New PC Specs Finally Ironed Out

[Gxp]

Okay, I've scoured the internet, hour after hour, finding cheap prices grouped together to save on shipping, checking reviews and benchmarks, and everything, and I've finall ironed out my PC specs.

Now this is WITHOUT a monitor.

AMD Athlon XP 2100+ $233.00 googlegear.com
2x512 (Total=One Gig) Megs Ram PC2700 $260.00 googlegear.com
Googlegear Server Case (BLACK) $115.99 googlegear.com
Total After Shipping $639.80

Xtasy Geforce-4 TI 4600 $339.00 compuplus.com
Total After Shipping $356.95

MSI KT3 Ultra-ARU $128.00 newegg.com
80 Gig SCSI Hard Drive $106.00 newegg.com
Sound Blaster Audigy MP3+ $85.00 newegg.com
KBTEK 104 Keyboard $7.00 newegg.com
Total After Shipping $347.19

16X DVD Drive $40.91 Dell.com
40X12X48 $81.05 Dell.com
Total After Shipping $121.46

Total= $1465.90

Windows XP = $83 :rolleyes:
I have like 4-5 monitors lying around here, so I dont really need one unless I'm gonna go to 1600x1200 resolution or beyond :-\


MSI KT3 Ultra-ARU Review (http://www.amdmb.com/article-display.php?ArticleID=170)
Xtasy Geforce-4 TI 4600 Review (http://www.gamersdepot.com/hardware/video_cards/visiontek/xtasy_ti4600/001.htm)

[Gxp]

(Phew, finally hit the right BUTTON :mad: )

I already have a mouse, a very very NICE mouse.
I had a Laser mouse, it was nice, but now I've got something better.

Wireless, with optical presicion
No Batteries Required
Pad /w Pen
The pen and pad have 512 levels of PRESSURE SENSITIVITY and respond differently according to your force and speed. Not to mention the 2 programmable buttons on the pen and the fact that you can flip over the pen and delete things, just like erasing with a pencil.

It's called a Wacom Graphire 2, and it's b@d@$$ :D


I dont go for the crappy computer speaker setup :-\ , no matter what, PC speakers are low-end, even Klipsch speaker systems fall WAY short for the kind of money you pay for them. Nono, I use my Stereo. An "Aiwa NSX-HMT76", it was recently taken off the market, and it's my baby :D



Wacom Graphire 2 (http://www.wacom.com/graphire/index.cfm)
My Aiwa Stereo (http://gxp.netfirms.com/AIWA%20STEREO.jpg)

[Bires]

...me...not so much

I have a minicoponent system from AIWA (CX series)...better than *most* computer speaker systems, but seriously lacking in the low end. On my second computer, I have Harmon/Kardon satellite system, and when lan-gamers shoot shotguns, and *I* feel it-across the room...my system sounds like someone dropped a plate on the floor. :angry:

One last thing...your keyboard? Have you used the MS Internet and Natural Pros? Once I went all USB, I couldn't go back.

[Gxp]

Keyboards arent important to me really...well...they WERENT
till I saw THIS (http://www.focustaipei.com/8500.htm) puppy.

MAN I want that keyboard
I dont CARE if it's for OFFICE XP and that I dont have Office XP
GIMME GIMME GIMME!:bawl:

lol.
that keyboard is sweeeet.

[Windsor]

I wish I could afford all that!!

Just to be an echo...if I could, I would go for the raid setup now, instead of later, especially if you're lazy like me and don't want to go mucking around the case again later on once you feel stuff just doesn't load quite fast enough.

[Heihachi]

Correct me if I'm wrong.. but wouldn't it be wiser to get yourself an AMD XP (1600) (I hear the performance gain from a 2100 and 1600 isn't worth the price)

By doing this wouldn't you feel better about getting yourself a Thoroughbred when it comes out?

Considering the price of a 1600 chip is less than half that of a 2100 chip. Along w/ the fact that you could sell the 1600 chip later for $50 and get yourself a nice thoroughbred.

