alternatives aren't really bad either, but nf4 beats them hard at I/O and is about equal at the rest)

edit typo
 
Still the nForce4 doesn`t have the nice on board sound of previous versions, that`s putting me off for now.
 
That's a pretty weak setup, Pope. Do you honestly expect to run anything other than Minesweeper on it?
 
PsychoSniper said:
The celeron isnt that bad, it doesnt overheat like the pentiums do.
Click to expand...

WHAT?

*blinks & reads the passage again*

man, i really hope you don't give advice to gaming friends when they want to buy a computer...
 
What are you talking about, SuaSide? Celeron is a great CPU! Owning one has a therapeutic effect, because it cures your gaming addiction with its inherent property of not being able to run any games.
 
SuAside said:
my advice: DON'T GO FOR AN INTEL SETUP!

that being said ... what's the pricepoint you're aiming at? that's pretty expensive hardware :)

AMD is starting to ship out their new S939 PCUs btw
that + nforce 4 motherboard = r0xx0r :p

(the ATI & VIA motherboard chipset alternatives aren't really bad either, but nf4 beats them hard at I/O and is about equal at the rest)
Click to expand...

Right now, that set up has me at around 2000.00, so anything around there.

:)

Give me MB/CPU/Vid card options that I can put into my document I'm building here.
 
is that 2000$ or € ?

where are you from btw ? taxes & prices tend to differ greatly in other countries ;) (i for instance mostly import my gear from germany, a lot cheaper most of the time)

anyway, gonna hit the sack now, will check this tomorrow
 
Another vote for AMD here. For reference, I have an asus k8v-se and an A64 3000+, cost me around $250. A similar intel system would have cost a ton more than that, and A64's are better for gaming anyway.

Now for advice: Go for a reputable brand for motherboards. Abit and Asus seem to be pretty well liked in this category. If you aren't overclocking and aren't a technophile, don't automatically choose an nForce over a Via motherboard. Just get one that suits all your needs. (I don't know if any Via boards have PCI-Express though)

Don't get that Radeon card, get a 6800 GT instead. It blows the X800 out of the water. Read up on it, it's not just nvidia bias.

Don't go for a top of the range A64. The prices climb a lot faster than the performance increases you'll see.

If you haven't already check out newegg.com, they usually have the best prices from what I've seen and I've always been happy with everything I've bought from them.
 
Now to consolidate:


1) I'm in the good ole USA, specifically the great state of Texas.

2) That would be 2000 USD.

3) I'm definitely looking to maximize the quality/feature set. MB wise, I always only look at Asus or ABIT, although I've heard MSI as a contender as well.

4) I've heard the 6800GT, and I've added that to my "more then likely list."

5) Yep, I do alot of shopping at NewEgg, although I've heard that Monarch Computers is also a good source.

Keep it coming, folks!
 
I think what's been throwing me off is that the processor is "2.2 Gb", uet it compares to the Intel 3.6?

But then it's 64 bit, so is that where the discrepancy lies?
 
It threw me off at first too, but it's legit. (Intel's "ratings" are as artificial as the "3500+" ratings on AMD processors anyway) Hold on, let me see if I can dig up an article on it.
 
Thanks Montez, I just got done reading on the 6800GT, and I really like what I've been reading.

If I can get the memory/CPU/MB locked down, I'll start ordering stuff tonight.


One thing I noticed on that Gigabit was no PCI-E slot.
 
The joys of having the biggest electronic black-market in Europe in one's home city.

I could get a computer like that for one fourth of the price. For 2000 USD, I could probably buy and assemble a computer close to calculating/graphics speed to the one in DreamWorks. :D
 
Hold on - a system that awesome costs only $2000?! Hot damn, I remember the days when I had to dish out up to $4000 for a rig of that caliber.
 
Here's something in the meantime:

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2249&p=9

(Edit: Linked to the wrong article page, 14 instead of 9) I'm having trouble finding a specific article on rated speeds though, so I'll just sum up my half-assed knowledge: AMD and Intel have different systems for transmitting data from and to the CPU, so while Intel has higher clock speeds, AMD has more efficient processing so they don't need the higher clock speed. Thus a 3.0 Ghz Pentium and a "3000+" AMD chip are more or less comparable. Due to the way A64 chips process data though they are much better suited to gaming.

From personal experience, I'll vouch that they are faster. My last computer had a P4 @ 1.8Ghz. My current computer has an A64 3000+, which has a clock speed of 2.0 Ghz. Performance in every game I play has leaped up much, much more than a .2 increase in clock speed could account for though, and I'm using the same video card I had in my old computer. (jeez, I'm really hyping AMD here, huh?)

And as far as PCI-Express goes, AMD motherboards won't have them for another month or so. If you're in a hurry to upgrade though there are AGP versions of the 6800GT, and while I haven't read too much my understanding is that there isn't much performance difference between the PCI-Express and AGP models because no games are around that can take full advantage of PCI-E anyway, and probably won't for a few years. I'll try to find some comparisons.


Edit: Here's a pretty funny site: http://www.materiel.be/fight/1/

You can pit the A64 3500 and Intel 560 3.6 versus each other. I just stumbled on it so I don't know how valid their results are.
 
Ratty said:
What are you talking about, SuaSide? Celeron is a great CPU! Owning one has a therapeutic effect, because it cures your gaming addiction with its inherent property of not being able to run any games.
Click to expand...
:shock:

Mine runs games great, it's the Intel Extreme Graphics hardware in my laptop that sucks giant donkey cocks.
 
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