I'm Buying PC & Need advice

[jamesy505]

Hi > > Could you please help. I am buying a P.C . with gaming in mind mostly and > the past 2 months I have been reading up on > all the proccessors, graphics cards, motherboards etc. This p.c. has been > the end product of the said research and i would > appreciate an expert to have a very quick look and tell me if they see any > problem's that the sales person has > overlooked. The *** are the changes I have made to the spec I would like.

Operating system
Microsoft® Windows® XP Home Edition(May upgrade to Professional)

NVIDIA nForce3 motherboard withdual channel DDR&USB2.0

Processor
AMD Athlon 64 3200+ processor with HyperTransport technology***

Memory
2 x 512MB DDR RAM (PC2700) 333MHz***

Hard disk
160GB SATA HDD***

Graphics
256MB DDR ATI Radeon 9600pro graphics with DDR/TV-out & DVI

Monitor
17" Phillips tft***

Speakers
Creative Inspire P580 5.1 speakers

CD/DVD Rewriter
CD-RW drive (52x24x52)Burnproof technology
Multi Format 8x+R/+RW DVD Writer***

Keyboard and mouse
Microsoft cordless keyboard and cordless optical mouse

Modem
v92 56k Internet ready modem

Floppy drive
1.44MB 3.5" floppy drive

Case
Stylish tool free case - Xpider (435 x 222 x 495mm)

Standard software
Microsoft® Works 7.0 (OEM)

Pinnacle Creativity Bundled software Instant dvd/cd

[bombledmonk]

You might possibly want to check on the response time of that LCD monitor, it should be 25ms or less. Preferably 16ms.

And for the price of the 256mb 9600pro you should probably be able to get a 9800pro 128mb which will almost double the gaming performance.

Personally I would get PC3200 Ram instead of the PC2700 stuff.

And my number 1 question how much does it cost?

[jamesy505]

Thanks for your advice. I have made a type error on the graphics card , it will be a Radeon ati 9800pro 256mb.

As for the price £1,470.61, and the LCD is 16ms.

As for the PC3200 Ram instead of the PC2700 stuff, I'm not sure what effect this has on the performance?

Really appreciate your help and advice as a friend has just purchased a p.c. which was custom built buy a reputable company and a few of the components were not compatable!

[bombledmonk]

OK, I'm not sure but I thought that the 3200+ line of CPU's needed PC3200 RAM That might only be with the non 64-bit line.

Have you considered getting an Radeon X800 instead of the 9800. For what you are spending it doesn't sound like you are terribly worried about price.

What Kind of Power supply.

And ouch that is quite a price. But you are also getting quite a machine.

One more question, have you ever considered building it yourself? It's not very hard and it gives the builder great satisfaction.

[hawkman_jack]

You definitely want PC3200 400mhz Ram for this system Trust me on this one.

Excellent choices overall, that case will provide you with great cooling... I use that one myself.

The only reall problem I see is with the video card. If you check out some of the threads in the tech section you will see that people are having problems with ATI cards running games on machines using the NForce chipsets.

Since the Nforce2/3 chipsets are THE way to go with AMD that means I would definitely lean towards one of the next generation Nvidia cards. If that jacks up the cost too much try an FX9050XT.

[bombledmonk]

You shouldn't have any problems with ati or nvidia cards, personally I'd look for an X800 or Geforce 6800GT\Ultra.

[maxiderm]

nice choices with everything! definatly pc3200 RAM though. as for the video card, go for the next-gen cards. with the money your spending, you should definatly lean toward the newer cards.
-Max-