I'm thinking about upgrading my computer hardware by adding a 4th system to my room.

Currently I'm limiting myself to a $1500 budget.
Here the parts I've picked out, if anyone (Brett, Jake or Jeff) has any advice on the parts, it would be appreciated

*System Specs*

Intel Pentium 4 540J 3.2Ghz 800FSB 1MB Cache S775 CPU (Want some serious power here, would like the 3.8ghz, but budget dis-agrees)
ASUS P5S800-VM Pentium 4 MotherBoard S775 (Had a quick look at the specs, it seems okay, con is it only has 3 PCI slots)
1Gb Geil DDR PC3200 RAM (Was chasing 1GB stick of KingMax ram, but they are only selling DDR2 ram)
250GB Seagate 7200rpm HDD 8M Serial ATA (Was told Seagate is better then Western Digital)
Gigabyte 128MB FX5200 AGP Video Card (Same as what I have in my current workhorse, not really important)
Antec SmartPower SL350S 350 Watt Power Supply (I just need power for the unit plus some extra cooling)
Microsoft Multimedia Keyboard Black (My personalised parts)
Microsoft Intellimouse Optical Mouse USB 5 Button (My personalised parts)
Creative Sound Blaster Live DE 7.1 (It's cheaper then an Audigy 2)
240w Stereo Speakers (I needed some sound)
ASUS WL-138g PCI Wireless LAN Card (I have no idea about this card, I just looked for the ASUS with pci in it)

GST Inclusive Price: $1435 (not too bad, if you know where to get these parts cheaper by around $100 or more, shout)

Other odds and ends I'll just be sharing (Monitor, I love my LG FLATRON 795FT Plus) or building myself (Case, 6-10mm Polycarb)
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https://www.halfdonethings.com/

I dont know if I'd be going for that motherboard. . . running a SiS chipset and all . . . you might wanna choose one of the new intel chipsets ( i915 or i925). Theres probobly nothing wrong with the SiS chipset, I just dont like the brand . . . and its AGP, not PCI express, which is bad if you want a future-proof machine.

When I get a chance iill see what we can do it for, $1435 doesnt look too bad though.
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Jeff Ferrara
fb@ffej.net

ffej.net

I went AGP because it is cheaper to get an AGP card then a PCI Express card and the ASUS mobo doesn't have a pci express slot.

Thanks for the comments Jeff, eagerly awaiting your follow up

EDIT: I've changed the parts around and went for the intel board, ditched the agp card and went express and went the DDR2 ram. I had to ditch the keyboard, speakers, soundcard, mouse and wireless networking to get this:

EDIT2: Changed PSU for Xsonic 2750 Case Black with a 400w PSU for the same price.

*System Specs*

Intel Pentium 4 540J 3.2Ghz 800FSB 1MB Cache S775 CPU = $379
Intel 915PBLL Pentium 4 S775 Motherboard = $219
1Gb Kingmax DDR2 533MHz RAM = $379
250GB Seagate 7200rpm HDD 8M Serial ATA = $249
ASUS Extreme N5750 128M PCI Express Video Card = $169
Xsonic 2750 Case Black with 400w PSU = $79


GST Inclusive Price: $1469
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https://www.halfdonethings.com/

Last edited by Knightrous on Wed Feb 23, 2005 9:54 pm; edited 1 time in total

MSY is *the* place to buy cheap quality 'puter parts..

grab their price list here and see for yourself
http://www.msy.com.au/Parts/PARTS.pdf

The only problem with their original store (East Malvern) is that its *too* bloody popular.. you almost always have to wait in line for at least 1/2hr to get served.. the line often reaches all the way back to the stores door.. Thats how cheap they are..

They have a branch in NSW as well, and are just about to open one in Brisbane in the next week or so I hear.. I think they're looking for staff for them as well if anyone wants a job.. info at their website http://www.msy.com.au/

Oh and for the Blakes-7 fans, check out this for one awesome custom made case..
http://bit-tech.net/article/135/
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Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people

I was hoping you would send me the updated parts list from MSY from the premium members
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https://www.halfdonethings.com/

that is a link to the premium members price list..
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Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people

Dell was quite good. I got the last comp from there.
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So even the rain that falls isn't actually going to fill our dams and our river systems

If you want an out-of-the-box machine, then Dell would probably be one of the best of the "name" brands that I know of..

Most of the others (HP, Compaq etc) have a bad habit of using custom parts that you have to buy from them (at very inflated prices) in the future if you want to do upgrades..

But if you dont mind your machine not having a badge on the front and know what you want, you'll always get more grunt for your $ with a "clone" machine. They're cheaper, faster, and if you use quality parts just as reliable - I've seen just as many name brand failures as I have clones.

