Hardware questions

[Nessumsar]

Re: Hardware questions

Once again, thank you for your advice. And after another makeover, this is what its looking like:

Aspire X dreamer case
Thermaltake silent pure power 420 psu
2x thermaltake 90mm with 80mm adapters
chaintech vnf3-250
AMD 64 bit 2800
Artic silver 5
thermaltake Venus 12
corsair value select 512
WD 80gb sata
Liteon 52x32x52x16

Still dont know about the video card. the 6800 is a bunch of money. :\

[Yawgm0th]

Re: Hardware questions

It's not that hard...

Change the case. If a case that you think looks cool is affecting the hardware this much, it's got to go. Depending on which Aspire X Dreamer case you are referring to (there seem to be a lot), it could cost welll over $40. I've been looking at the Raidmax black 10-bay case for $26 at Newegg. There are a bunch of different colors, but they are all the same case for about $26. That saves some money.

You can downgrade the HSF to the Venus 7. Not as powerful, but a lot cheaper. you can still OC with it.

I'd suggest you take Kingmax PC3500 over any Corsair value select. Either this saves money, or costs slightly more, dependind on which Corsair. The really cheap stuff is Cas latency 3. PC3500@CAS 2 = much better than PC3200@CAS 3.

See if you can find a cheaper combo drive. Lite-on is good, but there are other good ones. you could even consider getting a refurbished one. There are a couple refurbished at Newegg of the same model.

Cut the excess fans. Get the cheapass Speeze ones or something similar. One or two is enough, with the Aspire or with the Raidmax. The Raidmax comes with room for 5 added fans and comes with two side panel fans. I'd say get one fan for the front and one for the back and you'll have good cooling.

Get an IDE 80GB drive. SATA is much faster, but if you really need to save a few bucks, this is an option that you probably won't shed any tears over in the future.

I know those seem like small cost drops, but they should add up to over $80 together, even if you ignore one of them. You can get a Geforce 6800 for $273 (although the eVGA I would recommend is $283) and the Sapphire 9800 Pro (which is what you should get if you were getting a 9800 Pro, no question) is about $195. So it should only take $80 to $90 in cuts to fit the 6800 in.

[Nessumsar]

Re: Hardware questions

Ok, so what do I get If I spend the extra $100 on the 6800?

[Yawgm0th]

Re: Hardware questions

Let's see... I'll assume you get the eVGA for $183 that comes with a free copy of FarCry. With your 9800 Pro, you might be running that at 1024x768 at around medium settings. With the GeForce 6800, you can probably run it at 1600x1200 or maybe 1280x960, with high quality settings and maybe some anti aliasing. The game will look okay on the 9800 Pro, but it will look amazing on the GeForce 6800. It will also get higher frame rates, which means the game will play more smoothly and look more realistic.

Let's say you buy Doom 3. On your 9800 Pro, you'll run Doom 3 at 1024x768@High Quality, perhaps with some anti aliasing as well. That's assuming you overclock it to about 9800 XT speeds (which isn't guaranteed). On the GeForce 6800, Doom 3 will run at 1600x1200@high quality with ease. It will look pretty cool on the 9800 Pro, but it will be the most amazing thing you've ever seen on a computer with the Geforce 6800. Again, you will probably recieve much higher frame rates, even with the more demanding resolution.

You'll see this trend with most games. You will be running them at much higher resolutions, with higher settings, and higher framerates. In fact, the 6800 is so much better than the 9800 Pro, that the Athlon XP system you were looking at it would perform better in games than the A64 system if it had the 680 and the A64 system had the 9800 Pro. It's that important.

[Nessumsar]

Re: Hardware questions

wow, dang, now im tossed. wait longer and get the 6800 or wait shorter and get the 9800. well, I guess waiting is waiting, Ill just have to save more for the 6800. Only $555 more to go... Thank you guys again for the help.

[T Bell]

Re: Hardware questions

Yeah Yawgm0th gave a pretty good sales pitch. I think I will dump my AIW 9600 XT. From many reviews, I hear it is better than the 9800 Pro. We'll see how funds and my anxiousness goes. My video card will like ly be the last thing I purchase.

[Nessumsar]

Re: Hardware questions

Yay, looks like my mom is going to pick up the rest of my computer tab, cause mine took a crap yesterday.

