Opinions on Rig Required

Serbian

I have decided to embark on my first PC build and I was wondering if I could get some feedback on the components I have set out below. I was aiming for an upper-mid-range PC with a budget of up to €2k, but the setup below is clocking in a few hundred below that so there is room to manoeuvre if needs be. In particular, I'm wondering is the 350w PSU sufficient for what's there?

Motherboard: ASUS A8N-E
Processor: AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+
RAM: 2 x 1 GB DDR PC3200
Hard Drive: 2 x MaXLine III 300GB
Sound: Creative SB X-Fi
Video: GeForce 7900GT
CD/DVD: NEC ND-3550A
Case/PSU: Antec SLK1650B

All opinions are more than welcome!

andy1249

I am not sure if the 7900 GT uses the same amount of power as the 7800 , it might be less , but if its the same or anywhere near then you may have problems with a 350 watt , My 7800 GTX wouldn't work at all on an Antec cool blue that came with a lanboy case , it only fired up with a 400W that I bought to replace it and I had to replace that with a 500W as it was unstable , those Nvidia cards really suck up the juice.

Serbian

Thanks for the reply Andy. Maybe I would be safer going with the Antec Sonata II Miditower, Black w/450W PSU?

L31mr0d

Yeah that antec looks substantially better. The ATX12v spec on the PSU would be more than enough for that system. The 7900 series uses a lot less power than the 7800 series due to its new 90nm technology, i think its around the same as the 6600 series, but don't quote me on that, read around a few reviews. I'm running a comparable system myself which has all the equipment you have just by different manufacturers and it runs smooth on a 400w Enermax Liberty PSU.

gline

its a nice spec mate....enjoy

LoBo

What's delivery to Priština going to set you back these days though?

Chosen

Serbian wrote:

Thanks for the reply Andy. Maybe I would be safer going with the Antec Sonata II Miditower, Black w/450W PSU?

I have this one, got it 5 months ago. Very quiet quality case. The PSU atm feeds a dual core Opteron @2700MHz, 2Gb or RAM @270MHz, a 7800GTX, 2x WD Raptors in RAID0 and 5 fans. Barely any flunctuation on the 12V lines.

I am actually going to put it up for sale now, as I got a Stacker to fit my watercooling in, but I don't think I can ship it to Pristina

conzy

Looks good, except for the ram and the PSU.

Get the Antect Sonata, or if you plan on overclocking get a higher quality PSU, like an enermax seasonic tagan................

You are well under the €2000 budget so I wouldnt skimp on ram and a PSU.

Also you might consider a X1900XT, they are better than a 7900GT and can run AA and floating point HDR simultaneously

Serbian

conzymaher wrote:

Looks good, except for the ram and the PSU.

Thanks for the reply conzymaher. I'm not planning on Overclocking and wanted the least amount of hassle when it came to PSU / Case as they are the most boring pieces to pick out so I just went with an Antec combo. Do you think there would be a problem with what I have picked out (going with the case in my first reply)?

I know the RAM is a bit cheapo, but from what I read when I was researching:

PC Parts Picking Guide
[..] Unless you intend on overclocking big time, go with Value RAM from a major brand (Corsair, Crucial, Kingston, Mushkin, etc) and make sure it carries a lifetime warranty [...]

The warranty on my selected RAM appears to be 10 years so I think that's safe enough!

conzy

The antec will be fine with the 7900gt, but Im not sure about a X1900XT.

You are buying to sticks of Value ram @ €105 each = €210

For €220 You could get
these

2 gigs of OCZ platinium ram, for an Athlon 64 system to really fly you need good ram, and I think its worth the extra €10:p

If you want to buy a PSU I would recomend this

You can then pick any case you want.......

Are you going with the 7900gt or a X1900XT?

