Who Wants to Help Me Build a Gaming PC?
 

Ok, might as well give a little back story. I like watching TechTV, specifically The Screen Savers and such. Well, loyal watchers know about Patrick and his $500 Gaming PC segments. Well, fast forward to the future and I have a good chunk of money to spend, and would like to get back into PC gaming, so I figure why not?

Well, using Pat's general outline that gives me (using newegg.com):

AMD Athlon XP 2600 (333-MHz FSB) - $83
Abit NF7 nForce2 Socket A ATX w/Audio/LAN AGP8X - $79

Here's a question, would I be ($100) better off getting 1 GB of RAM, or 512 MB? Basically, will I see that $100 in performance? I'll assume just 512 MB for now with a possible upgrade in the future.

Corsair Value Select 184 Pin 512MB DDR PC-2700 - OEM - $106
ATI RADEON 9600XT Video Card, 128MB DDR, 128-bit, DVI/TV-Out, 8X AGP -RETAIL - $173
Seagate 160GB 7200RPM IDE Hard Drive, Model ST3160023A, OEM - $123
Lite-On Black 52X32X52 CD-RW Drive, Model LTR-52327S, OEM - $38
Lite-On Black 16X DVD-ROM Drive, Model XJ-HD166, OEM - $35
POWMAX DREAM STAR Mid Tower ATX Case with 400W Power Supply, Model "CP2347SEL-3" -RETAIL - $40

TOTAL + Shipping = $695

I'm thinking about dropping down the HD size and save some money there. I'll also probably be waiting a little while longer, so I'm hoping the 9600XT might drop a little bit by then.

Anyone have any suggestions or a stamp or approval?

Everything sounds, good, however, I would probably swap the the cdrw drive, and dvd drive, for a sony dvd+-rw drive for about $90. Check newegg for that price.

As for memory, these days 1 gb is perhaps the max. you really need.

The only thing about that is that a dvd/rw isnt necessary for gaming :)

You would likely see the best use of that extra $100 by spending it on upgrading the video card to a Radeon 9800 Pro. Best card for the money on the market, and will last you a good long time.

true about the video card and dvd+-rw.

I have another question, what is the difference between a normal Radeon, and a Sapphire Radeon?

ATI and NVIDIA are chipset manufacturers. They make the actual processing unit on the videocard. ATI also makes the actual videocard, but NVIDIA does not. That's why you see AOpen GeForce, BFG GeForce, PNY GeForce, but never NVIDIA GeForce. ATI, on the other hand, does make videocards, so you'll actually see an ATI Radeon for sale.

My point? Sapphire is simply a company that buys the right to put ATI's chipset on their videocards. They buy the rights to a 9800 Pro, and call it the Sapphire Radeon 9800 Pro.

Sapphire has always had a good reputation in the videocard industry. You can't go wrong with them.

If I were you, I would ditch the 9600XT and get a Radeon 9800 Pro for $200 USD instead. It'll be worth it, trust me.

Ditch the Athlon XP 2600+ and get the 2500+ instead. It has a slower clockspeed, but you'll see better performance and for a cheaper price due to the increase L cache. It also runs at 333 MHz FSB despite the lower clock speed.

The NF7 is a good motherboard, but make sure you get the NF7-S Revision 2.0. The NF7 and NF7-S are two different products. I have to stress that you want the NF7-S 2.0, not the regular NF7. I'm not sure if the NF7 even supports 400 MHz FSB.

The RAM looks good. I'd get at least 512 MB. 1 GB would make it very nice. Some games suffer with only 512 MB. The jump from 512 to 768 MB is bigger than you'd think. If you're planning on overclocking at all, get PC3200 instead. PC2700 runs at a nice 333 MHz, right at the FSB of your processor. Any overclocking and you'll need faster RAM.

I have a 40 GB hard drive and am nowhere near close to filling it up. I'd downsize it unless you're a "collector."

Other than that, it looks good! :) The biggest advice I can give is to get the Radeon 9800 Pro for $200 instead of that 9600XT.

-Lasereth

omg at least 1gb of ram for newer high end games and if your going to play several different games then your going to want at least 100gb HD i'm sorry 40 just fills up 2 quick for me

Thanks for the advice everyone. I went through again and changed almost everything. I currently have:

ANTEC Performance Plus Metallic Gray SOHO File Server Case without Power Supply, Model - $69 (More room, and better constructed)

Plextor 52X24X52 CD-RW Drive, Model PX-W5224TA-BPS, OEM Bulk pack -$51.50 (Fast read and write speeds, will be my primary drive)

SONY Silver 16X DVD-ROM Drive, Model DDU1621, OEM Drive Only - $28 (for DVD's)

Seagate 40GB 7200RPM IDE Hard Drive, Model ST340014A, OEM Drive Only - $61 (I have an 80 GB drive from an old system I can scavenge if absolutely necessary)

Corsair XMS Extreme Memory Speed Series, 184 Pin 512MB DDR PC-2700 with Platinum Silver Heat Spreader- OEM - $129 (A matching buddy will be the first upgrade)

ABIT nForce2 Chipset Motherboard for AMD Socket A CPU, Model "NF7-S" -RETAIL - $105 (Per Lasereth's suggestion)

AMD Athlon XP 2500+ "Barton", 333 FSB, 512K Cache Processor - Retail - $82 (see above)

SAPPHIRE ATI RADEON 9800PRO Video Card, 128MB DDR, 256-bit, DVI/TV-Out, 8X AGP -RETAIL - $219 (I was looking on Toms Hardware and $50 for this is upgrade is basically robbery)

TOTAL + Shipping = $768.50

Now all I need is a credit card, then a copy of Doom 3 :D

Most excellent. That'll definitely play you some games for the next 2 years. And it'll definitely turn at least a 14k on 3dMark2001. Just remember to install DX 8.1 first, then run 3dMark2001. Then install DX 9.0b and run 3dMark2003. Post yer scores.

That's what I was thinking. I probably won't be able to order for about another month however, so everything here is still flexible. If someone spots a great deal on something (preferably on newegg) please point me in the right direction :)

i personally would upgrade that harddrive to at least 80gb, cuz i haven't seen any drives smaller than 80gb 7200rpm with the 8mb cache. it's worth it, and 80 will last you long enough

yeh... i have a 30 gig hdd and im constantly deleting and moving and sometimes even reformatting.. especially new games that take up like gigs of space.. save urself some headaches and get a larger hdd..

nothing less than 80 GB with 8 MB cache would be my advice.
Of course not everyone here transfers and archives vinyls on a daily basis and actually conceivably needs* 400 GB like me, but it is better to plan for the future. Especially when considering how bulky games are becoming and just how bloated they will be in the future as they keep push the bleeding edge.


*have not filled it all yet, but it goes quickly with lossless audio files

Yea, I was looking at drives and figured it's only about a $20 difference, so I'll bump it up to at least 80 GB 8MB buffer.

I was looking at those fancy new 15,000 RPM drives, but they are a little too far out of my price range :(

A new hard drive will probably be my second upgrade after the second stick of RAM, and will probably be a decent sized 15,000 RPM drive (hopefully around Christmas time :))

Also, this PC would be my secondary computer used for surfing the net and playing games, seeing as this shiny IBM T40 can handle everything except games :)