building a PC - help please

[egor]

Aha! I've thought up one other thing to add, if you end up get a 9600 or variant do not use a via chipset motherboard, use an nforce one... why... cos a via one won't work, well, thats not strictly true, but I encountered probblems cos I bought a 9600XT (2D was fine... 3D crashed to desktop or made my computer restart after it had been running for a while...) and my asus motherboard was via and it turned out it was quite a common problem... personally I'm sticking to nForce from now on because of that experience, but thats just me being illogical!

And onto the most important element... Soltek motherboards come in a nice bright yellow or a purple! Altho there aren't any holes around the processor socket for mounting a water cooling system

Also, the Abit NF7 is pretty darned good, it seems very reliable, and also the first choice for overclockers from what I've read (they seem to be suggesting its been through many generations or something and the current version is fab...)

 

[Mechcozmo]

Aha! I've thought up one other thing to add, if you end up get a 9600 or variant do not use a via chipset motherboard, use an nforce one... why... cos a via one won't work, well, thats not strictly true

I have, as stated earlier, a mobo with the VIA KT600 chipset and type A7V600. Works great. You can change everything in the BIOS. I've OC'ed my Athlon to 2Ghz, but as soon as it didnt' wanna run anymore the BIOS auto flashed itself and it was back to what I was doing before, aka, Last-Known-Good. No stupid little jumpers. The 6 PCI slots are great, too. USB 2.0, SATA, everything. It is my favorite Windoze computer, because it dosn't look too much like a Windoze box. (aka, Mac OS X themes, yknow)

 

[egor]

I have, as stated earlier, a mobo with the VIA KT600 chipset and type A7V600. Works great. You can change everything in the BIOS. I've OC'ed my Athlon to 2Ghz, but as soon as it didnt' wanna run anymore the BIOS auto flashed itself and it was back to what I was doing before, aka, Last-Known-Good. No stupid little jumpers. The 6 PCI slots are great, too. USB 2.0, SATA, everything. It is my favorite Windoze computer, because it dosn't look too much like a Windoze box. (aka, Mac OS X themes, yknow)

Yes, but what graphics card are you using? I was pointing out that there's a curious problem with via chipset motherboards and radeon 9600s.

But there's a point, if you want to overclock without having the case open (so you can clear the CMOS everytime it gets fecked up) yeah, get a motherboard with the feature mentioned, so it reverts back to the 'last-known-good', I tell you its really annoying to pull a jumper out and put it back and turn on and turn off and pull it out and put it back again...

 

[Mord]

to explain the the first poster about what the difference is between the 9600 the 9600 pro the 9600 xt

they differ in core clock speed and the amount of vram

9600 128MB < 9600 pro 128MB <9600 pro 256MB < 9600xt 256MB.

beware of the 9800se it's crap is it's crippled by being a 4 pipeline card.

9800se (piece of poo) 128MB <9800 128MB < 9800pro 128MB < 9800pro 256MB < 9800xt 256MB

 

[Timelessblur]

I might like to add that the 9800se<9600pro<9600XT<9700<9700pro<9800<9800pro<9800XT to give you an idea how crapy the 9800se.
here is a 2 part list for rigs that an be built for under 1k including monitor
Price Roundup

AMD Athlon XP System

Case: Aspire X-Dreamer II (with 350W PSU) - $54
CPU: AMD Athlon 64 3000+ Retail - $165
Cooling: included Retail HSF - $0
Motherboard: MSI K8T Neo-FSR - $83
Memory: 512-MB Corsair Value PC3200 DDR - $82
Hard Drive: 80GB Western Digital SE (8-MB) - $64
Video Card: Sapphire Radeon 9800 128-MB OEM (128-bit DDR) - $160
Monitor: Samsung 955DF - $185
Sound Card: 6-Channel Integrated - $0
Speakers: Logitech Z640 6-Piece Speaker System - $49
CD/DVD-ROM: AOpen COM5232 Combo Drive - $43
Communications: Onboard LAN - $0
Mouse: Microsoft Intellimouse Optical - $15
Keyboard: Microsoft Multimedia Keyboard - $15
Operating System: Windows XP Home - $84

Total: $999


Intel Pentium 4 System

Case: Aspire X-Dreamer II (with 350W PSU) - $54
CPU: Pentium 4-2.8E GHz Prescott (800) Retail - $177
Cooling: included Retail HSF - $0
Motherboard: MSI 865PE NEO2-PFS Platinum - $80
Memory: 2 x 256-MB PC3200 DDR - $82
Hard Drive: 80GB Western Digital - $56
Video Card: Sapphire Radeon 9800 128-MB OEM (128-bit DDR) - $160
Monitor: Samsung 955DF - $185
Sound Card: 6-Channel Integrated - $0
Speakers: Logitech Z640 6-Piece Speaker System - $49
CD/DVD-ROM: AOpen COM5232 Combo Drive - $43
Communications: Onboard LAN - $0
Mouse: Microsoft Intellimouse Optical - $15
Keyboard: Microsoft Multimedia Keyboard - $15
Operating System: Windows XP Home - $84

Total: $1,000

I got those list from the link below
http://www.sharkyextreme.com/guides/MVGSBG/article.php/3394901

 

[musicpyrite]

ahahah, this is a Mac forum, and when someone comes there asking about buying a Mac, you could hardly get 10 replies, but when they ask about building a PC, you get 30+ replies and not a single one is trying to flame the person. Just pointing out the irony.

 

[Mord]

it's because building a pc is more of a chore.

 

[egor]

to explain the the first poster about what the difference is between the 9600 the 9600 pro the 9600 xt

they differ in core clock speed and the amount of vram

9600 128MB < 9600 pro 128MB <9600 pro 256MB < 9600xt 256MB.

beware of the 9800se it's crap is it's crippled by being a 4 pipeline card.

9800se (piece of poo) 128MB <9800 128MB < 9800pro 128MB < 9800pro 256MB < 9800xt 256MB

Hang on a sec there. The 9600 pro and 9600xt aren't neccesarily 256mb, I'm running a hercules 9600XT 128mb, at the time which was not awfully long ago I could have had a connect3D 256mb but it turned out the memory was clocked lower or something... point is, well, um, I'm sure you get my meaning!

 

[Mord]

Hang on a sec there. The 9600 pro and 9600xt aren't neccesarily 256mb, I'm running a hercules 9600XT 128mb, at the time which was not awfully long ago I could have had a connect3D 256mb but it turned out the memory was clocked lower or something... point is, well, um, I'm sure you get my meaning!

i'm not to much of an expert on the ati range

my opinion: the 9600xt and the 6800gt are the two sweetspots.

 

[egor]

i'm not to much of an expert on the ati range

my opinion: the 9600xt and the 6800gt are the two sweetspots.

I don't know much about nVidia's range but I believe the 6800gt is comparable to the x800pro, not the 9600xt, the 9600xt is crap compared to both of them (altho still a good card for the money)