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Post your best CPU, MOBO, VID CARD set up for under $350

ok so im about to upgrade my PC to a gaming platform. I would just like to know what combo CPU, MOBO, VID CARD set up would be the best for around $300-$350

so using http://www.newegg.com post your best set up you can come up with. this setup is what im thinkin

CPU - AMD Athlon XP 2600+ "Barton", 333MHz FSB, 512K Cache Processor - Retail - $90.00

Motherboard - ABIT nForce2 Chipset Motherboard for AMD Socket A CPU, Model "NF7" -RETAIL - $70.99

Video Card - SAPPHIRE ATI RADEON 9600PRO, 128MB DDR, 128-bit, DVI/TV-Out, 8X AGP - $146.50

Total - $ 307.49

Re: Post your best CPU, MOBO, VID CARD set up for under $350

quote:

Originally posted by gOOD-tRiP ok so im about to upgrade my PC to a gaming platform. I would just like to know what combo CPU, MOBO, VID CARD set up would be the best for around $300-$350 so using http://www.newegg.com post your best set up you can come up with. this setup is what im thinkin CPU - AMD Athlon XP 2600+ "Barton", 333MHz FSB, 512K Cache Processor - Retail - $90.00 Motherboard - ABIT nForce2 Chipset Motherboard for AMD Socket A CPU, Model "NF7" -RETAIL - $70.99 Video Card - SAPPHIRE ATI RADEON 9600PRO, 128MB DDR, 128-bit, DVI/TV-Out, 8X AGP - $146.50 Total - $ 307.49

Looks solid cept maybe paying a bit much for your video card compared to the rest of your components. Still need high speed ram too? Try pricewatch for all of it - there is a few shady vendors so watch out, they'll try to gouge you on shipping or sell you bullshit oem when it says retail. I'd buy a non-retail processor though and get an aftermarket (LOL I can't think of proper term) heatsink, the stock ones blow. blow like donuts on a viper

ASUS nForce2 Ultra 400 Chipset Motherboard for AMD Socket A CPU, Model "A7N8X-E Deluxe"
$115.00
AMD Athlon XP 2500+ "Barton", 333 FSB, 512K Cache Processor
$80.00
GIGABYTE nVIDIA GeForce FX5700 Video Card, 128MB DDR, 128-bit, DVI/TV-Out, 8X AGP, Model "GV-N57128D"
$145.00

total $340.00

the on board audio on the abit board isnt as good as the asus one and the 2500 seems to overclock better than the 2600.. And for the graphics card i just prefer nvidia over ATI althought i own a ATI card atm...

Yes, the correct term is "aftermarket."

And I'd try to avoid the Nvidia FX line of cards, I too was eagerly awaiting their launch last year until I found out how horribly they did on Half-Life 2 tests, even when the code was optimized for NVidia's cards. I've read a lot of literature on this, and suffice it to say that NVidia's FX line of cards just doesn't cut it when compared to ATI's 9800 line of cards in regards to Directx 9.

Even the 9200 does better on some games than the cheapest FX card, and the 9200 came out about a year before the FX series of cards came out.

Here's some links:

http://www4.tomshardware.com/busine...0911/index.html
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.html?i=1863

There's some more out there from other reputable sources, but I can't remember them all.

Ohh yeah btw that looks good, if you're planning on using the same RAM you already have.

isnt that like kinda cheap only 350

P4c800-E deluxe $180
P4 3ghz 800mzh fsb $250 welll then im little over already
Leadtek gfrc 4 ti4800 se $150

damn 580?

quote:

Originally posted by Tranc3 Yes, the correct term is "aftermarket." And I'd try to avoid the Nvidia FX line of cards, I too was eagerly awaiting their launch last year until I found out how horribly they did on Half-Life 2 tests, even when the code was optimized for NVidia's cards. I've read a lot of literature on this, and suffice it to say that NVidia's FX line of cards just doesn't cut it when compared to ATI's 9800 line of cards in regards to Directx 9. Even the 9200 does better on some games than the cheapest FX card, and the 9200 came out about a year before the FX series of cards came out. Here's some links: http://www4.tomshardware.com/busine...0911/index.html http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.html?i=1863 There's some more out there from other reputable sources, but I can't remember them all.

your only basing this on certain games read some more reviews. Not to mention nvidias drivers are much more stable than ATI's

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.html?i=1955&p=26

quote:

Originally posted by Mystre isnt that like kinda cheap only 350 P4c800-E deluxe $180 P4 3ghz 800mzh fsb $250 welll then im little over already Leadtek gfrc 4 ti4800 se $150 damn 580?

why the hell would you buy intel???

