Advice on gaming build (GFX card)

[sudo909]

Hi,

Building my first gaming PC and here's what i'm thinking so far:

Motherboard: Abit Fatal1ty AN8 SKT939
CPU: AMD (Winchester) Athlon 64bit 3200+ 939pin
RAM: CORSAIR TWINX1024-3200C2
HD: Maxtor Diamondmax 200GB SATA 150 7200rpm 8mb

Any advice or criticism of the above would be helpful, also my knowledge of current GFX cards isn't great so any advice would be welcome. Whats the difference between the various 6800 models on the market, are they available in PCI-E?

Thanks

 

[macdude425]

Maxtor Harddrives suck. Go for Seagate of Western Digital if you can.

 

[sudo909]

Thanks, i just picked a large one that was fairly cheap since i thought the Harddrive didn't effect performance much. Will look into an alternative.

 

[diabloII]

how much can you spend?

this is a very good setup[some of the prices are few dollars off, but most are exact]:
Retail AMD64 venice (rev.E) 3200+ [$229]
DFI lanparty ultra-d ut [$135]
1gb (2x512mb) TwinMOS ram [$94.35]
NEC 3510A dvd-rw [$49]
OCZ Modstream 500W [$100]
Case (any case you want)
eVGA 6800gt [$359]

if you can't afford the 6800gt, then get the eVGA 6600gt [$159 after rebate]

 

[gaara]

Hard drives don't effect performance, only load times, however you want reliability with a hard drive, or in laymens terms, you don't want it to fail. Maxtor has a reputation of failing fairly quickly, and Western Digital and Seagate are the opposite, they are very reputable companies that build good drives that aren't prune to failure very easily.

A few things, first I suggest switching the fatal1ty with the DFI Lanparty nf4 Ultra D or SLI-DR, these are the best socket 939 boards around for anything right now, and DFI really does an excellent job of looking out for the customer. I was talking with someone here yesterday about the nf3 DFI board, and they were determined to make sure the board lived up to really high expectations before they release it. That's how far they go for the consumer.

I also recommend the 3200+ with the Venice Core rather than the Winchester. Venice is newer, has added SSE3 instruction support and edges out the Winchester slightly in about everything, while using less voltage and staying cooler at the same time.

Memory, I don't really like Corsair memory as they are overpriced and overated. Try this stuff out instead.

About the variations of the 6800 line:
6800 - 12 pipelines, lower core and memory speed, basically low end, stay away from it
6800GT - 16 pipelines, "normal" core and memory speed, this is what you're looking for, the best overall performance
6800 ultra - almost the same as the GT, except with slightly faster core and memory speed. Not really worth the price

And stay away from the LEs or whatever they call them, they are "broken" 6800GTs that have pipelines disabled and clock speeds lowered.

 

[sudo909]

Originally i was looking to keep the whole kit under £750 but its now increased to about £1000. Its solely for gaming, HL2/CS, WOW and Doom3 and will be the first descent PC i've had.
Will have a read up on what you've suggested above, thanks diabloII.

P.S £1000 is roughly $1500 US these days, i'm on the other side of the pond!

 

[sudo909]

Yeah, after reading up the Venice does seem the logical choice over the Winchester.

I'm not 100% convinced on the DFI Lanparty Ultra-d over the Fatal1ty AN8 as i'm a novice overclocker and from the reviews i've read it seems you really need to know what you're doing to get the best from the DFI. Is it easy to work with? and is the performance straight out the box satis?

Corsair was recommended by a mate, but i'll take the TwinMOS ram
as it saves a few quid and does the job just as well.

Can get hold of a Inno 3D Geforce 6800GT PCI-E for £219 ($310) which seems like a pretty good deal right?

thanks