Buying a system, have a few ?s

[Bulldog]

Hi all. New to the forum, been lurking mostly just trying to increase my knowledge. I'm buying a system in the next month, and I have a few questions. Here's the specs:

X-Dreamer Case 480PS w/ Window (BLACK)
(800Mhz FSB) Intel® Pentium® 4 CPU @ 3.2GHZ 512K w/ Hyper Threading
*(DDR400-800MHz FSB)ASUS P4P800-E DELUXE I865PE AGP8X DUAL DDR w/AUD,USB2,LAN
2 GB PC3200 400MHz DDR MEMORY (Maybe 4gb, I can get it cheap)
Seagate 160GB 7200RPM SATA150 8MB Cache
ATI RADEON 9800 PRO 256MB DDR AGP 8X W/ TV-OUT & DVI
SONY 16X DVD-ROM (BLACK)
ARTEC CD-RW 52X32X52 (BLACK)
Creative Labs SB Audigy-2 ZS 7.1

Basically all I do is use my comp for gaming.

Is there anything in those specs that flat out isn't necessary?

I've always used Nvidia cards before, but I'd like to try out ATI now. I remember reading about a Direct X problem. Is that going to be a problem with any games?

I want this to last for at least 1 year, preferably a little longer before having to upgrade anything. And at least 2 years preferably a little longer before having to replace it. Is that realistic?

 

[Laser]

Well if you are looking to cut out things taht arent really necessary, you could easily cut the amount of ram in half from 2GB to 1GB. And, if you are mostly going to be gaming, you could look into the AMD chips and motherboards, that also would cut the total cost down. As far as the video card, that should be sufficient for atleast a year or two. Overall the specs of the system look good, but you will also be forking over alot of dough.

 

[bla!!]

I remember hearing some glitch between Audigy cards and using a mic in FPS games like CS, COD, and the likes.

Is that still around??

Just a tip, if it is you might want to look into a diff sound card, or possibly using your onboard one.

 

[Bulldog]

Ok, thank you. I may do that with the Ram. I can get memory pretty cheap, so if there's any performance gain however slight, I'll still go for the 2gb. I've thought about AMD too, maybe, we'll see.

 

[The Merlin]

You don't need that much RAM 1 gig is more than enough, unless you plan on major heavy duty video editing and stuff

Hell with the money you save from all that RAM you could get a X800 Pro or XT instead of the 9800Pro

 

[Bulldog]

I can get 2gbs for around 2 hundred bucks total, majors too. I'm getting the other parts at or near wholesale prices. I can't really get that great of a price on the x800pro so far, but I'm still looking at it real hard. Maybe when the xt comes out my price will get better. It looks like a great card.

Can anyone answer my question about Direct X?

 

[The Merlin]

Can anyone answer my question about Direct X?

I assume you are talking about Pixel Shader 3.0 and DirectX 9.0c....This dilleam only applies to 6800 Ultra and X800XT cards, not the last generation cards...... And in my opinion I wouldn't worry about it, because by the games are made to take advantage of Pixel Shader 3.0, newer faster cards will be out...Your talking atleast a 1 or 2 down the road!!! By then PS3.0 will be on the ATi cards....

And 60 million extra transistors is what makes the Nvidia product use some much more power


So IMO, its your choose and I wouldn't worry about PS3.0, worry about which is faster and looks better to you