26 replies to this topic

[andrew01]

Well I've decided to start building a custom PC. This PC is being built primarily for gaming. Its secondary use would be school, etc.

I'm leaning towards getting a Intel Pentium IV 2.8GB. Most people say it's not worth it to go any higher than 2.8, they say that it is not needed for the amount of money But, I've been told by others that AMD Athlon XPs are also good. I have been looking at the 2600+ and the 2800+. Do you guys have any preference between the two. Pros/Cons?

The other components I pretty much know about so I dont need any help there. Can you guys just tell me the specs of your computers. im just interest in what types you have.

[reversedracula]

Make sure that the part that advances the clip up functions properly. Also, make sure the screws around the orange clip itself aren't too tight or too loose. Take out the restrictors if you want. Unless there's some air leakage, you'll find you have a decent PC with minimal customization.

[andrew01]

Make sure that the part that advances the clip up functions properly. Also, make sure the screws around the orange clip itself aren't too tight or too loose. Take out the restrictors if you want. Unless there's some air leakage, you'll find you have a decent PC with minimal customization.

What the hell are you talking about?

[neonerfer]

Make sure that the part that advances the clip up functions properly. Also, make sure the screws around the orange clip itself aren't too tight or too loose. Take out the restrictors if you want. Unless there's some air leakage, you'll find you have a decent PC with minimal customization.

Did you even read his post or are you just fucking retarded? He's talking about a computer.

Superintendent, www.newegg.com has pretty good prices and selection, I was gonna order my PC from there.

[taita cakes]

HAHAHAHAHH
TEEE HEEE TEEE HEEE
that seriously is funny...

maybe next time, try read the entire post...
He's talking about a Personal Computer [pretty relevant considering im in IT right now] not a Power Clip... to VERY different things...

I would suggest the AMD Athlon, probably the 2600+ because although the Pentiums can be overclocked, it is generally set to that running speed, as denoted by the "+", AMD's run much faster than there minimum specified by the numeral prefix. Go the AMD2600+, itll end up running the same as a 2.8GHZ or better, and seriously, ITS CHEAPER...

[Ice Nine]

Make sure that the part that advances the clip up functions properly. Also, make sure the screws around the orange clip itself aren't too tight or too loose. Take out the restrictors if you want. Unless there's some air leakage, you'll find you have a decent PC with minimal customization.

Did you even read his post or are you just fucking retarded? He's talking about a computer.
Superintendent, www.newegg.com has pretty good prices and selection, I was gonna order my PC from there.

I think that he's talking about PC's, Neo, as in POWERCLIP.

Wrong PC, dude.

Oops. Looks like I should have listened to Taita.

Edited by Ice Nine, 20 April 2004 - 06:24 PM.

[Vintage]

I have a fairly decent gaming pc. Not too flashy, and it can't handle more than 800x600 in UT 2004. My specs are as follows:

AMD Athlon Thunderbird 1800
256 DDR (I know, its not much)
Albatron Geforce FX 5200 Ultra
SoundBlaster Live 5.1 (with 5.1 speakers)
40 Gb Harddrive


This pc is about 2 years old, and it still is very decent. I really should upgrade soon though.

As to the Athlon XP, I agree with taita_cakes. You should get the 2600. Unless you plan on overclocking the 2800 even higher, the 2600 should run just as fast.

~Vintage

[moosenukem]

My dad has a P4, 2.8 gig processor, 128 meg ge-force vid card, 512 ram, and that (this) computer is a machine!! It works extremely well, it is fast and has awsome graphics, never chugs, I mean this is an awsome comp.

My dad and a freind built it so they got it really cheap, like $700, which is an awsome deal.

GREAT computer.

Moose

[reversedracula]

It was a joke in poor tastes on my part; coudn't resist.

[DoubleLnL]

Hmm... maybe it would've been a better idea to add that at the end of your first post.

Edited by DoubleLnL, 20 April 2004 - 07:41 PM.

[Jappo]

I would buy the 2600+ if I was you. Its a great proc.

[Oroku Saki]

Make sure that the part that advances the clip up functions properly. Also, make sure the screws around the orange clip itself aren't too tight or too loose. Take out the restrictors if you want. Unless there's some air leakage, you'll find you have a decent PC with minimal customization.

Did you even read his post or are you just fucking retarded? He's talking about a computer.
Superintendent, www.newegg.com has pretty good prices and selection, I was gonna order my PC from there.

I think that he's talking about PC's, Neo, as in POWERCLIP.

Wrong PC, dude.

Oops. Looks like I should have listened to Taita.

You guys can be really funny sometimes. Reading this thread really made my day. When I get the money, I'll have to check out the site too. I'm running dual P3 800's on my computer, and I think that it is going to be time to upgrade.

It seems that Newegg has an okay selection for laptops too, and that is probably what I'm going to get when I finally do get off my ass and get a new computer.

