PC components help.

[Myth]

Just a simple list.. but do you see anything wrong or any components which may limit the sytem? any info would be greatly appreciated.

AMD Athlon 64 Motherboard:
Gigabyte GA-K8N Pro (nForce3 150) motherboard supporting Athlon 64 (754 pin, integrated LAN, firewire, SATA support, RAID, USB 2.0 etc)



Power Supply:
Minimum of 350 watts branded PSU



Other "no noise" options

Processor:
As listed in the price table at top left


Case:
Stylish two-tone with 2 front and 2 rear USB sockets + USB 2.0. (Approx 44x48x20 cm hxdxw)


Memory:
1024 MB DDR SDRAM, PC3200


Hard Drive:
120 GB UDMA150, Serial ATA (SATA), 7200RPM, 8MB cache, (outperforms most SCSI drives!)1

DVD-RW Drive:
DVD ReWriter NEC ND1000 or equivalent (also writes to CDs)

DVD Drive:
16x Sony DVD Player

Floppy Drive:
3.5" Floppy Disk Drive (sony or mitsumi only)

Graphics:
nVidia GeForce FX 5200, 128 MB AGP


Sound:
Six channel surround sound onboard 3

Network:
Integrated Network Card onboard (RJ45)

Modem:
56K PCI Modem V92

Black LCD Monitor:
Iiyama's 19" CRT screen, the LS902 UTG (Visionmaster 1451) 2


Keyboard & Mouse:
Microsoft PS2 Keyboard
Microsoft PS2 scroll mouse

Speakers:
Creative Inspire 4400 (4.1 surround sound speaker set)

I/O Ports:
2 x USB 1.1
2 x USB 2.0
2 x serial, 1 x parallel port, 2 x PS2,
Game/MIC-in/Line-in/Line-out

Expansion Slots:
3 x PCI slots free

[DarkDragoonX]

Hot damn, that's a nice setup. I can't see ANYTHING limiting about THAT machine.

[Bloodstar64]

Ohh boy the FX 5200 suck. (I should know I have one and Halo play's like shit at the lowest settings.)

[The Savior]

Originally posted by Myth

Graphics:
nVidia GeForce FX 5200, 128 MB AGP
Ditch that thing for a 9800XT and you're gold.

[Pablo]

Might want a couple more USB ports if you're going to have a lot of peripherals. And like Savior says, go with an ATI Radeon 9800XT.

Also, wireless keyboards/mice rock, but wired is cool as well :shrug:

[DarkDragoonX]

Originally posted by The Savior
Ditch that thing for a 9800XT and you're gold.

Yeah, that's not a bad idea. Especially since you'll get Half-Life 2 for free.

By the way, does the Geforce FX 5200 really blow that much?

[Bloodstar64]

Originally posted by DarkDragoonX
By the way, does the Geforce FX 5200 really blow that much?

YES YES IT SUCKS DONT BUY ARRRAGHHHHH!!!

And that was my moment of stupidity.

Yes it does suck, it has problems with most if not all games made on/after 2002. Plus bad directx9 support.

[Flash Man]

Originally posted by Bloodstar64
Ohh boy the FX 5200 suck. (I should know I have one and Halo play's like shit at the lowest settings.)

Halo runs like shit on all computers, of all video cards.
Although the 5200 is quite shit, anything from the FX series is missing vital pixel shaders for DX9. ATi all the way.

[Bloodstar64]

Originally posted by Flash Man
Halo runs like shit on all computers, of all video cards.

But when you need to put the game on Dx7 mode to run it and your buddy who has an Intergrated video card can run it at dx8 just fine shows that the card is shit.

[Flash Man]

Originally posted by Bloodstar64
But when you need to put the game on Dx7 mode to run it and your buddy who has an Intergrated video card can run it at dx8 just fine shows that the card is shit.

You say integrated video as if it covers everything ever integrated. A lot of video card manufacturers have done on board video, although lately none that are desktops have been done be newer nVidia or ATi cards. For all I know your buddy could have a Radeon 9600 in his laptop, for integrated video. Also I was referring to Halo running like crap on any video card, because I would say i'm safe to say that it should not run like crap on mine. Since I have an Athlon XP 2600+, 512mb DDR400, WDC 120GB 8mb cache, and a 9700 Pro 128mb. I have tested it on a 7500, Intel 815, GeForce 4 MX440, and a GeForce 4 TI4600. I think I would be safe to say I have covered most average cards, unless for some reason you have some massive system that has even more powerful equipment and you ran it at lower resolutions. Although the systems I tried it on were in slightly different systems, overall they were all similar. The only system that was completely different is this system which is a P3 866MHz and it has the i815.

[El Oso Verde]

I'm actually looking to upgrade my videocard right now, but there is no way in hell I can afford a 9800XT. http://users3.ev1.net/~fontlady/nick/smileys/mmeek.gif

I was wondering what you guys would reccomend for the under $200 range. I found a Radeon 9600pro with 256mb DDR for $166, but the brand is PowerColor. I'm not familiar with them, do they make decent boards? I know it'll definitely be better than my Geforce 2 MX I've got right now. http://users3.ev1.net/~fontlady/nick/smileys/mmtongue.gif

[gdorf]

I was wondering what you guys would reccomend for the under $200 range. I found a Radeon 9600pro with 256mb DDR for $166, but the brand is PowerColor. I'm not familiar with them, do they make decent boards? I know it'll definitely be better than my Geforce 2 MX I've got right now.

If I were you I'd buy a Radeon 9500 pro. They kick the 9600's butt in performance. They are a little hard to come by, as they were taken off the shelves, but you can still find them in places (I think newegg.com has them).

If you can't come across a radeo 9500pro, I would purchase a radeon 9600pro with 128mb. the memory in the 128's is much faster, and games will run better on the 128. Also, you can save yourself a little money. as far as I am concerned, 256mb is a gimick. By the time we have games that need or recommend 256mb of memory, your card will be outdated.


Power Supply:
Minimum of 350 watts branded PSU

For your system I'd recommend at least an antec 400w, especially if you ever plan to overclock it. but even without overclocking it, your system will draw a lot of power, and a bad power supply can be detrimental to your system and very hard to diagnose.