Looking for opinions and answers

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Rich

Well I have decide to build a new pc, my old one just to slow (PII
350). I would like to get some opinions and answers. I was thinking
of the chaintech 9cjs zenith motherboard, with a P4 3.2. I have no
idea about type of ram to get or how the fsb works, can someone chime
in? I will get 1gig of ram, DDR? brand? I'm looking for a good case
that is roomy, antec? for the power supply I was thinking at least
400w either antec truepower430 or 480 or a enermax, what do you
think? Are SATA drives worth the price, it does not appear to me that
they will improve performance all that much. I will get an ATI 9800
XT 256 and a audigy platinum zs. Well if I left out anything let me
know
Thanks in advance!
 
Well I have decide to build a new pc, my old one just to slow (PII
350). I would like to get some opinions and answers. I was thinking
of the chaintech 9cjs zenith motherboard, with a P4 3.2. I have no
idea about type of ram to get or how the fsb works, can someone chime
in? I will get 1gig of ram, DDR? brand? I'm looking for a good case
that is roomy, antec? for the power supply I was thinking at least
400w either antec truepower430 or 480 or a enermax, what do you
think? Are SATA drives worth the price, it does not appear to me that
they will improve performance all that much. I will get an ATI 9800
XT 256 and a audigy platinum zs. Well if I left out anything let me
know
Thanks in advance!
Click to expand...

Well, I'll be very free with opinions then.
I think your mindset, going about this, is very different from mine.
You may have your reasons, but let me outline what I feel is wrong
with the picture:

You've hung in there with an old 350MHz PII until now? Yet you now
intend to do an expensive, low value, Intel highest end system? When
you bought that 350, was it also the highest clock available at the
time? At premium price?

3.2 GHz P4 $385
Chaintech 9cjs $159
1GB PC3200 ddram $170
ATI 9800XT 256 $461
audigy platinium zs $161
total $1336

That cpu is not significantly faster at games or video encoding than
the nice 2.8GHz P4C at a bargain $199.
It's also approx 4% slower at 'general use' applications than the
AthlonXP2500+ at a steal $85 (not to mention that you can get a decent
mobo to that for about $55).
As for games, the Athlon64 3000+ will match it, or exceed it up to 10%
better. For $219. Though, I'd still say it's that XP2500, that's
really interesting.

The mobo is suddenly budget class, though probably nice enough, 875
and everything... but correct me if I'm wrong, - it's "only" udma100
isn't it? You're paying for the chipset. For ECC ram?
You can get a dual channel 865PE chipset mobo, like Asus quality
P4P800, for $110-130, or budget Chaintech 9pjl3 for $77.
And here, I'm running udma133 from a $50 AMD mobo (also sata, usb2,
lan, all for $50 :-D)

I doubt the 9800XT for $461 will ever run a game worthwhile ($300)
better than the FX5900XT for $195, or the 9800SE at $152, before it
gets obsolete.

I won't comment your soundcard since I'm not a HiFi freak ;-).

I hope you see what I'm getting at. Rather than spending lots of money
for a machine that will be highend for maybe 6 months, and then get by
with an obsolete PC for 4-6 years, why not spend half to one third of
the money on a nice system, that will trail close enough on that
3.2GHz to be comfortable? And then do cheap gradual upgrades . And
stay comfortable. It's fun to build computers. It's something one
should do often. ;-) So it needs to be cheap.

Ancra
 
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