I built 2 MSI Board comps for friends... you might want to look at the new Abit board. It's got some nice features... along w/ no more legacy. Only 3 PCI slots.. but w/ onboard usb 2.0, firewire, and LAN what else would you need but a SCSI card you want to put in.

[sbp]

Originally posted by Heihachi
Correct me if I'm wrong.. but wouldn't it be wiser to get yourself an AMD XP (1600) (I hear the performance gain from a 2100 and 1600 isn't worth the price)

By doing this wouldn't you feel better about getting yourself a Thoroughbred when it comes out?

Considering the price of a 1600 chip is less than half that of a 2100 chip. Along w/ the fact that you could sell the 1600 chip later for $50 and get yourself a nice thoroughbred.

I built 2 MSI Board comps for friends... you might want to look at the new Abit board. It's got some nice features... along w/ no more legacy. Only 3 PCI slots.. but w/ onboard usb 2.0, firewire, and LAN what else would you need but a SCSI card you want to put in. The same could be said of getting a GF4 Ti4400. It also is a better value for the money. Why not get that and sell it in the fall when the next generation of vidocards come out? Its because Gxp wants the best performing pc now and is willing to pay for it. Thats fine. :thumb:

And yeah the Athlon XP that runs at 1600 is in the sweet spot for AMD cpus. I refuse to use AMDs bs marketing crap anymore.

[Ladogaboy]

Haha, nice... you'll be the envy of EC, that is, if the rest of the town ever gets electricity! ;)

[Heihachi]

Dang... that's like $200 just from buying wiser... and that's only on 2 parts...

and where how the heck did you get an 80gb SCSI HD for $106?

I guess people just have money to spend.

Braggin rights are for the rich

[sho.gun]

Originally posted by cpugeek04
http://ecomm.us.dell.com/dellstore/basket.asp?order_code=44ISW&keycode=6V355&customer_id=19&itemtype=CFG

my pc, nothing too special.

it's a shopping cart :( empty too...

[johnnymk]

80 GB SCSI hard drives... do they even exist? Even if they do, wouldn't they be around $800 or so?

[Gxp]

I guess the site had a typo when I copy&pasted it, or maybe I had a brain fart, either way, it's a IDE hard drive.

My mobo had RAID built in as well :eek:

[Heihachi]

If I had your budget.. I'd go w/ the new Abit board... check out the specs...

Legacy GONE!!!!
4 USB 1.1 Ports
2 USB 2.0 Ports
2 Firewire Ports
LAN Onboard
5.1 Analog
Digital Audio Out

and it supports a whopping 12 IDE devices...

Did I mention onboard RAID? Something like a High Point HPT374 conroller.. saweeeet!

Oh yea.. btw... 4 DIMMS!!!!!!!!!

You can't go wrong w/ this board... Although it only has 2 PCI slots.... But then again.. what will you use to fill those slots up? I guess a sound card if you don't like the onboard sound.. and maybe a SCSI controller card.. but that's about it.

THEN from there.. I'd get the XP (1600)

a gig of ram is always good

The video card thing is a bit extreme also.. but hey.. whatever floats your boat.

now ferget the 80 gig HD's... get dual Special Edition Drives.. since you have the money to spend.

But you know... what does a fat guy like me know.. hehe

[Gxp]

I'm not going with RAID drives, as it's slower than one drive for gaming. Gaming is almost pure reading, thus one hard drive would yield better performance :-\

I decided on the Mobo because it seems to kick pretty much every other's ass.

Check the review and specs that I posted above for the mobo. :-\
MSI KT3 Ultra-ARU Review (http://www.amdmb.com/article-display.php?ArticleID=170)

It has onboard 5.1 output as well.

12 IDE devices? who in gods name needs 12 IDE connections? o_o
I'm going to put a Video Capture card in one of the PCI slots. Definately going with an AGP GeForce-4 (what ddi you expect? PCI? psh)

[ApltnHkyMutt]

Originally posted by cpugeek04

P4 1.7
40x cd-rw
48x cd
floppy(well duh)
Geforce 3 64mb
256 ram
250-watt power supply
10/100 netcard
modem
integrated sound (i think i'm gonn put my SB audigy in :D)
19 inch monitor

you should get high speed internet!

