New Games System..Build or Buy?

uberpixie

to be honest i have more or less the same system as you coyote.

Except i upgraded the 1800xp to a 2400xp and went from a 4200 64mb geforce4 to a 9800 non pro.

My box plays games sweet and will play half-life2/ doom3 etc.. on high detail when they come out. And i should be able to squeeze another good year out of my box by upping my ram up to a gig.

To be honest upgrading your currant box will get you an extra year out of it and then in a years time you can build an absolute new **** kicker of a rig.

The performance difference between a new 2k system now vs an upgrade wont be very noticable. The difference between a 2k system now and a 2k system in a years time will be huge!

2400xp-78euro(highest xp an A7V333 can take)

9800pro-266 to 300 euro depending on make

512mb pc2700 ram-100 euro or there abouts

thats 500 euro to keep you sweet for a year of high end gaming.

Then build in a years time. Makes the most sense economically and for you to get the most out of the tech you bought. Thats what i am going to do anyhow:-)

Just another option worth considering to buy/build.

BadCharlie

Have had 512mb of ram in my computers for the past 3 or 4 years. I put in an extra 512 in this machine as i noticed lots of games were taking up 600megs or more ( BF1942, Rise Of Natoins .... ). And it made a big differince i must say. The load time in BF1942 was redused and i also get no sudden jurks in picture during rise of nations or BF1942 as its all stored in the extra ram ( no need for hard drive to keep loading during game ).

Woden

thanks for the opinions folks my current ram usage for typical internet browsing is about half of my half gig. my computer runs FF XI and battlefield and all quite well i have never checked the ram usage though when a game is on i will look into that

Ryaner

Firstly bout the ram since it last on topic. The current board all support dual channel ram. If you dont have two dimms it dont work - simple. 1GB of ram is noticeable on 512 single. I was using a gig and dropped back to 512 at one point for a few days. Soon as I bought it back to a gig everything ran noticeably faster than with 512. Faster loading and gameplay.
The 64fx is the way to go in the new systems really. Intel charge thru the nose and AMD chips are quite OCable.
For gfx, if your current games run stuff atm then leave it. PCI-E will be the business but march? Try the summer for general release and then how long before it become wide spread and the problems get sorted and it starts to jump ahead in price. Also how many cards are gonna come out at the same time as it? Buying a card now isnt really good idea. The 9600xt is way to go as it's an amazing card and will run HL2 and Doom3 but maybe by that stage the new standards will be widely available anyway.
Sound, the audigy2 is a great card. I got a platium ex for 200euro on special. It's got the breakout box and all and put with the speakers it's amazing. The difference from the nForce onboard sound was heard straight away not to mention it doesnt skip or slow when the system load is high and your effect are too.

c0y0te

Thanks for all the input lads.

The main reason I was thinking of replacing my current system was two fold. On the one hand I wanted to go beyond the 2.4ghz limitation of my mobo, and make sure I could have a beast worthy of running HL2/D3 at full details.

On the other hand, my current system tends to crash on me regularly.. and I've never been able to find out why. I've always put it down to the fact that I had it built rather than purchased it as a pre-configured rig. I've had several ppl look at it, but no one item stands out as being at fault.

So that is why I was looking to get a new system. That and of course the fact that we all love shiny new boxes and gadgets as well!!:D

The majority of you seem to recommend the build approach again.. so I guess I need to decide if I want to go that route again or not. I will take into account all the comments about the new standards and timing, so thanks again for the feedback.

c0y0te

whosurpaddy

Originally posted by WizZard
AMD Athlon64 3200+
Zalman 7000-AlCu HSF
ASUS K8V Deluxe
1Gb Corsair XMS3200LLPro Memory
160gb Seagate Barracuda SATA150 HDD (x2)
LiteOn 8x DVD/RW Drive
LiteOn 52x CR/RW Drive
Sapphire Radeon 9600XT 256mb
Thermaltake Xaser III v2000a
Thermaltake 480w 'Butterfly' PSU
Logitech Cordless Desktop MX

nice rig, just one comment: why would u buy a dvd-rw and cd-rw instead of buying a dvd-rw and dvd-rom? with a dvd-rom u could be burning on the fly whereas with the cd-rw u gotta read from dvd-rw to hd, the burn from hd to dvd-rw.

