Gaming Rig Setup, need opinions!

[cyrax]

Ok, so, after awhile at looking at stuff on the net, and hardware reviews and what not, I've come up with a setup that fits in my budget of $2,000 New Zealand Dollars. Please tell me what you think about it. I know our prices here are alot more than the US' but, that's just the way it is.

Case, $195.89
Cooler Master Ammo 533 ATX Mid Tower Case, Front USB, Silver/Black

Motherboard, $211.03
Asus A8N-SLI Motherboard, Socket 939, 4xDIMM, DDR, 2xPCIe-16, 3xPCI, 2xPCIe-1, 10xUSB2, Firewire, Audio, ATA, SATA, RAID, ATX

CPU, $428.63
AMD Athlon 64 3700+ 64Bit SKT939 2000MHZ Hyper

Hard Drive, $161.36
Seagate Single 250GB SATA 7200.8 Barracuda

Memory, $200.31
OCZ Dual Channel Memory Kit, 2x512MB, DDR-SDRAM, DIMM, DDR400

Video Card, $438.48
XFX PV-T42G-UAF7 Video Card, GeForce 6800 GS, 256MB, DDR3, PCIe-16, TV out, DVI, HDTV, SLI ready

PSU, $193.37
Antec SmartPower, 500W ATX PSU, Modular

Total Price = 1,839.07

 

[003]

I would get a DFI LanParty UT nF4 Ultra-D motherboard instead, and a 3800+ X2 or opty 165 instead.

 

[cyrax]

I would get a DFI LanParty UT nF4 Ultra-D motherboard instead, and a 3800+ X2 or opty 165 instead.

DFI LANPARTY NF4 Ultra-D Motherboard, Socket 939, 4xDIMM, DDR, PCIe-16, 2xPCI, 1xPCIe-1, 10xUSB2, Firewire, Audio, ATA, SATA, RAID, ATX, $284.98

AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ CPU, 2.0GHz, Socket 939, 32/64-Bit, ATX, Retail pack with fan, $589.68

If I swapped out those two parts the total would come to $2,074.07.

Would it be worth the extra $200 for those two different parts? And wouldn't that CPU sort of out-power the video card that I want to get? Would it be better to spend the extra $200 on the mobo and cpu or mobo and videocard, or on a totally different part(s)?

 

[cyrax]

I wouldn't get an Opteron since I'm not looking to overclock my cpu that much. Not a big fan of overclocking, but I would if I had to.

 

[ibbonkers]

all of it looks good.if i were to spend anymore anywhere it would be on a second gig of ram personally. my 3700 does great without any ocing, also if you dont plan on using sli you could get a board without sli and save a few bucks i just use a chaintech vnf4ultra board and it runs excellent

 

[003]

the opteron has double the cache of the 3800+, and with a very small 200mhz overclock, it would be the same speed as the 3800+, you could do that on stock voltage with the stock cooler. I think it's worth it. BTW, how much does this come out to in USD?

 

[cyrax]

I have no idea how much it would come out at in USD, but it would be alot cheaper most likely. The 3800+ is cheaper here than the Opteron, so wouldn't it be better to get the 3800+? I might keep that ASUS A8N-SLi board in there then, since the DFI is more suited to overclocking. I was originally looking at this mobo.

Gigabyte GA-K8NF-9 Motherboard, Socket 939, 4xDIMM, DDR, PCIe-16, 3xPCI, 2xPCIe-1, 6xUSB2, Firewire, Audio, ATA, SATA, RAID, ATX

That costs $183.06 over here, would it be ok for all those other components? I wanted to get the ASUS A8N SLi just incase I decided to upgrade to x2 video cards, but I dunno. If SLi is as bad as people say it is, then I might just go with a single PCI-E slot mobo, and save some cash.

 

[Tyr]

Yeah, I would go with a non-SLI board and the 3700+ and use the money you saved to get 2GB of RAM or a better graphics card, since you will be gaming.

 

[cyrax]

Ok, I've changed the build around a little bit now. I had to change the PSU too, so I could stay near the $2,000 budget. It's a Cooler Master one now, it matches the case now.

Or would it be better to go with an Antec PSU? I remember someone saying that they had a Cooler Master PSU and they had no trouble with it.

Here's what I changed:

Motherboard, $166.50
GIGABYTE GA-K8NF-9 nForce4-4X PCI-EX16 ATX SKT939

Memory, $403.88
KINGSTON: 2GB Kit HyperX 400MHz PC3200 DDR 2.5-3-3-7-1 DIMM

Video Card, $561.38
GIGABYTE GV-NX78T256V-B GeForce G70 GT PCI-EX16

PSU, $99.48
Cooler Master eXtreme Power, 430W ATX PSU

What do you guys think?

 

[Kazama]

Get a dual core for the long run and for faster loading times (Games,windows boot up etc.) get a seagate 7200.9 (9th generation).