I have been planning a new computer for over a year now and I'm finally in a position that I can buy it. Before I do however I would like everyones opinion on it.

Here is what I am planning on buying.

AMD64 3400+
MSI K8N NEO Platinum
Infinion 512MB PC3200 DDR400 (twice)
Sapphire Radeon 9600 SE 128MB
NEC ND-3500 DVD Burner
Antec SLK2650BQE Solution
LOGITECH MX510 Optical Mouse Blue

some notes:

I know the video card is underpowered when compared to the rest of the machine but this was done intentionally. At the moment the video card I would want (ATI 9800 PRO) is very difficult to come by and a little to expensive for my taste. My great brother has offered to buy the 9600 SE from me when I upgrade it to a better one in a few months time.
The choice of memory is limited to the types of memory my mainboard will be able to handle. This type has been tested with the mainboard and works
The choice for a case was a hard one. There was one I liked a lot but it was too expensive. The ones that were as cheap I would like it were no good. I finally choose the Antec one as a good in between model. I little too expensive but a lot better then the competition.

No go ahead and criticize.

Sound like you have really thought this over..

I think it will be a good purchase

So you are planning on buying 1024MB RAM!? If you do so, you will be very limited on dos games, because they can't recognize RAM of 1024 or more!

PS Will you make more games for prizes? I would be happy even with your mouse! :bleh:

Yes I'm planning on buying 1024MB of RAM. This might bring me into some trouble with older games but then so does XP that I will have on there and it is not meant to play old games but the very newest.

As for more competitions, probably yes but I will not be giving away my Mouse (sorry).

I would buy a better video card and a worse CPU. I don't know where you live, but in my country a 3400+ is about twice as expensive as a 3000+, and I think if you don't want to use that PC for something very power hungry, the 3000+ will have enough raw power for 99% of the games to come in 2005, if it's pared with a Radeon 9600XT.

I have a P4 2.4 and 9600, not even pro and there were only very few games which run slow on this.

I am planning on buying a better videocard soon but not right now. Even with a 4000+ the CPU is the bottleneck in current high end games (Doom3, Half Life2). Despite that I have given a slower CPU a lot of thought but since I can get this one inside my current budget I decided to go for it.
I will be using my computer for powercrunch things like video compression so the CPU power will be put to good use.

Well, I'm little out of PC-hardware news today, but I would say your graphics card is pretty weak compared to other specs. Your CPU is very fast, but the graphics card will brake it quite noticeable. But if you say you'll get better one, this PC is very good choice. ;)

Yeah I know the card sucks but it will have to do for now. Once I had decided I would wait to buy a good graphics card I also knew I needed something in the mean time. I first thought of spending only 50 Euro max on it but that would mean I got stuck with a GF4MX card. Barely better then what I have now and not what I want to use at all. A PRO version of the 9600 would be a lot more expensive then this one and my brother does not have the budget to take a more expensive card of my hands unfortunately.
The 9600 SE will give me some nice DX9 features for a reasonable price for now. Once I get the better card I will be able to turn the features on MAX!

This is SOOOOOOO over my head. I dropped out after:


*goes to find a topic that makes sense*

looks good. The vg card still would be enough to run games like HL2 and Doom3 with no FPS drop.

Hmm... my "old" computer has a 3,2 P4 HT CPU...

AMD sucks ;) muhahaha

Naah.. it's sweet with HT.. 2 tasks floating perfectly..

Tried to burn a DVD and play sims2.. worked fine..

Had Mp3 on in the background ;)

Man, if u want to play old games, just shell out like 100 bucks and get a p133 or something, along with your new machine of course...

I prefer ASUS motherboards, so if I am on your place I would get ASUS motherboard.

Everything else seems fine in your plan, except that I would get one 1 GB instead of two 512MB. (More room for later updates) You did not mention what kind of HD you like to get (SATA is nice option) and what kind of case. For system like that you need enough power, and a lot of fans. (Or some better way to cool everything down) Perhaps some nice full tower?

I choose the MSI board over ASUS because of the inclusion of FireWire on the MSI board but your right the ASUS boards are nice as well.

I have not completely agreed on the HDD. I do want SATA as it will speed up loadtimes. I have an Antec Case as I said. It's a pretty good one but not the best. It has 350Watt of power which should be enough for everything in there. Your other suggestions make sence but for one thing. My budget is limited. Getting a full tower is out of the question and 1GB of RAM is preferable to getting 512MB twice but again it cost more. 1GB should be sufficient for a long time. By the time I want 2GB the prices will have gone down enough for the cost not to be an issue anymore to replace the lot rather then expand what I have.

Antec makes really nice cases (I missed that you'll get that one, I am also using their full tower with 5 fans + dual fan in 420Wpower supply).

I got 1 firewire port on my ASUS motherboard, 6 USB2 ports, 1GB NIC, AGP (3X), AIC'97 sound (need to replace this) and it comes with 2 ATA controllers + SATA raid controller (I am using it with only one SATA disk, but planning to get another one and use it in stripping, which should cut the speed in half.

