How is my Rig

[waltsdog]

I am considering buying the following gaming rig I made on Newegg.com. I'd appreciate it if anyone would tell me what I am choosing wrong or what I need. I am on a tight budget.

1. GIGABYTE GA-K8N Pro-SLI Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce4 SLI ATX AMD Motherboard

2. SONY Black IDE DVD Burner Model DWQ28A - OEM

3. Seagate Barracuda 7200.8 ST3250823AS 250GB 7200 RPM

4. pqi TURBO 2GB 184-Pin DDR SDRAM DDR 400 (PC 3200) Unbuffered

5. AMD Athlon 64 4000+ ClawHammer 1GHz FSB Socket 939 Processor

6. Turtle Beach CATALINA 8 (7.1) Channels PCI Interface Sound Card

7. eVGA 256-P2-N525-AX Geforce 7800GTX 256MB GDDR3 PCI Express

8. 2 VANTEC TD8038H 80mm 2 Ball Case Cooling Fans

9. 2 Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound

10. ATRIX CSCI-G8022C-C43 Black Zinc plated treatment,S.E.C.C.steel sheeting FCC class CB&CE approved ATX Mid Tower Computer Case 480W Power Supply

Adds up to 1,676.53 (which i can HARDLY afford)


Any critiques would be appreciated. Thanks a lot.

 

[sickness]

Don't get the Clawhammer. Get the San Diego. Other than that, looks good.

 

[waltsdog]

Alright thanks, why the San Diego though? It's the same price.

 

[sickness]

The San Diego runs at a lower voltage. Pretty much the only difference. I've just heard from countless people, don't get the Clawhammer, that the San Diego performs better.

 

[Tro1086]

I agree, get the San Diego, especially if its the same price.

You said you could HARDLY afford it. Well if you want to save a little money just get the 6800GT or ULTRA, it would probably be quite a bit cheaper to get one of those over the 7800. And you could still play any game out now, probably all on the highest settings or close to atleast. Just a thought anyway. The 7800 is still an awsome card, but only get it if you can justify spending that much money.

Edit: Just looked on NewEgg to compare the San Diego and Clawhammer. The diffrence is the Sandiego uses a 90nm type processor, and the Clawhammer uses a 0.13µm type processor. and I think when you convert µm to nm (not sure what the µ symbol is) you move the decimel over so that would mean the Clawhammer has a 130nm processor type and the San Diego has a 90nm processor type. And the smaller the better, so for the same price, go San Diego for sure. Id go for the San Diego even it was a little more expensive, for one it will overclock better since it uses less voltage which means it makes less heat.

 

[waltsdog]

OK, great advice, thanks a lot. However, I think I'm going to have to go with the 7800 GTX just because I want to be prepared for next-gen gaming like Oblivion and stuff, and I know that the 7800 is the best card out there.

 

[dhw200]

I would switch to the DFI Lanparty nForce4 SLI-DR mobo, its a better board than the gigabyte. More overclocking options, stable, just a great board all the way around. Id go with the AMD Athlon 64 3700 San Diego, you will NOT notice a difference in performance between that and the 4000, except in benchmarks.

 

[jasedog]

Id go with the AMD Athlon 64 3700 San Diego, you will NOT notice a difference in performance between that and the 4000, except in benchmarks.

That's the 2nd time I've heard this now. Have you had both chips before which qualifies you to make such a statement or are you quoting someone else?

Genuine question, not trying to start an argument here

 

[sickness]

Well, they both have 1MB of cache. Pretty much the same chip, except for the .2 GHz. It's up to him, if he wants to spend 79 dollars for .2 GHz.

 

[C0RR0SIVE]

that .2Ghz can be noticed on some AMD builds like mine.