Building my Computer

[Argent]

I need help making sure that all the stuff im getting ( off newegg ) is gonna be compatible.

ASPIRE Case, ATX MidTower, 350W power

Maxtor Ultra Series 160GB Hard Drive

Mushkin 512MB RAM x 2

ASRock SiS755 Chipset

AMD Athlon 64 3200+

SAPPHIRE ATI RADEON 9800 PRO


first question, the power supply is pentium, would that matter any with amd?

second question, i could get a pentium processor for cheaper than the amd, and the amd is 2.2ghz, and the intel is 3.0ghz, what does the ghz do?

third question, is this a good setup for a gaming pc?

[Strawberry knight]

yes its good for gaming .

me , personaly i have a 500W power ...so i can mount any thing with out any power failure ( i do pretty crazy mods lol )
i would recommend a 420/480 for you , just for better stability

about the speed of the processor ..if its high , its more powerful , better handling with many programs runing at the same time ,and speedy
but AMD and intel dont realy have the same measurement at mhz therefore your AMD can do just fine vs an intel 2.8 even 3.0 because in intel you can get HT or celeron or stuff ..that will run at the same speed but in a slightly different technology .

[Argent]

cool, so i just need to find a stronger case, and it should be good.

and its good to hear about the amd, since i would of had to buy new motherboard, and cooler.

My number one problem im having is my processor melting, cuz thats what i hear about it all the time.

[Strawberry knight]

if you are concerned about it that much ...simply get a better cpu cooler ..but no need to worry
if you do overclocking ..do get a better cpu cooler

why do you need a stronger case ...for the power supply ? its the same size as evey other one ( not moded) but its your money :P

[Argent]

the case comes with power supply, so thats what i was refering to

[Danny_McCann]

My current system:
7 case fans
Thermaltake 480W PSU
Abit KV8-MAX3
Athlon64 3000+ (OC'd to 2250Mhz) with a huge cooler
2x512Mb Corsair RAM
9800XT gfx (OC'd to 420/382)
3 HD's
CDrom
DVDrom/writer

never have any power troubles, use that as a guide if u want ;) the advice i will give is that if u buy at least 450W branded PSU (like Thermaltake, Antec are good also with a lot of other manufacturers) and pay the extra and u wont have any trouble. if u are planning on getting a 6800Ultra or GT u might need to go up to 480W or 500W cos of the 2 power connectors required. i went for so much power cos i wanted the headroom for overclock.

whether or not it was worth going for the 3200+ is dependant on how much L2 cache it has. if it has 1mb it is SLIGHTLY better than the 3000+ , if it has 512kb then it is basically the same. good size hard drive, although 2 80gb's in RAID 0 may have produced better results overall, but still good. if the memory is DDR400 (or PC3200 DDR) then it is good memory, especially if the latencies are as low as mine (2-2-2-5). u can also softmod the 9800 pro's BIOS so that it runs at the same speed as a 9800XT if u wish to get extra performance.

one tip - buy a case without a PSU IMO, then buy a separate PSU. this way u wont be getting a half decent case with a crap PSU, but a good case and a good PSU. sure, it may cost more, but u want the components to last for longer dont you? (and it would be more expensive to keep buying new PSU's that keep burning out :P)

overall a pretty damn good system Just remember - for gaming AMD's rule, for video encoding/processing Intel are slightly further ahead.

[beniza]

Suggest not bad :thumbup:

Mine:
480W PSU
NF7 v2
Mobile Athlon 2500+ (OC'd 2900mhz@250FSB) SP97 with Panaflo 92mm
2x512 Winbond BH6
9700Pro
1HDD 250GB
DVD-CDr Combo

[Strawberry knight]

hmmm ...intel is also good for gaming you cant say their not , i have Intel its pretty good .

about your card the 9800XT ...420/382 is core/memory ? ...that's one thing i didn't understand with ATI ..their core is always more then their memory ..why is that ? ...i run mine on 250/513 NONE OC'd defult

[beniza]

cause DDR 2 rams always run double speed so if its 500mhz of memory means 500+500 is 1ghz

ATI is making the core higher to balance with the Memory ( my 9600XT runs 520core to 411mem (411+411 = 822mhz) ) :thumbup:

[Sepht]

Yeh, im running my card underclocked(i want it quiet around here) 325/290 (stock is 375/340)