CRITIQUE COMP PLEASE

Well im building a new computer for the first time and here is the stuff i came up with tell me if its ok or if i should get something else and what i should replace it with... here are my specs.. any help is greatly appreciated.
I need help with the mobo ... any suggestions i would appreciate... Also should i get 1024 mb ram or is 512mb ok ??... Is that a good processor .... or should i get a diff one..... lol you guys get the idea... The total price for all of this is 860.... is that reasonable ??

Thanks, Eric


SPECS:


Diablo Tek Black Demon ATX Mid-Tower Case with Front USB Ports

HiVal DVD Burner / 8x4x12x DVD+RW / 4x2x12x DVD-RW / 40x24x40x CD-RW / Dual Format

Artec 56x CD-ROM Drive / Black / OEM

1.44 MB Floppy Disk Drive - Glossy Red

Cables To Go - 80mm Quad LED Case Fan - Red X5

Vantec Stealth 120mm Cooling Fan with Double Ball Bearing - Silent

Ultra 5.25" Bay Freezer with 2 - 60mm Fans - Glossy Red

AMD Athlonâ„¢ XP 2500+ / 512KB Cache / 333MHz FSB / Socket A / Barton Core / Processor

Maxtor 160GB 7200 / 8MB / ATA-133 EIDE Hard Drive

Ultra 512MB PC2700 DDR 333MHz Memory

Creative Labs Sound Blaster Audigy X-Gamer

Sapphire Radeon 9800se Video Card / 128MB DDR / AGP 8X / TV Out & DVI / Lite Version

Netgear - FA311 - 10/100Mbps PCI Network Interface Card (NIC)

Diablo 550Watt Dual LED ATX Power Supply with SATA Power Connectors[size=7][b]

Originally posted by SureShot@Mar 16 2004, 10:18 PM
I need help with the mobo ... any suggestions i would appreciate... Also should i get 1024 mb ram or is 512mb ok ??... Is that a good processor .... or should i get a diff one....

ok, 512 MB ram will be fine for today's games, but just keep in mind that within a year you'll probly want to buy another stick of 512 so u get 1 gig of ram. I only recommend crucial ram because they have a lifetime warranty on all their ram.
For a mobo, I recommend A7N8X Deluxe it's made by ASUS and u should check out newegg.com for that. for ram, u could get it from crucial.com or newegg. The good thing of the A7N8X board is it has dual-channel DDR which makes ur ram go super-fast when u get ur 2 sticks of 512. It'll kinda of use them both at the same time, double data tansfer or some thing anyways all i know is it's a good feature on the board. I also have the board so I HIGHLY recommend it. It also has AGP 8X It has onboard sound and the sound is GREAT, best onboard sound I've ever heard great sound all i can say (which may save u money on since u wont need to buy a sound card). The board will run around $100 or so on newegg give or take like $10-$15.
For video card, I say u stay away from sapphire. expecially a SE card. You'll be much more pleased with a card that doesn't say SE on it. TRUST ME, I bought an ati card with SE and it SUCKED. I looked online and I see they are very cheap like $100. Don't be misguided by the "9800" part because SE means "Sucky Edition" so you'd really be better off with a 9600 Pro. I have a TYAN G9700 Pro card. The only difference between my card and the ATi brand ones are that TYAN puts big heat sinks on the card, which means BETTER COOLING. So I can only recommend a TYAN card aside from ATi. Don't spring for any sapphire or powercolor crap.
Here's a listing of ATi's prices (but i'm sure you can get them a lot cheaper from other sites, just search a little.)
http://buy.ati.com/shopati/find.asp?find%5...sc=&country=USA
If you haevn't got a lot of extra money, you should just take a 9600 XT because it's DirectX9 compatible so doom3 and HL2 will run fine on it. Check out the ATi cards, check out the TYAN cards and decide for yourself.
Here's some pics of the ATi 9600 card, and TYAN 9600 card so you can see the difference in heatsinks so you know how much cooler the tyans run, which will reduce overheating.
ATi 9600 XT
TYAN G9600 Pro

I have a barton 2500+ also but you can see my specs below in my sig. Hope I helped you, post any questions also.

better videocard, 9600 XT is good 1gb ram and higher amd!!!, trust me!!!
i have an 2400+ and that thingy suckzzz

Originally posted by Massdownloader@Mar 17 2004, 09:12 AM
better videocard, 9600 XT is good 1gb ram and higher amd!!!, trust me!!!
i have an 2400+ and that thingy suckzzz

well he knows which stuff is better, but I think he's on a tight budget i dunno.. cuz the ati 9600 xt will cost more than the tyan 9600. but we know the tyan 9600 will have better cooling. Also he doesnt NEED 1gb of ram yet, but like I said before, even if he only buys 1 stick of 512MB, he can always just get another and stick it into his board when he's got more money..
Also, he should stick with the barton 2500+, it's the best speed for the right amount of money. You can get them on newegg for like $90 or something.

The barton 2500+ is alot faster than the 2400+ generally speaking. mostly due to the increased cache-from 256k to 512k, and the increased fsb.

yes it rocks!