Reason I choose ASUS is that they got on board protection for overheating, which already once saved my CPU (don’t use original CPU fan, get some nice ones).

Not sure about RAM prices where are you. Here price for two 512 and one 1Gb is not that much different.

Always use the origional CPU fan as it increases the warenty by a year (from two to thee years). Besides I am not going to overclock the thing so I should be fine with that one.

1GB is about 30%-60% more expensive as using two 512MB sticks.

I was thinking of using either the Epox 8KDA3+ (not ASUS, remembered it wrong) or the MSI K8N Neo Platinum as both were tested very well by AnandTech. I choose the MSI version because it has the firewire port.

I get the feeling you have a slightly higher budget for building your PC then I do for mine LOL .

I would not say so, as my last big upgrade was about $660 (case, cpu, motherboard, memory and HD). That was a year and half ago, but the online store that I got stuff from is closed now. At that time I made 3 computers in this range (last one was mine). I never overclocked my computers, just for some reason fan on my CPU got bad, and mobo shut down before CPU was overheated. I replaced fan and it works well now.

Is this motherboard you are talking about? How much you will pay for it? Here is MSI mobo. Both of these have some video chips on the board.

I had some problem with MSI mobo (clock speed was unable to handle XP2000 processor), and I returned it.

It looks like those are the two but neither has onboard graphics. The MSI board is 104 Euro right now.

wait the MSI board is different. The one I want is the MSI K8N Neo Platinum not the FSR. Not sure what the difference is.

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc....-130-457&depa=1

This is the one I want.

Indeed nice mobo. Like that 8x USB2 and 3Firewire ports and 4x SATA ports.

Keep us posted if you get this stuff. I would like to know how good it is.

Will do. I should be ordering it this week.

Sounds like my 900 MHz Thunderbird computer, with a G-force2 32 MB Video card is a little outdated. :eeeeeh:

Sounds like a hellofa computer. And about the Radeon 9600 Video card. It's not the best that is made today, but I would think it's sufficient for most games. :ok:

Guess what kind of computer I have now? It's a 900Mhz Athlon with a GF2MX400 32MB. We have the same computer. It still runs most of what I want to run but already there are things it can no longer handle and that will only get worse.

The 9600 SE will run everything just fine and it will look a lot better. It cost a little more but it still beats a GF4MX400 64MB card so I choose it.

Hmm. I just checked my computer stats, and found out, that it only have an 800 MHz processor. My memory is getting bad. :wall:

Well. When I get the money, I will probably buy a new one. But what the hell, it can still run all the games on abandonia. :D

That's why last winter I bought two P3 - 450MHz @ $60. I gave one to my father in law and other one I use for some old games. :)

If that's to fast, then there is one P90 with DOS and WFW3.11. :D

Again, I would buy ATI 9800 PRO because good card is always good card. When I bought my current computer, I was about to buy a crappy one but I thought that why upgrade it later when you can buy it now. It saves time and money.

My specs if you are intrested:

AMD Athlon 3200+ (2.2GHz)
ATI 3dClub Radeon 9800 PRO 128mb
MSI K8T-Neo
1024Mb memory

I've been very pleased with my computer. Every game runs without lag. Doom3 for example runs fine with high settings (althought I haven't played that crappy game)

I will start shopping for a new videocard in the new year. I don't know whether or not I will buy a 9800Pro then. I might buy a 6600 or a X700 if they are priced sufficiently nice by then. Both have been tested well above the 9800PRO now. The X700 only has a PCIe version at the moment and I need a AGP one but it should arrive by January 1st.


update:
I have ordered my computer including two Maxtor 120GB SATA drives. The videocard I ordered was no longer available so I had to settle for an even worse one. Radeon 9550SE 128MB. It's only for a few months.

Update:

Well that bad little videocard I wanted was not longer available anymore even though they advertised it on their site. At first I was going to get stuck with an even worse card (9550 SE) for the same amount of money but after some more browsing I cancelled that order and am now getting a Radeon 9600 PRO. Still not a really good card but at least I will be able to play Doom3 without blushing. It does cost 25 Euro's and an hours drive more then the old one but I think it is worth it.
Hopefully I will have all the components before the weekend. If not it will be shortly afterwards.

Good luck

l had some luck with computer components yesterday. I live in a tiny town where the only shops are a real estate agency, a bakery and a petrol station. However a few streets away a man operates a small computer business from his house. I dropped around and noticed a new midi keyboard - still in the box. It's called Prodikeys and is put out by Creative to be used with a SoundBlaster or Audigy card. http://au.creative.com/products/product.as...34&product=9389

Someone had ordered it with a new system, put a deposit on it, but never picked it up. He let me have the keyboard for $150.00. Normally it retails for at least $200 Australian. I'd read about Prodikeys on the Creative website and had drooled over it for ages. :D

I wouldn't mind your new system as well, Picard. Especially the AMD64 3400+ :max:

I hope that keyboard detaches from the rest if you want to use the it for typgin. Otherwise it would look uncomfortable to me.

A palm rest slides over the musical keys when you want to type. :)