€2000 Budget, building PC

Neil3030

Basically a budget of €2000 is to go on a PC and the baby is to be hooked up to an XGA projector. Graphics are paramount and greatest proportion of cash is being designated in that direction. TV in and OUT and as powerful as possible for gaming, and of course, the projector. I'm trying to squeeze in as much RAM as possible and preferably an XP processor. Also the sound card must be fairly decent as a home cinema system will be also hooked up to this machine. Could anyone be so kind as to spec a system for me? Not all of the €2000 HAS to be spent, quality and performance are the main things, but if need be the whole lot is willng to be parted with. Case and Monitor are not needed.

Shopping around komplett and I've noticed that they now have (yes, yes I've been in a cave for the last while) 1024 sticks of DDR RAM. Just wondering if that is only compatible with certain mobos? Just thinking that a couple of those babies on board will make QUITE the machine.

Cheers in advance for any help or advice given.

Neil.

*PS I don't think I need mention that the XGA projector and home cinema system are not to be included in the budget of €2000!!!

jesus_thats_gre

Originally posted by Neil3030
Basically a budget of €2000 is to go on a PC and the baby is to be hooked up to an XGA projector. Graphics are paramount and greatest proportion of cash is being designated in that direction. TV in and OUT and as powerful as possible for gaming, and of course, the projector. I'm trying to squeeze in as much RAM as possible and preferably an XP processor. Also the sound card must be fairly decent as a home cinema system will be also hooked up to this machine. Could anyone be so kind as to spec a system for me? Not all of the €2000 HAS to be spent, quality and performance are the main things, but if need be the whole lot is willng to be parted with. Case and Monitor are not needed.

Shopping around komplett and I've noticed that they now have (yes, yes I've been in a cave for the last while) 1024 sticks of DDR RAM. Just wondering if that is only compatible with certain mobos? Just thinking that a couple of those babies on board will make QUITE the machine.

Cheers in advance for any help or advice given.

Neil.

*PS I don't think I need mention that the XGA projector and home cinema system are not to be included in the budget of €2000!!!

Ahh god love ya... boo hoo hoo....

P4 3.2 Ghz and a Radeon 9800 Pro, an Audigy 2 sound card are nice places to start...

Giblet

Add two 1 gig ram sticks of 3200 to that and make sure the Mobo supports dual
Most new Mobos support up to 2 gigs of ram in the dual configuration.

Get some cooling aswell to OC her

B*astard.

Creamy Goodness

motherboard Abit IC7-G Max 3 advanced can't go wrong with that baby supports 4gb ram in dual channel

Sir Random

I thought a radeon 9800 Pro AIW & Audigy2 WAS a home cinema system.

netman

Originally posted by Sir Random
I thought a radeon 9800 Pro AIW & Audigy2 WAS a home cinema system.

not on a 19" monitor with stereo speakers it's not

netman

erm, what do you plan to use 2 gigs of ram for?
i mean seriously.. looks like all you plan to do is run movies and play games, not likely to use more than 512 megs. i'd be surprised if you even fill 256. unless you're playing 10 movies at the same time

just trying to save you some money... you'd be better off getting faster ram rather than more ram. as long as you have enough for what you need to do, any more won't make the machine any better. faster ram will.

a 3.2ghz p4 is nice.. it's also expensive. and can be outperformed easily by an overclocked 2.4c or 2.6c.

true, all of them will share a similar overclocking limit, but to get to say 3.4ghz with a 3.2 p4 you'll have an 850 mhz bus and 425ddr memory (and a lot less money in your pocket). take a 2.6c and clock it to 3.4ghz, and you'll have 1046mhz bus and 523ddr memory. much more bandwidth and much faster memory. you just need to choose your components carefully.

blorg

What do you need the TV out for if you are hooking up to a projector? (I'm presuming it has a VGA or possibly even DVI in.) Do you want to hook up to a TV also?

With regard to home cinema, I'm presuming from your post that you already have an amp/receiver and speakers. In this case, you don’t need to go nuts on the soundcard as long as it has a digital out; DD/DTS processing, a/d conversion and sound quality would then be up to the amp rather than the soundcard. This advice may not count for games, where you may need a powerful soundcard for synthesis.

Neil3030

Thinking of getting this this combo with Komplett. Which of these memories would y'all go for with it? Would any of the 1024 sticks work? Or which one would you recommend over a 1024 stick netman?

Right so blorg, most of the Sounblaster with 5.1 support will suffice for a soundcard? Thats handy. Yeh, it is more than likely going to be hooked up to a TV. TV in is essential aswell as recording onto DIVX from VHS or TV is one of the main uses this PC will have. That's also the reason a fair bit of RAM will be needed.

lotas

for uner 2 grand i got my current baby: Dual AMD Athlon 2400+, 1Gb DDR memory, GeforceFX5200, etc. actually, for under 500 i got most of it! www.komplett.ie is your only friend. hard drives are cheap now so go for the western digital special editions. DVD R drive, Xeon or P4 (EXtream edition out soon, dont know a price though). the 9800Pro is a sweet card too, or so i have heard. it cost nearly as much as my board and one chip.

blorg

Just make sure that the soundcard supports passing the Dolby Digital / DTS straight to the digital out - i.e. that it doesn't convert everything to PCM before it sends it out. That's for DVDs, the TV recording will all be 2ch/ProLogic anyway.

If you are hooking up to a TV, make sure your chosen TV-out card supports PAL overscan - else you will have black bars around the edges like a Commodore 64, very annoying (you may however be able to get around this with a card that doesn't support PAL overscan if you have a NTSC compatible TV, they all seem to overscan in NTSC.)