Well, I've been thinking of stuff to buy for a new machine, primarily for gaming. And I think I've got a good base set up for a system. Naturally, I'm willing to chop and change bits, because you probably know better than me. In all, I've probably got about £700 or £800 I'm willing to spend, preferably at Savastore or Overclockers.

- Mobo - Asus A8N-SLI - ~£90
- Memory - 2x 1GB Kingston PC3200 - ~£180
- Processor - S939 Athlon 64 3200+ - ~£110

And... well... that's it. I know I'm asing for rampant fanboyism when I ask you what I should purchase in the way of graphics card. I've heard pretty good recommendations of the 6800s, and I don't know if my money'll stretch to a 7800, seeing as I still need to accomodate for

- Power supply
- Sound card
- Hard drive

Will I need anything special with my power supply if I'm using PCI-E? I've got a good feeling I might, but I'd rather ask you lot first. And is a SATA hard drive worth it over normal ATA, and what RPM is best? And what would you recommend in terms of a soundcard?

So many questions, too many choices.

first off on the CPU try this:
http://www.savastore.com/productinfo/product.aspx?catalog_name=Savastore&product_id=10280231&pid=44&rstrat=0
the San Diego core has a 1MB L2 cache which will benefit you far more than 2GB of RAM (i'd say drop that to 1GB so you can afford the 3700 San Diego CPU)

for PSU just get a regular one. nothing special is needed. i'd recommend Antec or Thermaltake and at least 400watts

hard drive... SATA is great. i'm still on regular ATA but i'm hoping to get a Western Digital Raptor soon. 10,000 rpm ;D (they're a bit expensive, though...)
a regular SATA drive is plenty good, too.

you can probably do just fine with onboard sound. your motherboard has an ALC850 chip by Realtek... that's pretty good. i'm using my onboard sound (Realtek AC97) and it's fine.
i'm not sure who's got the best sound cards right now but i'd stick with Creative if you're not happy with the onboard.

Agreed with Is.

Drop the second stick of RAM, the faster processor will serve you much more.

[QUOTE=Cool Matty]Agreed with Is.

Drop the second stick of RAM, the faster processor will serve you much more.[/QUOTE]

Rather than dropping the second stick of RAM it would be better to go with 2x512 for the dual channel goodness and you can always get a 2nd pair of 512s. As far as sound card goes I take it this will mainly be a gaming machine correct? There's really not much reason to go with an X-Fi over an A2ZS as they both still have crappy DACS (excepting the A2ZS with the breakout box and the X-Fi Elite Platinum Pro - seriously $400 for a gaming sound card?) and the main difference between the X-Fi and the A2ZS is EAX5 which nothing uses. OK, personally I wouldn't get a Creative! card but then again I'm no gamer any more so it matters not about my opinions on Creative!.

If you can't stretch it for a 7800, then the Geforce 6800 will serve you well in any gaming you plan on doing.

thanks Mith... i always forget to mention dual channeling.
i've got 1GB of PC3200 Corsair (not XMS =/ ) but it's dual channeled and it rocks.

also, i'm using the GeForce 6600 GT (128MB) and it's a fantastic card... i've got WoW almost maxed out and it runs HL2 beautifully almost maxed out settings. but i'd go for the 6800 or 7800 if i could

Well...as far as XMS and low-latency memory goes, you'll notice next to no performance difference between that and value. The only reason it's there is because you can let the latencies fly and get insane overclocks without having the memory hold you back. Also, I'd get a gig stick then just another gig stick down the road. Dual Channel really isn't THAT big of a performance difference--7% at best iirc. That's not nearly as much as you'd think, though it's somewhat significant.

Get the 7800GT, at least. Games on my 6800GT are starting to show lots of lag and slowdown at highest settings. I'd opt for next gen.

I'd go for a faster CPU- maybe lose the second stick of RAM, it's not really necessary. Oh, and do make sure you have a high enough wattage on your power supply- when I got my new PC, it wouldn't turn on, because I was about 100W short . Oh, and that's the exact same mobo I have, hehe- if I recall correctly, it's got a built in 24-bit creative soundcard that's perfectly adequate for my purposes...

Also for the record, most games run at full settings (but not all- for example, I have to run AoE:III at medium AA instead of high) without any noticeable drop in framerate on my GF6800gt.

Is there any reason I shouldn't get the 2x512MB Corsair from this site? It seems a lot cheaper... which is good.

And how do the manufacturers of 7800s compare? I was looking here and... well, there don't seem to be many differences.

[QUOTE=- Tony -]Is there any reason I shouldn't get the 2x512MB Corsair from this site? It seems a lot cheaper... which is good.

And how do the manufacturers of 7800s compare? I was looking here and... well, there don't seem to be many differences. :o[/QUOTE]
1) Overclockers.co.uk is an EXCELLENT site.
2) They differ in stock clockspeeds, quality of build, the game that comes with them, and how far they'd be able to go if you tried to push them overclocking wise.

I don't reccomend losing the second stick of ram. I really wish I had gone with a slower cpu and more ram. Ram really comes in handy.

?!

RAM is useless if the CPU is bottlenecking the entire process. 1GB RAM is enough RAM for nearly all applications nowadays, save maybe high-end Maya/3DSMax projects, and video editing.

Yeah, I didn't really notice a difference going from 1gb to 2gb

If you play Battlefield 2 or FEAR on high detail, you should be able to notice a difference between 1GB and 2GB of RAM, in terms of both reduced/eliminated stuttering and significantly reduced loading times. More and more games will benefit from more than 1GB of RAM in the near future.

i play fear, doesn't seem like it made a big difference, i have everything on high, only soft shadows disabled

If push came to shove I could always just get more RAM later. Or I could get the 2x1GB Corsair sticks from OCUK, since they're only £120, as compared to £180 earlier. Which still gives me cash for the faster processor. And for everything else I need.

OK, this is what I think I'm going to go for.

CPU - Athlon 64 3700+ 2.2GHZ S939 1024KB SAN DIEGO - £164.44
Mobo - ATX Skt 939 X2 nF4 SLI DDR PCIe SA RD GL 1394 M/B - £88.11
RAM - Corsair 1GB DDR Value Select PC3200 CAS3.0 Kit (2x512MB) - £58.69
GFX - BFG GeForce 7800 GT OC 256MB GDDR3 VIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - £234.94
HDD - Caviar 200Gb 8Mb Cache SATA150 OEM HDD - £62.45
PSU - Power 525W 12v Low Noise PSU Retail Boxed - £46.99

I'm not 100% sure about the PSU, but assuming this all stays, it'll be a total of £655.62, not including postage, which should be about £20. There's still a bit left over to get more RAM or what have you.

tony - [url]www.ebuyer.com[/url]

better prices that that savastore.

Awesome rig Tony, I'm quite envious.

i am noesc and i approve this pc