The publics perception is that the brand machines will be more reliable, but in fact if you look inside a brand you will see they all use exactly the same parts that a clone does (WD Hard Drives, Intel CPU, Hyundai Ram, Nvidia video or whatever).. so they are subject to the same component failure rates.

It takes big name manufacturers 6-12 months to combine the newest tech into their custom-cased machines, get the assembly line rolling, package them up, ship them around the world, market and promote them and so on..

The DIY clone machines are only weeks behind the latest gear coming out direct from the silicon guru's..

Of course you need to know what gear you want (or else buy one of the small computer shops premade packages..) 'cause if you order a combination of parts that dont really "click" together and mesh into a nicely running system, most of the little shops wont question you (assuming you know what you want) and you might end up with a machine slower than it needs to be..

Computers are like cars.. to perform well, all the parts need to match up.. theres no point stuffing a big block under the hood if you have skinny little tyres down the back.. and most "HotRod DIY'ers" like to dial-their-own customised machine.. Mom and Pop can go buy the factory stock Toyota Camry from the dealership..
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Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people

I checked the same features in the Dell against the same features from other suppliers and Dell came out cheaper.

I don't know about any 6-12 month delay in getting new tech. It was some months back into last year when I got my Dell it has a few newish things like the X800 and the DDR2 ram.
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So even the rain that falls isn't actually going to fill our dams and our river systems

i woudlnt really bother too much wrt future proofing
it used to be you could go a top of the line mbo and upgrade the cpu in it as time went by but it seems like that is past.
the development cycle is just too fast, i'd go the AGP (its going to be around for quite a long while) SIS mbo should be ok but if you can go a late model chipset intel or via.

by the time your computer is "out of date" for everything except games it will be too big a step to upgrade, in 12 - 18 months time (average half life of your average PC) your going to need a dual core CPU, a mbo that supports that and DDR3 ram for it. while your at it you'll put in a 1 Tb hdd and a blue ray DVD.

to my mind areas worth spending cash on.
screens, your going to be looking at it for a long while and it wont get out of date (19" DVI LCD $550 or so, go DVI on a screen if you possibly can)
storage, iits like money you will never have enough, look at the price increments though and make sure you arent paying more for fewer megabytes, 250 is probbly too big atm might have better value with a 200 but check it out.( and when they come down in price RAID them for more space and performance)
graphics, now dont go crazy here, but get on the new wave, get an x800 (or cut down version) or a nvidia 6600 (personal preference is nvidia over ATI, seen loads of stability problems with ATI and the nvidia has better performance now anyway)
3.2 is a good CPU speed, not too expensive but quite zippy.
might consider cutting down to 512 mb of ram because that is easy and cheap to upgrade later.
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Mechanical engineers build weapons, civil engineers build targets

in short how much is the recomended retail price on that system jake
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as a shadow is seen and not heard i am here
-Waddy the phoenix

You should ask yourself what you want to do with your machine. Do you want to surf the net? Do you want to play high graphics games? Do you want to edit video?

Find out where you want to go. Find out what you need to get there. Decide if the cost is worth it to you.
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So even the rain that falls isn't actually going to fill our dams and our river systems

After a few months of research, I'm picking these parts up on Friday.

1 x AMD Athlon 64 3200+ CPU Retail Socket 939
1 x Gigabyte GA-K8NXP-SLI Athlon 64 S939 Motherboard
2 x 1GB Corsair DDR400 RAM
2 x 160GB Seagate 7200rpm 8M Serial ATA HDD
1 x Alastor 5750 128M PCI Express Video Card
1 x Xsonic 2750 Case Black
1 x Thermaltake Beetle CPU Cooler

$1299.00

This is either going to make me into an AMD fanatic, or make me commit computercide!
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https://www.halfdonethings.com/

unless you are overclocking or something crazy you should be ok with the AMD standard heatsink
also the corsair ram is *really* expensive in comparison to kingmax or something
save the money on those and check the performance with a nvidia 6600 or something.
5750 gets ~21FPS in doom3
6600 ~86FPS

other than that good price
also you are getting a SLI board so you will probbly want a card that can take advantage of that.
check
http://graphics.tomshardware.com/graphic/20041222/vga_charts-06.html
for more benchmarks on PCI-X video card benchmarks
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Mechanical engineers build weapons, civil engineers build targets

Generally I agree, but if you are over-clocking even a bit, the Corsair RAM makes sense. The article on Dan's Data (about a year ago) tested overclocking with Corsair RAM and some other brand that was marked as being the same speed. On an Abit IC7G board, the other RAM crapped out a some insignificant multiplier, while the Corsiar went for a decent speed increase. I used the same stuff and pushed my P4 about 20% with no problems.

If you are not going to over-clock, then yeah, buy more pixel processing and cheaper RAM
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Australian 2015 Featherweight champion
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