Rebuilding Desktop System

[sevenal]

What kind of Video card are you currently running.
The one your looking at is a great card.
But I would put the $ into the system and settle for say a 7200
I to am a gamer and I really like my Ti card

[anken]

Thanks sevenal, I have been wondering if it would be overkill.

I just want to get the best video performance possible and am not interested in the TV connection, etc.
So, I appreciate your input very much.

Shawn, your system looks great!
As for the mobo, I didn't know that there was a deluxe version.

I just would like to get one so that I could upgrade the processor if necessary sometime down the road.

[Shawn711]

Thanks for the compliment........I want to upgrade to the ATI 9700 eventually when the price drops some more with the release of the 9800, but gotta wait for a bit for that...........as far as the A7N8X Deluxe..... if I am not mistaken, the main differences betweent the standard and deluxe version are the deluxe has dual onboard lan, onboard 6 channel sound, and 2 onboard firewire connections while the standard has only 1 onboard lan, no sound or firewire connections.........I might need to be corrected on that.....I got it for the dual lan......takes the place of router for sharing dsl connection cuz I only have 2 computers hooked up........I also like the variety of fsb's it handles, so I can go as far up as they make right now, or if something happens to my processor (god forbid!), I can use a slower temporary replacement.......I have been quite happy with it so far......

[xcrunner51]

I'd say get the Asus A7N8X deluxe, an AMD Barton 2500+ and a Sapphire 9700NP from newegg. With the Asus board, u can change the mulitplier on the Barton from from 11 to 12.5, which the Asus board will read as a 2800+ plus u'll have double the L2 cache. Also, it comes with a whole host of other features, like Nvidia Soundstorm. The Sapphire 9700NP u can flash with Giga-Byte's 9700 Pro BIOS to unlock overclocking and run it at 9700 Pro speeds. The sapphire version comes with 2.8ns ram, the same as the Pro version, so you should be able to achieve equal or better speeds than a Pro version at stock.

Before:
Asus A7V333-XL: 83.99
AMD Athlon XP2600/333: 219.00
ATI Radeon 9700 Pro 128MB: 379.00
LiteOn HT761S 400W: 51.00
Volcano 11: 32.00

Total: $764.99

After:
Asus A7N8X Deluxe: 144.99
AMD Barton 2500+: 170.00
OEM Sapphire Atlantis 9700: 232.00
LiteOn HT761S 400W: 51.00
Volcano 11: 32.00

Total: $629.99

With some tweaks you get a much better system with the parts I chose, and with the money saved u can buy some ram or a bigger HD.

[anken]

Thank you for your suggestion, xcrunner51.
It sounds like a better system and I'm all for saving some $$.
Some of your suggestion are a little "over my head" but I'm looking forward to learn about it.
I'm glad that I haven't bought any of the components yet, cause I'm still saving up for it.
So, thanks for your ideas!

[DPA]

about all i can offer is

www.pricewatch.com

cross reference sellers at www.resellerratings.com to get your best deals

goodluck, and that 9700 pro is a heck of a lot cheaper than 370.00!

[anken]

Hey thanks, I will keep on looking!

[pinoy87]

If your looking at the 9700 PRO then just get the 9700 and install POWERSTRIP and up the core and memory clock to that of 9700 PRO. The only difference with these two are clock speed and 9700 is cheaper than the PRO version.

I also recomend the nforce2 motherboard. If you dont want to spend a lot just get the EPOX nforce2 they are around $99. Also they are popular among overclockers and offer a lot of features.

Why dont you try out the Barton cores instead.

[xcrunner51]

Originally posted by pinoy87
If your looking at the 9700 PRO then just get the 9700 and install POWERSTRIP and up the core and memory clock to that of 9700 PRO. The only difference with these two are clock speed and 9700 is cheaper than the PRO version.

I also recomend the nforce2 motherboard. If you dont want to spend a lot just get the EPOX nforce2 they are around $99. Also they are popular among overclockers and offer a lot of features.

Why dont you try out the Barton cores instead.

the 9700NP has a hexidecimal value in the BIOS different from the 9700 Pro BIOS that prevents it from overclocking, you either have to get a 9700NP BIOS with the value changed or just flash a pro bios. Warp11's BIOS's are really popular and good overclockers

[anken]

Whew!
At this point it's over my head.
Thank youi for your advice. I will have to learn a lot more about overclocking.
So far I just like to get a very good processor & mobo so that I dont' have to do any overclocking for a while.
In the meantime I hope to be able to educate myself on this subject.
Thanks, Ann