Serbian

Good call on the RAM there, I think I will actually pick that pack up. I was thinking of going with 3 GBs of RAM, is this stick the same as the pair you linked to? I think I'm going to stick with the 7900GT for the moment , but I have checked benchmarks between the two and I'm tempted

conzy

That ram is the same, but 3gb is pointless, and it wont run in Dual channel:(

2gb is more than enough.

I have 1gb, and I can run CSS Hl2, Bf2 all maxed out

Serbian

conzymaher wrote:

That ram is the same, but 3gb is pointless, and it wont run in Dual channel:(

2gb is more than enough.

I have 1gb, and I can run CSS Hl2, Bf2 all maxed out

Cool, thanks for the info.

conzy

Np:)

Are you actually in Serbia, or are you one of those people who pretend that they live somewhere cool?:D

Will Komplett deliver to you?

Serbian

conzymaher wrote:

Np:)

Are you actually in Serbia, or are you one of those people who pretend that they live somewhere cool?:D

Will Komplett deliver to you?

I'm just pretending

conzy

Good luck with the build, I wanna see some pictures and some benchmarks when its done;)

awhir

get the tangan make your pc some what updatedable.i would go for the 1900xt good card.you could get a better board if you have any money to spend the high range asus are good.

also do you like a silent pc or a loud pc because the 1900xt is very loud when playing games but you could just put a cooler on it and also you could get a silent cpu cooler then the stock 1.hope i can help.

cockmynut

Nice rig, but are you sure you need 600GB?

Serbian

cockmynut wrote:

Nice rig, but are you sure you need 600GB?

Not right now no, but I have kept my last 2 PCs for 3 years each and Hard Drive space has been a problem for both. I decided I was going to get what would probably be excessive hard-drive space by today's standards, but will probably be adequate in 2 or 3 years time.

awhir

you can just buy them when there cheaper in 2-3 years time?

Serbian

awhir wrote:

you can just buy them when there cheaper in 2-3 years time?

I see your point alright. I'll go with the one drive for the moment and use the extra cash to get the x1900xt maybe?

awhir

nice card.

conzy

The X1900XT is a great card but the 450watt PSU might struggle......

How about buying a PSU and a case instead of the Antec bundle, just to be on the safe side?

tagan or Seasonic are the best PSUs on komplett at the minute.....

Serbian

Yeah, I have swapped the stuff around a fair bit by now. You can take a look at what I have lined up on my Komplett Shopping List. Annoyingly, the RAM sold out over the weekend so I'll have to wait for that to come back into stock.

awhir

hey for 15e more you can get a asus crossfire board

http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?sku=314966

and you can buy your memory of shop4memory they have free shipping.

the g-skill hz or xz i think are very good.

Chosen

Serbian wrote:

Yeah, I have swapped the stuff around a fair bit by now. You can take a look at what I have lined up on my Komplett Shopping List. Annoyingly, the RAM sold out over the weekend so I'll have to wait for that to come back into stock.

Try Pc-Memory-Upgrade, it has the Gskill HZ at 222€, free shipping iirc. That's a memory guaranteed to reach between 265-275MHz at 3-4-4-8 or 3-4-3-8

Serbian

Chosen wrote:

Try Pc-Memory-Upgrade, it has the Gskill HZ at 222€, free shipping iirc. That's a memory guaranteed to reach between 265-275MHz at 3-4-4-8 or 3-4-3-8

Thanks for that Chosen, I picked the Gskill RAM. Now to buy the rest of the PC

awhir

Serbian wrote:

Yeah, I have swapped the stuff around a fair bit by now. You can take a look at what I have lined up on my Komplett Shopping List. Annoyingly, the RAM sold out over the weekend so I'll have to wait for that to come back into stock.

hey i told you first

Serbian

awhir wrote:

hey i told you first

So you did, but you didn't provide a link to it and I'm too lazy to go looking

Chosen

Serbian wrote:

So you did, but you didn't provide a link to it and I'm too lazy to go looking

lol fair play Serbian!
By the way, how's Pristina? Is the electricity still 5 hours on - 1 hour off? And that thick dust in the air oh man...