I am in Banglore, India and I want to buy a new desktop.
Please let me know if the following configuration is a good one which I
will use majorly for gaming and browsing the internet.
I donot know more details than I am mentioning below and if you guys
can help me regarding specific model being more superior do let me
know.
Processor: AMD Athlon 64 3800+ X2 (Socket 939)
Motherboard: ASUS A8N-VM CSM/NBP
Hard Disk: Seagate Barracuda - 300GB
RAM: HYNIX 512MB * 2
Graphics Card: NVIDIA XFX GeForce 6800 GS
DVD : Liteon DVD RW+ Dual Layer 16x
Monitor: SAMSUMG LCD 17"
Speaker: Creative 6.1
TV Tuner Card: (Let me know anything good that is compatible)
Web Cam: (Let me know anything good that is compatible)
Please let me know the compatibility issues and alternate options.
Thanks,
Saradhi
In some areas of the world, the worst problem is getting
speedy warranty service. I recommend looking at the
Newegg customer comments section, as that can give you
some idea of how many people had problems with a motherboard.
Some of the problems will be user error, and cannot be blamed
on the product, while others will be product related. Still,
if you compare the statistics, some motherboards do
better than others.
In this case, the Asus A8N5X has better statistics than
either its look alike A8N-E motherboard, or the A8N-VM CSM.
(The NBP was just introduced, and is an A8N-VM CSM with a
sticker on it.) The customer comments are here:
A8N5X (2.08% poor, 2.37% very poor)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/CustRatingReview.asp?Item=N82E16813131569
A8N-E (4.87% poor, 5.73% very poor)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/CustRatingReview.asp?Item=N82E16813131530
A8N-VM CSM (9.55% poor, 7.3% very poor)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/CustratingReview.asp?Item=N82E16813131570
This page allows easy comparison of specifications. There are
always some errors on this page, such as the missing list of
accessories for the A8N5X. It doesn't have that large an
accessory list, and just has the basics.
http://usa.asus.com/products_compare_show.aspx?array_model=1127&array_model=596&array_model=455
You probably selected the A8N-VM CSM because it is microATX.
The other two motherboards mentioned above are full sized ATX
motherboards. One of their advantages, is even if your
video card has a large heatsink on it, you can still use
the three PCI card slots at the bottom of the motherboard.
The A8N-VM CSM is cramped, by comparison.
Using a full sized motherboard means using a bit larger computer
case, but that also allows the case to have room for more
ventilation fans.
Since you have the 6.1 speakers, you might consider picking up
a separate sound card to drive them. Motherboard sound is
not always the best. For games, sometimes a separate sound card
has better support for audio standards, than the AC-97 sound
built into the motherboard. You can always experiment with this
yourself, and if the sound you get is not good enough, then you
can go shopping for a sound card.
For TV Tuner cards, first you have to consider the signal source.
Where I live here, I get a good deal of multipath (ghosting) and
marginal analog TV reception. My TV Tuner card cannot do a good
job from a broadcast source, even though I use a bowtie antenna
and 20dB amplifier. If you had digital television over the air
(OTA) transmission, digital has different reception characteristics,
and if you live close enough to the transmitter, reception could
be flawless compared to analog. If your normal TV set doesn't get good
reception of broadcast signals, a TV Tuner card can only get
worse, not better. The digitizing process in the tuner card only
makes things look worse. A TV set does a better job of fooling the
human eye, and the pixelation from the TV Tuner makes flaws
more apparent.
If you wish to experiment with analog reception, find a BT848/BT878
based card. It doesn't have to be that expensive, and will give
you a taste of how bad the reception will be. More expensive cards
can have compression/encoding features, to reduce the bandwidth of
the resulting data stream, but unless the content is worth recording
(i.e. is noise free), that refinement is of no value.
There are lots of bad web cams out there. I recommend visiting
some computer stores, to see how they work, before you waste money
on them. Ask for a demonstration. If the camera requires an
extreme amount of lighting to make a noise free picture, you
are not going to enjoy using it. For the cameras I own, I need
halogen lighting to get a good picture. And not even a brand
name guarantees a good result - there are good and bad models
of Logitech web cams for example. A demonstration at a computer
store is the only way I would buy one.
This is an example of a noisy web cam output. Note the grainy
appearance. Plenty of cheap web cams will product output like
this.
http://www.clubedohardware.com.br/imageview.php?image=1045
http://www.clubedohardware.com.br/imageview.php?image=1046
Paul
