Build a gaming PC with $1300 [Archive]

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Seven

14-04-05, 15:34

I might have to build another PC and $1300 is the limit.

What I can use from my old PC:
DVD burner
DVD player
Floppy :D
Two 512 sticks of Kingston ram, PC3200

ATi 9800 pro 128mb (dunno if the new motherboards with PCI Express have an AGP slot. Would like to use the current card for now, but want to be able to upgrade later)

Onboard soundcard and Lan is fine.
Lian Li Aluminum case (gunna need a power supply)

So that's what I have.

~edit~
Sorry, meant to post in off-topic, mod please move, tnx.

[D]est

14-04-05, 16:29

-Amd 64 3400+ or so
-Mobo with SLi
-9800 128 doesnt preform that well anymore...
-1024 kingston is still good

Seven

14-04-05, 17:43

A8N-SLI Deluxe Socket 939 Motherboard, for Athlon 64 Processors
Product Number: 318399
Mfr. Part #: A8N-SLI DELUXE
Brand: Asus
$240 at CompUsa

http://www.compusa.com/products/product_info.asp?product_code=318399&pfp=BROWSE

Athlon 64 3800+, 2.40 GHz, 2.0 GHz FSB,
Socket 939 Processor-In-A-Box
Manufacturer: AMD
Mfg Part #: ADA3800AWBOX
Product Number: 318866
$499.99 at CompUsa.

http://www.compusa.com/products/product_info.asp?product_code=318866&pfp=BROWSE

512MB PC3200 184pin DDR DIMM Memory Module
Manufacturer: Kingston
Mfg Part #: KVR400X64C3A/512
Product Number: 50284298
$59.85 x 2

http://www.compusa.com/products/product_info.asp?product_code=50284298&pfp=BROWSE

Ultra16 250GB, 7200RPM, Internal SATA/150 Hard Drive
Manufacturer: Maxtor
Mfg Part #: L01S250
Product Number: 316142
$179.99

http://www.compusa.com/products/product_info.asp?product_code=316142&pfp=BROWSE

Radeon X800XL Video Card, PCI Express, 256MB DDR
Manufacturer: ATI Technologies
Mfg Part #: 100-435502
Product Number: 318335
$299.99

http://www.compusa.com/products/product_info.asp?product_code=318335&pfp=BROWSE

TrueBlue 480 Watt ATX12v Illuminated Power Supply
Manufacturer: Antec
Mfg Part #: TRUEBLUE 480
Product Number: 314878
$119.99

http://www.compusa.com/products/product_info.asp?product_code=314878&pfp=BROWSE

Ignore the prices. :rolleyes:
Although that memory seems kind of cheap. o_O

dark_reaper

15-04-05, 03:49

Dont use compusa, they are overpriced. I get most of my stuff at www.tigerdirect.com.
A8N-SLI mb
Price: $179.97

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1179727&Sku=A455-2112

AMD 64 +3200
Price: $209.99
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=698446&Sku=CP2-A64-3400%20C

Western Digital 250gb 7200rpm
Price: $174.99
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1089588&CatId=0

Kingston 512 PC3200 DDR400
Price: $54.99
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=235775&CatId=1304

GeForce FX6600 PCI-E 256mb
Price: $149.99
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1118492&CatId=0

-OR-

GeForce 6800 256mb
Price: $419.99
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1212069&CatId=0

Terayon

15-04-05, 04:05

Ah man ddr is sooo cheap atm. May aswell get atleast a gig of it. Realy nice to have.

X-BLADE II Med-Tower Case 450W (SILVER)
(939-pin) AMD ATHLON64 3200+ CPU w/ Hyper Transport Technology
(939-pin) ASUS A8V DELUXE VIA K8T800 MAINBOARD
1GB (512MBx2) PC3200 DDR400 Memory (Major_Brand)
Western Digital 200GB 7200RPM ATA 100 8MB Special Editon
Western Digital 200GB 7200RPM ATA 100 8MB Special Editon
NVIDIA GF 6800 GT 256MB 8XAGP
NEW!!! Creative Labs SB LIVE 24.bit 7.1

Price: $1234.00

Cyberpower does that. For 40$ or so you can get the nforce4 board with pcie on it wit h the pcie version of the 6800gt. I would get a x800xl instead though becouse they offer more price-performance then the 6800, but ive never used them. Using newegg would be a bit cheaper though. I use NCIX.com mostly.

