Help needed with FINAL specs for my new comp

[Shinova]

How bout a 550W power supply?

[Crayz9000]

Overkill never hurts.

[Glocksman]

Go for a quality 430 watt such as this Antec or the 431 watt Enermax equivalent.

A quality 550 watt PS would cost about double what the Antec or Enermax 430 watt PS's cost, and would be wasted unless you're running a dual processor board with a ton of drives.

[phongn]

I've heard iffy things about Enermax, so be careful. Antec's TruePower line is good, though.

[Lord Pounder]

I get my new 2200XP Athlon tomorrow. Muahhhhhhhhhaaaaaaaaa

[phongn]

DDR is parallel interface of course but with double the data thruput rate (hence the name) it in general will give you better performance at a lower cost. Also DDR400 gives less performance than DDR333 due to the higher system overhead and the fact that there isn't much out there that utilizes it.

Ain't that the goddamned truth. There are systems that support DDR at 400 MHz, but the throughput compared to 333 is disappointing. And I haven't seen a system that takes any more than one DDR 400 MHz stick.

I am told the best system in terms of memory bandwidth is a new Athlon XP 2800+ or better system with the 333 MHz FSB, paired with 333 MHz DDR memory. Practically no latency to speak of.[/quote]

PC1066 RDRAM on a P4 has more bandwidth than that, and latency isn't the huge issue so many make it out to be.

With a P4, if you aren't overclocking you might as well get PC2100 SDRAM. (P4 has a QDR133 bus, PC2100 = DDR133).

[phongn]

Intel + DDR == Lose. Get RDRAM or get AMD (ideally AMD, intel is into that whole tcpa shit with M$). If you decide to go with DDR, max it out. Corsair XMS DDR 3500 or 3700, fastest u can buy.

Intel + DDR == Win, unless you have an ancient motherboard chipset.

You don't need superfast RAM unless you're overlocking.

[Lord Pounder]

I read that DDR was actually intended for Athlons. I may be wrong but there is better memory for use with Pentiums. I can't remember the name of the kind of memory, I'll ask my computer guy tomorrow.

[phongn]

Did you say money is no issue?

Lian-Li cases all the way.

And get a decent uninterruptable power supply as well. For about 100 you should be able to find a shiny powerboard with UPS, surge protection etc.

If he has no issues with money, he might as well shell out the bucks for a true UPS like APC's SmartUPS line. Most of the inexpensive ones you buy are actually Standby Power Supplies, as they switch to battery when the power goes out. With true UPS, you are always running off the battery (which is constantly charging).

There are even better ones that have sinusoidal power output rather than square waves.

[phongn]

I read that DDR was actually intended for Athlons. I may be wrong but there is better memory for use with Pentiums. I can't remember the name of the kind of memory, I'll ask my computer guy tomorrow.

RDRAM excels on the Pentium IV, but PC1066 RDRAM is not fully supported by Intel yet - and they're moving to DDR/DDRII anyways.

[phongn]

Never EVER go with onboard sound. I did it for a year before shelling out for my GTXP. Its uniformly horrid, tinny and all-around shitty. You'd be better off with PC speaker before going that option.

Not neccessarily. Also, there are alternatives to the GTXP, like M-Audio's Revolution. It's inferior for gaming but has superior sound.

The Audigy 2 is by all accounts actually a decent card as well.

[phongn]

First 2 things:

1) ditch inhell, you're not gonna get the performance for your money
2) ditch the ATI POS, you get more bang for your buck with the GF4 series.

He gets more bang period with the P4 and the R9700 (though he should wait until the R9800 comes out).

Btw, a little bit of info on RDRAM and DDR: 1) RDRAM may be clocked higher than hell, but it has 3 major fallicies: 1: it is serial interface rather than parallel like all the other types of ram, this is why it's clocked higher, it also has reduced bandwidth.

IIRC, RDRAM generally has higher bandwidth. It's serial interface has little to do with why it's clocked higher: it's because the bus width is smaller.

2: the cost is too fucking high. 3: you need to install it in pairs.

Indeed, RDRAM is nearly 2-3 times as expensive as DDR, and the pair-thing is annoying.

DDR is parallel interface of course but with double the data thruput rate (hence the name) it in general will give you better performance at a lower cost. Also DDR400 gives less performance than DDR333 due to the higher system overhead and the fact that there isn't much out there that utilizes it.

Not quite double - there's some signalling issues involved. DDR400 will give better performance if you o/c'ed your FSB to take advantage of the additional bandwidth.

[Shinova]

*sniff sniff*

Now I know what it feels like to have nearly all my games play at hundreds of frames per second

(if you don't know by now, I got my new comp and have been playing around with it)



I'd like to give a special thanks to phongn, Crazy9000, glocksman, Headshots, and everyone else for helping me through this.

And thanks to everyone for putting up with my inane comp threads for all those days! Danke!!!

[Pu-239]

Overkill never hurts.

Isn't there problems with getting out of standby if the load on the power supply is not enough?

Lucky shinova...

[phongn]

Overkill never hurts.

Isn't there problems with getting out of standby if the load on the power supply is not enough?

Lucky shinova...

Not if you have a decent PSU. I suppose if someone bought a cheap Deer, yeah, they'd have problems.