MB NFORCE2 A7N8X DELUXE ASUS RTL 1 $125.00
VGA ATIOEM|RADEON 9000 128M TV% 1 $66.00
CPU AMD|2400/266 ATHLON XP TBRED RT 1 $82.00

$273


WOOOO i get like 670 in 3DMark03

Wings of Fury 50.3 fps
Battle of Proxyon 4.5 fps
Troll'sLair 2.3 fps
Mother Nature 2.1 fps


it's funny though, i can totally do 166mhz FSB on my athlon instead of 133

I wouldn't recommend buying a regular NF7. If you think you will be able to overclock with it as good as with NF7-S -- forget it. One of the best value boards right now, and has been for quite some time, is Soltek 75FRN2-L.

And I'm frikken stuck with a NForce1, AMD AthlonXP 2000+, 512 Megs....

I've spent too frikken much on upgrading all these years

Re: Post your best CPU, MOBO, VID CARD set up for under $350

quote:

Originally posted by gOOD-tRiP ok so im about to upgrade my PC to a gaming platform. I would just like to know what combo CPU, MOBO, VID CARD set up would be the best for around $300-$350 so using http://www.newegg.com post your best set up you can come up with. this setup is what im thinkin CPU - AMD Athlon XP 2600+ "Barton", 333MHz FSB, 512K Cache Processor - Retail - $90.00 Motherboard - ABIT nForce2 Chipset Motherboard for AMD Socket A CPU, Model "NF7" -RETAIL - $70.99 Video Card - SAPPHIRE ATI RADEON 9600PRO, 128MB DDR, 128-bit, DVI/TV-Out, 8X AGP - $146.50 Total - $ 307.49

a 5700 ultra would be a good alternative. it is a tad bit faster in today's games although i doubt it would do as well compared to the raddy in dx9-based games such as half-life 2.

check into epox's line of nforce2 mobos. i think they are equally well-built and probably at a slightly lower price.

cpu-wise, that's good deal. i personally have a 2500+ barton and overclocked it from 1.83 to 2.35 without investing on a massive 'sink. prolly can go higher, but i'm limited by my pc2100 ram, boo.

i think you should also look into a ram upgrade if you haven't already. it's hard to say since you didnt post your current comp specs.

cheers.

heres some benchmark tests on motherboards
http://www20.tomshardware.com/mothe...tra_400-27.html

and heres some tests on video cards
http://www20.tomshardware.com/graph...tournament_2003

I think ill go wit hte NF7-S and the 2500xp barton instead

quote:

Originally posted by fr0st your only basing this on certain games read some more reviews. Not to mention nvidias drivers are much more stable than ATI's http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.html?i=1955&p=26

Well yeah, that was kind of the whole point - I made my argument based solely on DX9-based games, which is where the gaming industry is going the next few years.

And here's a quote from the article you linked:

quote:

Without AA/AF, the high end NVIDIA cards are the clear leaders of the pack; but as soon as AA/AF are turned on, the 9800 move up the chain.

Super-fast framerate with O.K. quality, or semi-fast framerate with excellent quality...you decide.

quote:

Originally posted by Muff2K why the hell would you buy intel???

Well one good reason to buy Intel is their chips don't have the notorious overheating problems that AMD chips do.

some very good info here. I think i will go with the NF7-S and change to the XP2500 and overclock. And also the video card, yeah the FX5700 does do bad on half-life 2, but i just heard somewhere that the makers of half-life were making it run well with radeon cards.

quote:

Originally posted by gOOD-tRiP some very good info here. I think i will go with the NF7-S and change to the XP2500 and overclock. And also the video card, yeah the FX5700 does do bad on half-life 2, but i just heard somewhere that the makers of half-life were making it run well with radeon cards.

That's been debated before, and the general consensus is Nvidia's cards just plain suck at DX9 graphics, not only because of the way they structured their cards (which I won't get into, but if someone asks, I will, as it is a rather technical and lengthy subject), but also because of the business aspect. I mean, just look at the marketshare NVidia has compared to the marketshare ATI has (or rather, had at the time of initial public test results for HL2). Why would Valve purposely write their code to be optimized for ATI's cards, when they would sell more copies by bundling the game with NVidia's cards?

