Critique my rig before I buy it!

  • Thread starter Thread starter ShaggyMoose
  • Start date Start date
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ShaggyMoose

Yes, another one of these. Sorry.

Anyway, before I throw down AUD$2000 for this system, I want to make
sure there is nothing glaringly wrong. Thanks.

Thermaltake Soprano with 430W PSU ($160)
MSI Neo4 Platinum ($196)
AMD64 X2 4200+ ($605)
Corsair 2 x 1GB TWINX2048-3200 ($330)
Albatron GT7800-SH ($526)
Seagate 7200.9 300GB SATA2 ($238)
 
Two things I would consider:

1: Go with 4 512MB sticks instead of 2 1GB sticks, unless you plan on later
bumping your RAM even higher. 512MB sticks generally have a lower latency,
which translates into better performance.
2: I've never had any luck with anything from Albatron. Consider a card from
Abit, ASUs or BFG instead. But that's my personal opinion.

All in all not a bad setup, although I'd probably go with a higher wattage
PSU (personally).
 
Two things I would consider:

1: Go with 4 512MB sticks instead of 2 1GB sticks, unless you plan on later
bumping your RAM even higher. 512MB sticks generally have a lower latency,
which translates into better performance.
Click to expand...

A system will often automatically change the latency when 4
are installed so the perceived gain was lost again. The
stability issue causing this is exactly why the typical 1GB
modules start out with higher latency. IMO, better to just
get the 2 x 1GB modules then if the system would've been
stable at lower latency, that can be tried via bios
settings.

Perhaps more importantly is that if there's anticipation
that the system will now benefit from 2GB, jobs might get
larger in the future then there would still be an option to
add more memory with 2 slots unused, without having to
abandon the original memory to upgrade.
 
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