BloodBath

Order online definately. I put a rig together from a few sites. Total cost 2200, the rig is better than what you would get off alienware and about 800 squid cheaper.

You should order whenever you want a new rig. There will always be some new technology due out in a few months. The new range of graphics cards and processors will not be massively in front of the current technology. Get yourself a P43.2(currently e350 on komplett, due to drop to about e300 in the next few days) with a good mobo top ram and you will easily overclock it to 4-4.5ghz or higher. A radeon 9800XT and there you go. You will have a system that will still be top of the range in a years time and will outperform all the current processors available even the athlon64FX and the P4 ee.

Anyone that pays e800+for a processor is ****ing crazy.

Your system at the mo is pretty decent but if you have the money you might as well buy a new one and then you have 2 rigs. You could upgrade your graphics to a radeon 9600xt which is alright for most games but you would not get a good frame rate with max detail and a good res in half life 2 or doom3. Hell you wouldn't even get a good rate in BF1942 with that.


I'm ordering this week, can't be bothered waiting for anything new because when it does come out there is usually little support for it initially and there will be something else due in another couple of months.

With a rig like the one I mentioned you will have no trouble with any games for a long time and would be well within your budget.


BloodBath

Praetorian

Hi Coyote,

Remember me?

Definitely don't buy a Dell or an Alienware pc.

If your still into games, then definitely get an Athlon 64. The 3000+ variant has less cache (but still runs at 2ghz). It's as fast as the 3200+ in almost all benchmarks (within 2-3%). Amd made a big mistake with that processor; it's fantastic value!

I built a 3200+ back in September for a rich ba$tard when they just came out, and to be honest it was way faster than my p4-3000 clocked at 3500 for games.

Graphics wise go for a Radeon 9800 Pro, 128 or 256.

So I guess I'm saying, build your own! Or get a friend you trust to do it.

Regards,

Damien.

Woden

Originally posted by whosurpaddy
nice rig, just one comment: why would u buy a dvd-rw and cd-rw instead of buying a dvd-rw and dvd-rom? with a dvd-rom u could be burning on the fly whereas with the cd-rw u gotta read from dvd-rw to hd, the burn from hd to dvd-rw.

i'm not sure but the reason i'd do that is because i think certain dvd-rw can't back up certain things like the latest games and such while a dedicated cd-rw like that liteon will be able to.

STaN

On a side note i have 4 * 256MB Modules of OCZ PC3500 (up to 434Mhz @ CL2) RAM on for sale if your interested, it's the best RAM i ever used.

For comparison operates at PC3200 = 400Mhz @ CL2

Slutmonkey57b

Good Editorial here for the newbie (or the tired & flummoxed) http://www.hexus.net/ .

Wait til April. I'm tempted to do an upgrade myself but I won't get time to use a new rig so there's no point.

c0y0te

So...

if I was to ask you builder types how much should it cost me to get someone competent to spec and build a new rig for me:D ... what you you advice?

c0y0te

Dempsey

Originally posted by Slutmonkey57b
Wait til April. I'm tempted to do an upgrade myself but I won't get time to use a new rig so there's no point.

Good Article but the prices for those new items will be the highest on the market and the current stuff's prices wont drop until two months after.

Slutmonkey57b

Means the prices on the current top spec stuff will be dirt cheap though. Buying the best of the last gen stuff in April will mean you'll get it at budget prices but still be running a very strong rig in a year's time.

Prices for Athlon64's will be at AthlonXP levels in April when the new PCI-X mobos & cards come out. Remember, for all the processor fanfare over the new prescotts etc, it's not the processer that is the bottleneck in the modern system.

unkel

Originally posted by c0y0te
So...

if I was to ask you builder types how much should it cost me to get someone competent to spec and build a new rig for me:D ... what you you advice?

c0y0te

There are several people here on boards.ie that would do that for you for a nominal fee or for nothing - post a thread "who wants to build my new pc" and you'll be surprised how many reactions you'll get

Go for it