Re: New Build - Advice Appreciated

D eddajay wrote:

A friend has asked me for something good enough for
him to play graphic intensive games. The type of games he plays are
along the lines of Civilisation, not online stuff.

I've come up with the following

CPU
AMD Athlon 64 3000 Venice (retail inc heatsink & fan)

Motherboard
Gigabyte K8NF-9 nForce 4

Memory
Corsair Twinx Dual Core 2 x 512MB XMS 3200

Graphics Card
Leadtek GeForce 6600LE 256MB PCI-E

DVD/CD Writer
Sony DRU820A 16x Dual Layer DVDRW DRU-820A

Hard Drive
120GB Seagate Barracuda9 SATA ST3120023AS x 2

Floppy Drive
Generic Black Floppy Drive

Modem
55.6 V.92 PCI Conexant Modem - OEM

Sound Card
Creative S/B Audigy SE 7.1 OEM

Case
Arianet MIDI Tower2 Blk/Sil ATX2.0 inc 420W

Keyboard
Generic Multimedia Keyboard-Blk Sil

Mouse
OP-27 OPTICAL PS2 MOUSE Black combo PS/2

Speakers
Arianet 5.1 Speaker System w/Remote

Weatherlawyer wrote:
TMack wrote:

Lose the Audigy - the onboard sound will be more than good enough. Spend
what is saved by not buying the Audigy on a better graphics card.

I was thinking of that too either get a top of the range sound card and
speakers or not get involved. Audio is personal enough to let the
customer sort that out.

There again if he has a computer already why bother with a mouse,
keyboard and speakers anyway? And who needs a floppy? Get a DVD ROM
instead so he can copy disks to or from disks.

Would a twin chip layout be quieter for the same power? And what do you
want to saddle him with a crappy modem for? Which leaves:

Memory
Corsair Twinx Dual Core 2 x 512MB XMS 3200

Graphics Card
Leadtek GeForce 6600LE 256MB PCI-E

DVD/CD Writer
Sony DRU820A 16x Dual Layer DVDRW DRU-820A

Hard Drive
120GB Seagate Barracuda9 SATA ST3120023AS x 2

Case
Arianet MIDI Tower2 Blk/Sil ATX2.0 inc 420W

And the memory is now suspect.

Deddajay wrote:

Ok. Now I'm getting confused. What's wrong with the memory.

Does anyone have any suggestion about a better graphics card? I take the
point about audio, but I'm going on his wishes and he wanted speakers
and a floppy drive and a modem. I'm trying to put something together
suitable for his gaming at a £500 budget. I've never used a twin chip
layout, so wouldn't know where to start.

I didn't mean to upset you I don't really know much about hardware.
It just seemed to me he could get by on a lot of the stuff already on
his old computer. I just wondered if that was a better alternative. Is
there a great deal of difference in the multi chip motherboards? I
can't think why. You are only connecting the same sort of hardware.

I imagine a dual CPU and maybe a dual Graphics card layout would be the
ideal for anyone but it would swallow most of his cash. I believe a
dual core chip is very noisy while a twin chip is designed for cool,
quiet running.

I bet if you twisted his arm he would ditch a load of that other stuff
for the twins. The boards alone were 170 dollars in 2004 the only ones
I looked at earlier so that's about 100 quid and more.

I have no idea how much the grephics cards would be and you still want
a chip or two and the memory. Not much left out of £500.

If he is ever going to go online with a games machine, he wants to
start saving to get broadband or cable. Find out why he doesn't think
a modem and a floppy are a waste of time. And if he is desperate he can
raid some old machine found in a skip or a charity shop for such stuff.

As far as I know there is nothing wrong with the memory but if you can
get him to go for a new motherboard with all those sci-fi parts, then
you need to look at the ideal memory to get the most out of it.

.

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