One of the less technical subjects I will get into has to do with the drivers and the way the software was written. Valve's programmers wrote a specific version of HL2 (after the preliminary test results came out) that made better use of the data pipeline structures in the FX cards, and yet NVidia's cards still did horribly.

What you heard probably has to do with the Doom3 alpha version that was leaked a while back, it ran fairly well (playably well I should say) on ATI's cards, and horribly on anything else. That's because Id was sending out promo test copies of Doom3 to different companies, and someone who worked at ATI leaked the code. If someone leaks code written to work best with their company's product, of course it's gonna work better than on another company's product. Had an NVidia employee leaked the game, Doom3 would have run much better on an NVidia card than it would on an ATI card.

quote:

Originally posted by Muff2K why the hell would you buy intel???

Pretty sure its casue a P4 craps on a AMD unless its a Opteron or a k8,Not to mention why not if u have money. Also form what I here Nvidis FX series blows ass and HL2 is optimized for ATIs

I say this
Barton 2500+ (81)
Radeon 9800PRO ($215)
Abit NF7-S ($100)

I know its over your budged, but $50 more wouldn't hurt

It's worth it... you won't be disappointed just don't buy nVidia.
Don't be a nVidiot...

And all this talk about ATI's drivers being unstable... Well ATI's proven themselves in past 2 years and is kicking nVidia's ass all over the God's green earth.

And by the way, nVidia has cheated in their benchies (the so called "driver optimizations"), and still could not beat ATI...

quote:

Originally posted by fr0st your only basing this on certain games read some more reviews. Not to mention nvidias drivers are much more stable than ATI's http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.html?i=1955&p=26

That link shows benches without AA and AF turned on. Who wants to play the games with textures looking like crap??? Turn anti aliasing and anisotropic filtering on, and that's where ATI shines, and nVidia sinks to the bottom.

beat this

athlon xp-m 2400+ 86
epox 8rda3+ 86
sapphire 9800 pro 212

its alitte over 350 but cant be beat and is very overclockable. my athlon xpm 2500 is at 2400 at 1.6 volts on a simliar mobo.

On another note I wouldnt spend a lot of money on any card esspecially the ATI ones cuzz pretty soon they will all be obsolete when the DX 10 comes out... So buy something that well hold you over for now then make the big upgrade when the DX 10 cards come out.

quote:

Originally posted by Mystre Pretty sure its casue a P4 craps on a AMD unless its a Opteron or a k8,Not to mention why not if u have money. Also form what I here Nvidis FX series blows ass and HL2 is optimized for ATIs

Apparently you didn't read everything I had written. HL2 is not optimized for ATI, in fact they tried to optimize it for NVidia's FX cards but NVidia still sucked ass.

quote:

On another note I wouldnt spend a lot of money on any card esspecially the ATI ones cuzz pretty soon they will all be obsolete when the DX 10 comes out... So buy something that well hold you over for now then make the big upgrade when the DX 10 cards come out.

I would have to disagree with you here, the DX9 cards are currently the cards under development, and it's gonna be at least a year or two before DirectX 10 comes out. I mean think about it - it's made by Mircrosoft, and they're going to try to juice it for all its' worth. Why would they release DX9, wait just long enough for two good games to come out with DX9 technology, then switch over to DX10?

The point I'm trying to make is that the DX9 optimized cards are going to be in the forefront of computer gaming for a while. Saying that someone should wait until DX10 cards come out (when in fact DX9 cards are just starting to appear) is like saying that the new 64-bit processors by AMD shouldn't be purchased "cuzz pretty soon they will all be obsolete."

quote:

Originally posted by T-1000 And I'm frikken stuck with a NForce1, AMD AthlonXP 2000+, 512 Megs.... I've spent too frikken much on upgrading all these years

overclock!


my ASUS A7N8X deluxe unlocks my tbred, so i can simply set the multipliers and voila! 2166mhz! i even went up as high as 2240 last night, but 3DMark03 crashed a couple of times and then i got a memory dump... dunno of that was oc related or not though

it cant overclock as well as the athlon xpm 2400/2500+. lots of people got it to OC to 2.7 at 1.8 volts. i will be there soonn

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