<TABLE cellSpacing=2 cellPadding=2 width="100%"><TBODY><TR vAlign=top><TD width=41 height=46><TABLE cellSpacing=2 cellPadding=2 width="100%"><TBODY><TR><TD class=productDesc align=middle></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></TD><TD><TABLE><TBODY><TR><TD class=productDesc colSpan=2>DYNAPOWER Black ATX Mid-Tower Case with 430W Power Supply, Model "86B2" -RETAIL </TD></TR><TR><TD class=content1blue width=42>Item#</TD><TD class=itemNumber width=480>N82E16811138033 </TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><TD class=content1 align=right width=96><TABLE width="100%"><TBODY><TR><TD class=productDesc align=right>$34.00</TD></TR><TR><TD class=rebate> </TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></TD><TD class=productDesc width=138><TABLE width="100%"><TBODY><TR><TD class=productDesc align=right>$34.00</TD></TR><TR><TD class=rebate> </TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><TABLE width="100%"><TBODY><TR><TD width=40></TD><TD class=description width=303></TD><TD class=productDesc width=423> </TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><TABLE cellSpacing=2 cellPadding=2 width="100%"><TBODY><TR vAlign=top><TD width=41 height=46><TABLE cellSpacing=2 cellPadding=2 width="100%"><TBODY><TR><TD class=productDesc align=middle>1</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></TD><TD><TABLE><TBODY><TR><TD class=productDesc colSpan=2>CHAINTECH "VNF3-250" nForce3 250 Chipset Motherboard for AMD Socket 754 CPU -RETAIL </TD></TR><TR><TD class=content1blue width=42>Item#</TD><TD class=itemNumber width=480>N82E16813152043 </TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><TD class=content1 align=right width=96><TABLE width="100%"><TBODY><TR><TD class=productDesc align=right>$79.00</TD></TR><TR><TD class=rebate> </TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></TD><TD class=productDesc width=138><TABLE width="100%"><TBODY><TR><TD class=productDesc align=right>$79.00</TD></TR><TR><TD class=rebate> </TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><TABLE width="100%"><TBODY><TR><TD width=40></TD><TD class=description width=303></TD><TD class=productDesc width=423> </TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><TABLE cellSpacing=2 cellPadding=2 width="100%"><TBODY><TR vAlign=top><TD width=41 height=46><TABLE cellSpacing=2 cellPadding=2 width="100%"><TBODY><TR><TD class=productDesc align=middle>1</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></TD><TD><TABLE><TBODY><TR><TD class=productDesc colSpan=2>Thermaltake Silent PurePower, 420W ATX power supply.UL, CSA, TUV, CE Approved. Intel Pentium 4 Compliant </TD></TR><TR><TD class=content1blue width=42>Item#</TD><TD class=itemNumber width=480>N82E16817153006 </TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><TD class=content1 align=right width=96><TABLE width="100%"><TBODY><TR><TD class=productDesc align=right>$36.00</TD></TR><TR><TD class=rebate> </TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></TD><TD class=productDesc width=138><TABLE width="100%"><TBODY><TR><TD class=productDesc align=right>$36.00</TD></TR><TR><TD class=rebate> </TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><TABLE width="100%"><TBODY><TR><TD width=40></TD><TD class=description width=303></TD><TD class=productDesc width=423> </TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><TABLE cellSpacing=2 cellPadding=2 width="100%"><TBODY><TR vAlign=top><TD width=41 height=46><TABLE cellSpacing=2 cellPadding=2 width="100%"><TBODY><TR><TD class=productDesc align=middle>1</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></TD><TD><TABLE><TBODY><TR><TD class=productDesc colSpan=2>AMD Athlon 64 2800+, 512KB L2 Cache, 64-bit Processor - Retail
</TD></TR><TR><TD class=content1blue width=42>Item#</TD><TD class=itemNumber width=480>N82E16819103452 </TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><TD class=content1 align=right width=96><TABLE width="100%"><TBODY><TR><TD class=productDesc align=right>$141.00</TD></TR><TR><TD class=rebate> </TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></TD><TD class=productDesc width=138><TABLE width="100%"><TBODY><TR><TD class=productDesc align=right>$141.00</TD></TR><TR><TD class=rebate> </TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><TABLE width="100%"><TBODY><TR><TD width=40></TD><TD class=description width=303></TD><TD class=productDesc width=423> </TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><TABLE cellSpacing=2 cellPadding=2 width="100%"><TBODY><TR vAlign=top><TD width=41 height=46><TABLE cellSpacing=2 cellPadding=2 width="100%"><TBODY><TR><TD class=productDesc align=middle>1</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></TD><TD><TABLE><TBODY><TR><TD class=productDesc colSpan=2>Kingmax 184 Pin 512MB DDR PC-3500 - OEM
</TD></TR><TR><TD class=content1blue width=42>Item#</TD><TD class=itemNumber width=480>N82E16820156008 </TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><TD class=content1 align=right width=96><TABLE width="100%"><TBODY><TR><TD class=productDesc align=right>$80.50</TD></TR><TR><TD class=rebate> </TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></TD><TD class=productDesc width=138><TABLE width="100%"><TBODY><TR><TD class=productDesc align=right>$80.50</TD></TR><TR><TD class=rebate> </TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><TABLE width="100%"><TBODY><TR><TD width=40></TD><TD class=description width=303></TD><TD class=productDesc width=423> </TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><TABLE cellSpacing=2 cellPadding=2 width="100%"><TBODY><TR vAlign=top><TD width=41 height=46><TABLE cellSpacing=2 cellPadding=2 width="100%"><TBODY><TR><TD class=productDesc align=middle>1</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></TD><TD><TABLE><TBODY><TR><TD class=productDesc colSpan=2>A-DATA 128MB Secure Digital Card - Retail </TD></TR><TR><TD class=content1blue width=42>Item#</TD><TD class=itemNumber width=480>N82E16820211301 </TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><TD class=content1 align=right width=96><TABLE width="100%"><TBODY><TR><TD class=productDesc align=right>$20.00</TD></TR><TR><TD class=rebate> </TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></TD><TD class=productDesc width=138><TABLE width="100%"><TBODY><TR><TD class=productDesc align=right>$20.00</TD></TR><TR><TD class=rebate> </TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><TABLE width="100%"><TBODY><TR><TD width=40></TD><TD class=description width=303></TD><TD class=productDesc width=423> </TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><TABLE cellSpacing=2 cellPadding=2 width="100%"><TBODY><TR vAlign=top><TD width=41 height=46><TABLE cellSpacing=2 cellPadding=2 width="100%"><TBODY><TR><TD class=productDesc align=middle>1</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></TD><TD><TABLE><TBODY><TR><TD class=productDesc colSpan=2>Western Digital 80GB 7200RPM SATA Hard Drive, Model WD800JD, OEM Drive Only </TD></TR><TR><TD class=content1blue width=42>Item#</TD><TD class=itemNumber width=480>N82E16822135106 </TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><TD class=content1 align=right width=96><TABLE width="100%"><TBODY><TR><TD class=productDesc align=right>$67.75</TD></TR><TR><TD class=rebate> </TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></TD><TD class=productDesc width=138><TABLE width="100%"><TBODY><TR><TD class=productDesc align=right>$67.75</TD></TR><TR><TD class=rebate> </TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><TABLE width="100%"><TBODY><TR><TD width=40></TD><TD class=description width=303></TD><TD class=productDesc width=423> </TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><TABLE cellSpacing=2 cellPadding=2 width="100%"><TBODY><TR vAlign=top><TD width=41 height=46><TABLE cellSpacing=2 cellPadding=2 width="100%"><TBODY><TR><TD class=productDesc align=middle>1</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></TD><TD><TABLE><TBODY><TR><TD class=productDesc colSpan=2>Samsung Black 52X32X52X16 DVD/CD-RW Combo Drive, Model TS-H492A/WBGH, OEM </TD></TR><TR><TD class=content1blue width=42>Item#</TD><TD class=itemNumber width=480>N82E16827151051 </TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><TD class=content1 align=right width=96><TABLE width="100%"><TBODY><TR><TD class=productDesc align=right>$37.99</TD></TR><TR><TD class=rebate> </TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></TD><TD class=productDesc width=138><TABLE width="100%"><TBODY><TR><TD class=productDesc align=right>$37.99</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
This is what im going to order. Unless you guys have something to say. yay!