[Heihachi]

Slower for gaming???? You got to be kidding here. All custom game pc's go w/ Raid standard for their gaming pc's. Maybe we're talking about a different raid 0 er sumthin.


Don't get me wrong here... I built 2 pc's w/ the MSI board.. but I don't know if it's faster than the Abit board.

[Speedfreak]

Originally posted by Heihachi
If I had your budget.. I'd go w/ the new Abit board... check out the specs...

Legacy GONE!!!!
4 USB 1.1 Ports
2 USB 2.0 Ports
2 Firewire Ports
LAN Onboard
5.1 Analog
Digital Audio Out

and it supports a whopping 12 IDE devices...

Did I mention onboard RAID? Something like a High Point HPT374 conroller.. saweeeet!

Oh yea.. btw... 4 DIMMS!!!!!!!!!

You can't go wrong w/ this board... Although it only has 2 PCI slots.... But then again.. what will you use to fill those slots up? I guess a sound card if you don't like the onboard sound.. and maybe a SCSI controller card.. but that's about it.

THEN from there.. I'd get the XP (1600)

a gig of ram is always good

The video card thing is a bit extreme also.. but hey.. whatever floats your boat.

now ferget the 80 gig HD's... get dual Special Edition Drives.. since you have the money to spend.

But you know... what does a fat guy like me know.. hehe

The only thing bad is the 3 pci slots.

[Ladogaboy]

Originally posted by Heihachi
Slower for gaming???? You got to be kidding here. All custom game pc's go w/ Raid standard for their gaming pc's. Maybe we're talking about a different raid 0 er sumthin.

:stupid: Yeah, I'd have to say that going with RAID would be a wise choice too. RAID setups are faster for both reading and writing data. It's the only way I know of to use up the bandwidth on a ata 100 channel.

[Heihachi]

Originally posted by Speedfreak


The only thing bad is the 3 pci slots.

The only 3 things I think I could find to use up those slots are a SCSI Controller card.... a Capture Card (pinnacle).. and 56K modem.. hehe...

I guess a TV Tuner Card would do it too.

[Gxp]

Open Yor Eyes, Raid Isn't Going To Blow Down The Doors On All Data Processing (http://www.viaarena.com/?PageID=84)

Bang For Buck? .....sometimes (http://www.viaarena.com/?PageID=86)


The Random Read is faster for normal IDE than for RAID.
Some benchmarks are higher for IDE than RAID, but RAID does have large prformance boosts in places.

[Ladogaboy]

Originally posted by Gxp
The Random Read is faster for normal IDE than for RAID.
Some benchmarks are higher for IDE than RAID, but RAID does have large prformance boosts in places.




The difference in random read here is negligible But for everything else, RAID is faster. :rolleyes:

I can see what they mean about RAID not playing a significant role in the fps of a game because
the hard drives are not being tested in any way. , but then, what would be the point of faster RPMs in a HD?

Anyway, set all that aside, and you still have a dilemma, Gxp. You also do audio/video editing and rendering... and I guarantee that you will see better performance using a RAID system. :shrug: But it's yo money...

[ApltnHkyMutt]

Originally posted by cpugeek04

i have it, but i plan on taking this computer to college with me, and instead of taking dads cable modem, i'm set

Doesnt the college your going to have internet over Cat5? Therefor not needing a modem at all

[bachviet]

I haven't bought a modem for over 4 years... The old days of dialup is gone for me! Luckily I could afford broadband but I'm going to switch from DSL (DirecTV) to cable modem (Road Runner with TimeWarner)! Eventhough I have static IP with DSL but it's much slower than cable modem (under 1Mbit vs. over 2Mbit)~!

[ApltnHkyMutt]

I have cable and i absolutly love it!!!

[Ladogaboy]

Originally posted by ApltnHkyMutt
I have cable and i absolutly love it!!!

:hmm: Well, AT&T just put a switching office up in my area, so maybe... :angel: :D