Madshrimps Forum Madness - Maffia's Quest for a new PC

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Maffia's Quest for a new PC

Now that HL2 & Doom 3 is almost upon us ;)
I have decided to start doing some research in my quest for a new PC.
Current Rig:
Athlon Slot A 900 Mhz
Geforce4 ti4600
512 Mb Kingston Value Ram
1* Maxtor 250 Gb
1* Maxtor 60 Gb
1* Maxtor 40 Gb
1* Seagate 20 Gb
D-link 10/100 Nic
SB 1024 Live Value
Aopen HQ08 case

Once a new rig is built, this will remain as a fileserver/Divxbox to hookup on TV.

From what I have read from several forums so far these will be minimum specs:
new mobo (no Oc required, don't have that much time anyway)
new Processor (A64) (but of course this rig should be a good folder :D )
1Gb Ram
new soundcard
new vidcard
new HD's (SATA?)
new case

As you can see, I do not have that many specs for you to look at.
Do note that I am quite patient, so I could be buying if one or the other game comes out.
Also price is not an issue at the moment, as I work for a computer distributor, I get stuff at disti prices (or even free if i'm lucky)

So off I go, I will of course need some help regarding compactibility, and will update this thread as I start getting more info.
Any suggestions on what you would buy now will be greatly appreciated.
Wish me luck.

I'd wait until the next-gen games are actually here

remember how idiots rushed to buy 9700/9800 cards, saying "ooh, those really cool games are almost here" ?
in the meanwhile, the x800 is here and by the time doom 3 and HL2 are here, the next generation will have arrived :^D

I'd wait anyway until socket 939 has gone mainstream and the prices are at a normal level

if you HAVE to buy now, go with nForce3 250gb + S754 A64 CPU, best bang for buck and the S754 won't disappear overnight, the nForce3 is very feature rich.

Videocard wise, it would be.. wise;) to either continue using that Ti4600 , or find a cheap R9800Pro/None Pro 2nd hand.

buy a 2ndhand gf4mx440 or so ,
and put this in your fileserver/Divxbox

Since HL2 has been delayed again, there is still some time.

Waiting would be your best option.
Go for PCI-express, S939 if it goes down in price, and just see how the industry unfolds.

Take JM's advice if you HAVE to but now.

Quote:

Originally posted by jmke
if you HAVE to buy now, go with nForce3 250gb + S754 A64 CPU, best bang for buck and the S754 won't disappear overnight, the nForce3 is very feature rich.

Is there a specific reason why you prefer nf3 250 above kt800 pro? As the kt800 has native sata and gigabit lan support, it should fit most of your needs.

1) out of the box, it has more features then the KT800 Pro
2) VIA 4in1 drivers
3) http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.html?i=2063&p=7

=)

Quote:

While the nForce3 150 wasn't as robust as VIA's offering, the new 250Gb model is actually more feature-complete. Four SATA ports instead of two is a big deal and the ability to mix RAID between PATA and SATA is a nice bonus, too. Built-in gigabit Ethernet is another nice feature and Nvidia's firewall is a significant advantage. The hardware acceleration angle is nice, but it's the excellent control software that makes it shine.

Many K8T800 boards featured both Gigabit Ethernet and four SATA ports, but these were offered through secondary controller chips, which add cost that may be passed onto the consumer. We don't know exactly what Nvidia and VIA will charge customers for these new chipsets, but Nvidia potentially has a more economical solution, with Gig-E and four SATA ports built in. It also has the potential to span RAID arrays across all four SATA drives, which you can't do on a VIA-based motherboard with a VT8237 and secondary SATA controller.

Quote:

Originally posted by TeuS
remember how idiots rushed to buy 9700/9800 cards, saying "ooh, those really cool games are almost here" ?

Hehe, I remember that, luckily I'm quite stingy when it comes to buying PC stuff

Quote:

I'd wait anyway until socket 939 has gone mainstream and the prices are at a normal level [/b]

Mmm, it does seem a lot, on PW I just checked out the A64 +3800 S939 @ €764, thats more than I'm willing to spend if I take my last CPU upgrade as a benchmark.
Athlon 900Mhz bought around June 2000 for 16000 Bef (Top of the AMD range at that time), which equates to around €400

@jmke
Thanks for the suggestion, just looking @ S754 Mobo's :o , goddamn, what are they banging into mobo's nowadays.
As you said, feature rich

I bought me:
* MSI NEO Platinum (nForce3 250gb) ~€140
* A64 3000+ ~€230

both at www.comtechnology.be