[Yawgm0th]

Re: Hardware questions

Well you're going to need a video card, regardless of what you get. Other than that, looks good. I guess you could get a more powerful PSU for another $20 just to be safe, assuming you get the 6800, but I bet the 420W will run it fine.

[Nessumsar]

Re: Hardware questions

I have two more questions. That kingmax memory is ddr433, and the mobo only supports up to ddr400, will it work ok? And, do you know if the psu that comes with the case has sata plugs, cause I dont really want to have to spend the extra money on the psu if i dont have to? And for the video card, im just going to use my 7200 for my next two or three paychecks, and then buy the 6800.

[Yawgm0th]

Re: Hardware questions

From the user reviews:

Very very good case. I loved it so far. It came in perfect condition. Nothing wrong with it. The power supply is good enough to power up my machine which is...
Athlon64 3200+
SOLTEK "SL-K8AN-RL" motherboard
1 Floppy
2 CD-ROMS
1 SATA Harddrives
2 ATA Harddrives
1 Radeon 9600 Video Card

The only cons about this case is that the front cover of the case is kind of loose. When you unplug a USB cable from the front USB port, you need to be more careful, otherwise, you might take out the whole front case. But I can deal with that, that's a very small issue.

For its price, I give a 2 thumbs up for this case

I'd say it does from that, but there's a good chance it won't handle your system. It should work before you get the 6800, but get a new PSU when you do get it. Judging from the user reviews and common knowledge and personal experiences reagrdin case PSU, I'd say there's a good chance you'll have trouble when you go to a 6800 from the 7200.

The RAM will work just fine. The idea is it will allow for a bit of overclocking room at no increased cost.

[Nessumsar]

Re: Hardware questions

one last thing, the SATA drive is going to be my only drive, but I want to tansfer things from my IDE drive, can I install Xp on the sata drive, then plug in my ide drive to transfer things?

[Yawgm0th]

Re: Hardware questions

Sure. Make sure the SATA is the boot drive so Windows will boot, but you can put in the IDE drive before or after the installation and access it.

[Nessumsar]

Re: Hardware questions

Ok, awsome. Thanks again for all of your guy's help, especially you Yawgmoth. Looks like ill be ordering it around sunday/monday. I'll post when I get it together and let you know how you guy's ideas work!

[Nessumsar]

Re: Hardware questions

Cool, my mom and I ordered my stuff today. I got everything cept the PSU and the video card, and I changed out the case for an Aspire gamer III