Seven

15-04-05, 14:07

Nice!
Thanks. :) :cool:

Jesterthegreat

15-04-05, 14:13

ati's arent sli compatible afaik.

and ati dont offer more bang for the buck... ever ;)

$1300...

£650 roughly?

man i would spend that on 2 gfx cards and a mobo :wtf:

:edit: could squeeze some ram in too i guess

Seven

15-04-05, 15:29

I thought PCI Express was SLi. :confused:

http://www.compusa.com/products/product_info.asp?product_code=318335&pfp=BROWSE

Jesterthegreat

15-04-05, 19:51

SLI is 2 pci-e gfx cards running side by side

dark_reaper

15-04-05, 21:28

I thought PCI Express was SLi. :confused:

http://www.compusa.com/products/product_info.asp?product_code=318335&pfp=BROWSE

If you want to save money, dont go with Compusa, they suck. Go www.tigerdirect.com. or pricewatch.com

Terayon

16-04-05, 01:01

Ya most ppl seem to be a fan of SLI, may aswell go for a 6800gt then becouse you will probably like that better.

ATI have had SLI, or as they call it, multi rendering, for a long time.

ATI claims that its Multi VPU will work with all 3D applications, both Direct3D and OpenGL, and ATI has dedicated hardware support for super tiling. We wrote once about military systems using dozens of R300 cards to simulate a plane using some insane levels of FSAA. If I remember correctly, they used 34 Radeon cards based on the R300 chip and that is the maximum number of chips used for rendering that we know of.
Found here. (http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=22074)

So they have the technology, they just havent put it to use yet. Hope they do soon.

Seven

16-04-05, 03:09

If you want to save money, dont go with Compusa, they suck. Go www.tigerdirect.com. or pricewatch.com

Yeah I know, I just posted those links because it was quick to find everything.
That's why I said "Ignore the prices" at the end of my post.

Been looking at tigerdirect, pricewatch, amazon and a whole bunch of other's with decent ratings.

Thanks for the heads up on the SLi thing Jester, going with an nVidia now.

Thanks again all. :cool:

dark_reaper

16-04-05, 19:21

Dual 6800 GT's RULEZ!!!

Seven

18-04-05, 01:45

We went to the big pc show in Trenton, NJ today and found a great booth that had everything I needed minus the hard drive for $1263.00 and paid with a credit card. :D
Took my Wife and me about an hour of haggling the poor guy.

Asus A8N-SLi Deluxe, Rev 1.02
Athlon 64 3800+ CPU
512mb x 2 PC3200 Kingston ram
Thermaltake Silent PurePower 560W Series
GigaByte GeForce 6800 GT 256 mb PCI Express SLi ready

We had gift cards from Christmas for BestBuy and got a Maxtor 200gb, 7200rpm, 8mb cache Serial ATA/150. Not bad for free. :D

Some pics.
http://home.comcast.net/~moshea/mopix/all.JPG
http://home.comcast.net/~moshea/mopix/cpu.JPG
http://home.comcast.net/~moshea/mopix/hd.JPG
http://home.comcast.net/~moshea/mopix/mb.JPG
http://home.comcast.net/~moshea/mopix/mem.JPG
http://home.comcast.net/~moshea/mopix/vid.JPG

Using my existing Lian-Li aluminum case, DVD burner, DVD player, floppy and a gig of the same ram I bought today.

Hope it all works. :)

dark_reaper

18-04-05, 08:53

DAMN! u Rulez, now I need to upgrade my PC big time. I still need an LCD monitor. I need something that is small and can fit on my desk because I need a Prog-Scan Monitor for video Editing.

Shopping List

New Asus SLI MB
a Ge Force FX something in the 6000 series
Audio Card that supports XLR i/o
Audio Mixer
and 2 WD harddrives that are at least 250gb each so I can raid them.

mulle

18-04-05, 09:20

Jesterthegreat

18-04-05, 13:31

same mobo i have... it has primary and secondary ram slots (2 of each)... dunno if they are set up like that to hold different brand / speed... if so that would be fantastic :p

as for LCD screen... only worth it if you got money to blow. a decent, games rdy LCD is more expensive than a CRT... basic LCD'd dont handle fast movement well. i gotta replace my moniter... 15" dell monitor that only takes 1024x768 :(

Seven

19-04-05, 19:47

Good luck getting 4 sticks of ram to work on the same MB, especially if they're not the exact same ram (not just Kingston, but same Kingston brand). You might have to underclock the ram for it to work

Yeah I saw that in the manual, my ram is on the "ok to use" list and all 4 sticks have the same part number on the case they come in.
Should work... *shrugs*

More pics on the way of different stages of the build.

