My New Rig...

[LA_MERC_Skitsvelvet]

Not as Uber as Diesel's but I got a tight Budget!!!

1 Seagate Barracuda SATA II 160GB Drive
1 ASPIRE X-QPACK-YL/420 Black/Yellow 420W Power Supply
1 Intel Pentium 4 640 Prescott 800MHz FSB LGA 775 EM64T
2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 667 (PC2 5300) Unbuff, Dual Channel
1 ASUS P5LD2-VM Socket T (LGA 775) Intel 945G Micro ATX Intel Motherboard
1 ASUS Black IDE DVD-ROM Drive Model DVD-E616A BLACK

And I am picking up Dirge's 6800GT Vid Card.

The only thing this box will be used for is gaming. I will pick up another Vid Card down the road and I can always upgrade the processor. The only thing I can't have is a SLI setup but I am not too worried about that right now. All in all I think it will be a nice setup.

[LA_MERC_Dirge]

I see you're getting the Segate Barracuda drive. I was just looking at that yesterday. It seems to be comparable to the WD Raptors (except for speed). Did you find that as well?

[LA_MERC_Skitsvelvet]

WD is okay but I prefer the Seagate drives over them. It's just a matter of preference I guess.

[LA_MERC_Diesel]

w00tness
looks good

[LA_MERC_Captain_Obvious]

curious, if it's going to be primarily gaming, why go with intel. specially a prescott? don't get me wrong, that's what I have in my PC at home, but it wasn't by choice. If I had to pick, it would have been amd64.

is the seagate drive the 7200.9? if so, it should be a nice drive. the new line of WD's kick some butt though. they have the new cavairs 250-400GB range that are SATAII and 16mb cache, also they have a new Raptor out that's native SATA, faster and 150GB. (the previous raptors were IDE native with a sata converter)

[LA_MERC_Dirge]

I was checking on the various flavors of 7900.x today. From the best I can figure, the .8's are just bigger than the .7's? And I could not find any .9's with a avg seek time <11 ms. The .7's were in the .85 ms range. Seems kinda strange to have different generations likethat that are so different.

I went ahead and bit the bullet and bought 2 7900.7 160 GB 8MB buffer 8.5 ms drives to Raid 0.

[LA_MERC_Skitsvelvet]

The reasoning behind going with intel is that I have had a lot of success with intel. The one time I tried AMD it fried my chip and mobo. The HD is the 7200.9. I was thinking of RMAing the CPU for the P4 650 but I will probably stay with what I have. Even though I don't keep up much with Intel vs. AMD. There may be a faster processor in the AMD line that would have fit my budget better. In the end my lack of research on AMD products could have caused me to spend more money that could have been used to buy something better.

THose who have better knowledge of the AMD products pls inform me. I could always return what I ordered.

[LA_MERC_Diesel]

curious, if it's going to be primarily gaming, why go with intel. specially a prescott? don't get me wrong, that's what I have in my PC at home, but it wasn't by choice. If I had to pick, it would have been amd64.


he is an intel wh0re I think :stick

[LA_MERC_Captain_Obvious]

the amd64 3700+ is the best deal price vs. performance right now. it also out performs any intel P4. (non EE). If you want to spend more on a cpu right now, go with an X2 (dual core amd64). games are now starting to support dual core, and future games will really take advantage of it.
If you want SLI, go with either the ASUS A8N32-SLI delux or DFI Lanparty nf4.
If you don't want SLI, go with ASUS A8N-E

[LA_MERC_Skitsvelvet]

My goal is Micro ATX for portability. I may re-think my purchase once it comes in.

[LA_MERC_Captain_Obvious]

If you don't mind on board sound: this would be a good choice (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16856101468)

[LA_MERC_Skitsvelvet]

Does it come with RAM, HD, Etc...?

Or do I need to pick that up in addition.

[LA_MERC_Dirge]

DO NOT BUY SHUTTLE!!! REPEAT DO NOT BUY SHUTTLE!!!

[LA_MERC_Captain_Obvious]

haha I would never buy shuttle, but I would also never buy microATX. if you're going to buy microATX, shuttle isn't that bad. there are better choices, sure. but cost and ease, shuttle would be the one to go with (if your not that great with building your own)

[LA_MERC_Skitsvelvet]

I have no problems building my own. I have built every pc I have owned with the exception of my 486 and before. AST was the last pre-built I owned. I have a full Tower now but like I said I want portability. I like the Aspire Q-XPACK case. I am trying to build a strict gaming rig on a $700.00 budget. With of course the covert op for Dirge's 6800GT that the wife doesn't need to know about, the tag is at $900. I had a great system spec'ed out with 7800GTX, etc... but the price tag was $1600.00 and the wife wasn't too happy about that. So this is what I have to work with. Plus as an advantage to the ASPIRE case I get pretty lights......:D

[LA_MERC_Drax]

Plus as an advantage to the ASPIRE case I get pretty lights......:D

The pretty lights get annoying sometimes. The person two rows behind me at the last armeggedon was complaining that the 6 LEDs on the front of my case were blinding him. And my rig was in my bedroom, lit the whole room up at night.

[LA_MERC_Diesel]

try Dirge's noise activated strobe of death across from you and the mouth of mobile...not Sweetz..the new champ...Andy next to him....then the Sparkanator next to me...whining about his pos computer...."blinded by the light"
:p:

[LA_MERC_Drax]

the mouth of mobile...not Sweetz..

DAMNIT Mike! WTH do you think i'm here for!??!?!

[LA_MERC_th33_r00k]

Where are you getting the parts and pieces from skitz? Also will this use a AGP Video card, cause I have one coming back from Heater that is a 9600pro. That should be able to bring the "dark side" into my life(BF2).

Thanks skitz for any help.

[LA_MERC_Skitsvelvet]

I am getting the parts and pieces from NewEgg.Com.

[LA_MERC_Skitsvelvet]

the new line of WD's kick some butt though. they have the new cavairs 250-400GB range that are SATAII and 16mb cache, also they have a new Raptor out that's native SATA, faster and 150GB. (the previous raptors were IDE native with a sata converter)

Okay so I went back and looked at what I got. There are pro's and con's to both AMD vs INTEL. In the end though I stuck with the Intel but I did change up my hard drive. After reviewing Tom's Hardware I found that the 74 GB WD Raptor blows other SATA drives away. With the MOBO I picked out I have a lot of room to grow, granted the AMD diehards may not care for what I have but it suits me fine.....for now.

ASPIRE X-QPACK Yellow Bezel Black Case, I may spray the Case yellow though...
Intel Pentium 4 640 Prescott 800MHz FSB LGA 775 EM64T
ASUS P5LD2-VM Socket T (LGA 775) MATX
2GB DDR2 SDRAM, Dual Channel
ASUS Black IDE DVD-ROM Drive Model DVD-E616A BLACK
MSI 6800 GT 256 MB PCI-E 16x Video Card