Q3/4 Rig

[AK4Life]

Alright, I've figured out what i am going to put into my rig finally, lets see what you all think.

CPU - AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+ Toledo
- Arctic Silver 5
- Thermaltake Big Typhoon

Mobo - DFI Lanparty UT nF4 SLI Expert

HDD - Western Digital Raptor 74GB
- Zalman Noise Prevention Heatpipe HDD Cooler
- Seagate Barracuda 250GB

Drives - Sony Combo CD/DVD Burner
- ASUS DVD-ROM
- Generic Floppy Drive

PSU - PC Power & Cooling 510W

VGA - evga 8800GTX
- Zalman ZM80D-HP Aluminum Copper dual heatpipe VGA cooler

RAM - G.Skill 2GB (2 x 1GB) DDR 400 Model F1-3200BIU2-2GBHX
- Vantec Iceberg DDR-A1C Copper RAM Heat Spreader

Case - Thermaltake Kandalf Silver Chassic Full Tower Case

Mouse - G5 Laser Mouse

Keyboard - G15 Pro Gaming Keyboard

Subtotal: $2289.28
Shipping: $126.91

Total: $2416.19

 

[Ridlyn]

Dont get the expert, i've heard it's quite buggy. Also the G80 probably isnt going to be released to around Q1/2007 if not that late Q4/2007.

 

[john3]

actually G80 is said to be released sometime this year, and that would make sense considering that UT 2007 is set to be released in the Q4 of this year. and the new CPUs are comin out, i doubt it will come out late NEXT year.

 

[john3]

oh and yea, dont go expert, its quite.......wats the word......crappy. and for a keyboard get the Saitek Eclipse instead, a very sold and sleek gaming keyboard. oh and, instead of a g5 see if you can get a diamondback, the transfer rate for the diamondback is 1000 whereas the g5 is 500, but both are still really good. i dun think it makes much difference, or it does and you wont need it.

 

[AK4Life]

Well, i already have both g15 and g5, plus, i dont like the way the diamondback lays in my hand. I have both saitek and g15 keyboard, just prefer g15 over saitek. and yes, the expert was a typo -_-, i was reading and somehow it got onto the layout. i ment to get the Ultra-D because i have no intention of using SLI

 

[infiltrator7]

sorry to go off topic, but i'm considering the g15 or the saitek keyboard, why do you think the g15 is better? also, is it that big?

 

[Brtnboarder495]

The DX10 cards will be out before the end of the year, Nvidia's may arrive late Q3 infact, maybe earlier. But it might not be the 8800GTX, maybe they'll change it or something like they did with the 6200 and 7300. Anyway ...

Socket AM2 will be released by Q3 and will be quite mainstream by then I'd imagine, and so Socket 939 stuff will not be top of the line which is what you want I'm guessing.

That also means you'll need DDR2 memory, shoot for DDR2 800 at the lowest since all the timings for DDR2 suck basically but you might as well take advantage of the little bandwith increase. Hopefully DDR2 timings will be faster by then ... you will want at least 2x1Gb though.

Your motherboard is obviously going to be outdated and not support Socket AM2 or DDR2, so take that off the list. DFI is a great brand though, solid and great for OCing, so stick with them anyway, you'll just need to find a new motherboard when it's released. Remember, SLI isn't worth it and is a rip-off, so a single video card motherboard will suit you fine.

For your Hard Disk, that's fine.

Keyboard and mouse are up to you totally.

The case is of preference, not totally familiar with that case but it's made by Thermaltake so I'm sure it's of good quality. I find the Sopranao Aluminum cases to be very solid, cool and look cool.

The PSU is very solid, great brand, just very expensive.

Optical drive is mostly up to you, good brand.

All the after-market coolers and fans will most likely not be compatible with the newer video cards and processors, and they're will probably be newer and maybe cheaper technology out by then, so don't look for after-market coolers for specific hardware until a month or two after the actual hardware is released, when they're is a wide variety of them and such.