Seven

20-04-05, 16:20

Day one, moral support.
http://home.comcast.net/~moshea/mopix/day1.jpg

First step, get all that dust out.
http://home.comcast.net/~moshea/mopix/clean.jpg
http://home.comcast.net/~moshea/mopix/clean2.jpg

Mounting the MB without scratching the other side of it is always fun, and you won't know until you power it up.
http://home.comcast.net/~moshea/mopix/mb1.jpg

Was a bit of a pain to get it lined up, but not too bad.
http://home.comcast.net/~moshea/mopix/mb2.jpg

CPU and mem installed.
http://home.comcast.net/~moshea/mopix/3800.jpg
http://home.comcast.net/~moshea/mopix/cpumem.jpg

Vid card ready to break, I mean install.
http://home.comcast.net/~moshea/mopix/6800.jpb.JPG

Vid card installed.
http://home.comcast.net/~moshea/mopix/vidin.jpg

Ready for that upgrade when needed.
http://home.comcast.net/~moshea/mopix/upgrade.jpg

Hmm, camera seems to be *cough* working funny, I better check the zoom.
http://home.comcast.net/~moshea/mopix/zoom1.jpg

Seems to check out OK, best to be sure though. :D
http://home.comcast.net/~moshea/mopix/zoom2.jpg

Motherboard assembly, slides into case from the back.
http://home.comcast.net/~moshea/mopix/mbin.jpg

Harddrive, floppy and DVD drives in.
http://home.comcast.net/~moshea/mopix/drivesin.jpg

Where's that damn manual!
http://home.comcast.net/~moshea/mopix/ps.JPG
http://home.comcast.net/~moshea/mopix/wires.jpg

Day 2, moral support. :rolleyes:
http://home.comcast.net/~moshea/mopix/day2.jpg

Kuya

20-04-05, 16:48

looks freshen! Always good to know the Zoom is working ;)

Seven

21-04-05, 21:21

Well, all done with the build part.

Wires suck..
http://home.comcast.net/~moshea/mopix/mess.jpg

All buttoned up ready to go...
http://home.comcast.net/~toeoshea/neat.jpg
http://home.comcast.net/~moshea/mopix/back.jpg

Was screwing around with the macro setting on the camera and didn't notice how funny this pic was until I looked at it later. :D
http://home.comcast.net/~moshea/mopix/alien.jpg

Off to start this pc up for it's first time.
I'll record it in real time and post the avi later. (if it doesn't burn up)

Jesterthegreat

21-04-05, 21:27

http://home.comcast.net/~moshea/mopix/alien.jpg

hmm... hide the my little pony book on the left next time ;)

Seven

22-04-05, 02:15

Will the green light come on when I turn on the power supply, or will it fizzle...

http://home.comcast.net/~toeoshea/Name0002.AVI

Seven

22-04-05, 03:20

:(

http://home.comcast.net/~toeoshea/powerup2.wmv

Terayon

22-04-05, 04:23

Er.... somthings.... wrong? Can you point out whats not suposed to happen in that last video?

dark_reaper

22-04-05, 09:02

hmmm, I am not getting a video, hmmm.

Seven

22-04-05, 13:44

Er.... somthings.... wrong? Can you point out whats not suposed to happen in that last video?

Heh, was just trying to throw you guys off before you watched it. :p

Loaded XP last night, today all the drivers and software, updates etc...

Seven

23-04-05, 17:42

First try, no tweaks yet.
BTW, what's a decent program(s) for testing tweak changes?

This takes too long to run after every tweak and I think it mostly benchmarks the vid card.

Terayon

23-04-05, 19:34

everest home edition
sisoftware sandra

They have benchmarks that test your memory and stuff, but no graphic test from what i can see. Dont know how accurate they are.

mulle

24-04-05, 02:28

MemTest for testing changes in the BIOS, don't even need to boot up Windows...though you'll have to make a boot CD with it.....or buy a DFI Lanparty motherboard with it installed directly into the CMOS :D

Vae Victis

24-04-05, 02:56

http://home.comcast.net/~moshea/mopix/clean.jpg
thats the same chair we use in the restaurant I work at :D

aint comfy :(