[cxwq]

Make sure that the part that advances the clip up functions properly.  Also, make sure the screws around the orange clip itself aren't too tight or too loose.  Take out the restrictors if you want.  Unless there's some air leakage, you'll find you have a decent PC with minimal customization.

Am I the only one who found this hella funny?


Regarding your computer, I'd take a look at this article at Tom's Hardware. It does a fps/$ analysis that includes the relative cost for mainboards and RAM for each processor family. It's only 4 months out of date so it's probably still a pretty good comparison

The conclusion? For gaming, the Athlon XP 2600+ owns all. It's roughly a 30% better value than the P4 2.6 which is the best value among Intel chips.

If you're going to overclock, I'd suggest getting an OEM chip from newegg and buying a high-end (Vantec is nice) heatsink and fan. If you're going to leave the clock speed alone then pick up the retail version (which includes a hs/fan for $5-10 more) because you're not likely to find a less expensive hs/fan that is guaranteed to do the job.

The 2600+ is $90 retail, the 2700+ is $107 retail. 19% more cash for 4% more performance. That's the story of CPU pricing I'm afraid. The good news is that a really excellent CPU is awfully cheap these days. 3 years ago $90 got you a Duron 800Mhz which you'd be lucky to overclock to 950.

[Zero Talent]

Yeah, pretty damn funny. Just gotta give the benefit of the doubt, because many act stupid, but few can reach such grandoise achievement.

I'm a Pentium whore, it seems... Never quite knew where the Athlon's sat, so thanks for the info [free for one such as me to leech].

[andrew01]

The AMD 2600+ looks great but the only thing I am concerned about it the 266mhz fsp. The Pentium 2.8 has 800mhz. Would this matter that much?

[cxwq]

The AMD 2600+ looks great but the only thing I am concerned about it the 266mhz fsp. The Pentium 2.8 has 800mhz. Would this matter that much?

Don't fall for the marketing hype. FSB and even clock speed are all but meaningless when comparing two chips with completely different architectures. Find a good review that compares something real like time to encode an mp4 or fps in ut2k4 or time for a large gaussian blur in p'shop.You'll find that the $173 P4 2.8E is about 10-15% faster than a $90 Athlon XP 2600+.

Also, correct me if I'm wrong because I haven't researched this in about 3 months, but I believe a comparable mobo and RAM will cost more for the Intel chip than the AMD chip.

Lest you think I'm just AMD whoring, I've owned plenty of Intel and AMD platform machines and I don't really prefer one over the other except that I insist on a good value for my cash.

[Death]

The AMD 2600+ looks great but the only thing I am concerned about it the 266mhz fsp. The Pentium 2.8 has 800mhz. Would this matter that much?

Don't fall for the marketing hype. FSB and even clock speed are all but meaningless when comparing two chips with completely different architectures. Find a good review that compares something real like time to encode an mp4 or fps in ut2k4 or time for a large gaussian blur in p'shop.You'll find that the $173 P4 2.8E is about 10-15% faster than a $90 Athlon XP 2600+.

Also, correct me if I'm wrong because I haven't researched this in about 3 months, but I believe a comparable mobo and RAM will cost more for the Intel chip than the AMD chip.

Lest you think I'm just AMD whoring, I've owned plenty of Intel and AMD platform machines and I don't really prefer one over the other except that I insist on a good value for my cash.

Cx is right. While an increase in FSB is important for crazy people like myself, if you aren't hardcore into developing some large bit of code that needs to push data through the bus at maniac velocities (as I am), then it really won't make much difference. To put my FSB comments in analogy form, I'd say think of two hoses: a garden hose and a fire hose. Every now and again, a friend brings in two identical tanks filled with water. The friend then leaves to go get two more tanks. We hook up a hose to each tank, and spray away. Sure, the fire hose finishes first. But it's still gonna have to wait just as long as the garden hose for its next tank. The only time the larger FSB becomes necessary is when your friend is bringing in water-tanks faster than your hose can slosh it out. Which, in the vast scheme of things, doesn't happen often in the computing world.

That being said, my gaming rig at home is a P4 3.0GHz, 800MHz FSB, Hyper-Threading monster. But like I've said before. I'm crazy.

This has been another edition of my two motherfuckin' cents.

[SkiMan]

Peronsally I'd go with the good old Intel P4 2.4C (Northwood core). But that's mainly because I would bump up the FSB to 1ghz putting it somewhere around 3ghz. Anway, if I had the cash I'd build this:

NewEgg Wishlist
Shuttle SB65G2 (mmm, pretty black)
P4 2.4C
2x 512mb Corsair PC-3700 DDR RAM
120gb Western Digital (8mb cache of course)
~$1,000 - 1,200 depending on video card


Probably not that video card, maybe a 9600 AIW, but I'm not sure yet. If you're going to try overclocking, don't go for cheap ram. I've got the expensive stuff on that list so I'm sure it will make the 1ghz FSB synchronously (even that ram would be overclocked a bit to get there, but I'm confident it would make it).

Edited by SkiMan, 22 April 2004 - 06:37 PM.

[Ginjiroku]

The AMD 2600+ looks great but the only thing I am concerned about it the 266mhz fsp. The Pentium 2.8 has 800mhz. Would this matter that much?

It really doesn't matter. And plus it depends on what athlon core you get there is a 266 fsb and a 300 fsb version. Get the 300. The thing about Athlons is though the're fsb has a low clock speed they can perform just as well and somtimes better than the equivilant P4. The 2600+ only only has a clock speed of 2.08ghz but it can easly keep up with a 2.66ghz P4. Clock Speed isn't everything.

Edited by Ginjiroku, 22 April 2004 - 08:31 PM.

[Sacapuntas Cabesa]

Athlon numbers their processors on scale with the Pentiums. So a 2600+ runs the same, if not faster than a Pentium running at 2600MHz, even though the actual clockspeed is 2080MHz.

I built myself a computer last summer, and here are the specs:

Athlon 2600+ XP
Asus A7N8X-VM mobo(integrated Geforce4 MX video)
Kingston 512MB DRR PC-2700(on sale for $10 a stick)
Western Digital 120Gb HDD
Micro Advantage 52x cd burner(on sale for $5, bought 2, one for the family's)
SoundBlaster Live! Value (got it out of an old computer)
Case from my friend's basement
One fan that was laying around
One fan with red LEDs

The only complaint I have is that the mobo's onboard sound was crap. That's why I have that crappy sound card in it. However, I haven't had any problems with that card, and I'm sure you could get an equivalent or better for real cheap.

The UT2004 demo I have is running at 1024 with nearly the highest settings smoothly. So, uh. That's my benchmark.

[taita cakes]

what a champion...

[andrew01]

Well I don't think I'm going to go with the AMD. I have decided to go with an Intel 2.8 or 3.0. I have some money so I want this machine to be pretty good. I will probably buy one from ebay seeing as my friend just got a 3.0 for $150. Now I have to decide on the graphics card. I am looking at the RADEON 9800PRO Video Card, 128MB DDR, 256-bit. Have any of you ever used one of these? Also, how many fans should I get in my case. Is 3-4 enough?

Thanks for your help.

[cxwq]

Hey guys, I'm gonna buy this, what do you think?

Oh, you don't think it's a good deal? Well, I'll... buy it anyhow.

Rinse. Repeat.



Go read a hardware site. Buy a computer. I'm sure you'll like it, they're all pretty nice these days.

[Death]

Well I don't think I'm going to go with the AMD. I have decided to go with an Intel 2.8 or 3.0. I have some money so I want this machine to be pretty good. I will probably buy one from ebay seeing as my friend just got a 3.0 for $150. Now I have to decide on the graphics card. I am looking at the RADEON 9800PRO Video Card, 128MB DDR, 256-bit. Have any of you ever used one of these? Also, how many fans should I get in my case. Is 3-4 enough?

Thanks for your help.

Well, Cx, not all of us think it's a bad deal. Personally, I prefer the Intel line. But again, that's cuz I'm a crazy motherfucker whose number-crunching needs desire the increased FSB. Plus, the Hyper-Threading technology really does put it above AMD (though only if the software one is using happens to take advantage of multithreading).

As for a graphics card, I've used the top of the line Radeon 9800XT Pro (128 Megs RAM) and I own the NVIDIA GeForceFX 5950 Ultra (256 Megs RAM). While you could go to a nice place like Tom's Hardware for some precise numbers, here's the gist of the comparison. For anything using DirectX 9.0, the Radeon performs better. If you want to use Anisotropic Filtering, again the Radeon takes the cake. However, if you are an OpenGL junkie like myself, you're gonna want the NVIDIA card. Due to unfortunate errors (made either on the part of the NVIDIA hardware designers or the part of the Microsoft DirectX developers), the GeForceFX line of cards simply doesn't do very well in DirectX 9. As such, whenever people try "test runs" on their own between the two cards, since most games are DirectX based (again unfortunate, as OpenGL is infinitely superior) the Radeon is ultimately preferred. If, by chance, you want to see the true power of the GeForceFX, you simply MUST run an OpenGL based test. Of course, this again provides a problem, as (until Doom3 is released) there exists a sorry lack of really good and modern OpenGL engine testing grounds.

In conclusion, I recommend both the Intel CPU and the NVIDIA GPU, though I fully admit that I bear company-loyalty biases which steer me towards these two manufacturers. I will also admit that this is a much more expensive combination than the AMD/ATI alternatives. But again: them's my two cents.

[Little Buster]

Well, if the main point of the computer is going to be for gaming, I definately suggest going with any 64 bit Athlon . But really, it all depends on what your price range is. And for the video card, you should stick with the Radeon 9800 because those are probably the best on the market. And definatley, a clear case with neon lights inside, and a chameleon fan.