can some one give me advice on what i am going to purchase before i buy

[lonestar714]

ok, heres the deal, i have recently gotten into computers. I am pretty shure all this stuff is what i want, with that being said im not the most experianced at this, so any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.


mother board : MSI K8N Neo4-F Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce4 ATX AMD

url: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813130491



Processor - AMD Athlon 64 3700+ San Diego 2.2GHz 1MB L2 Cache Socket 939 Processor

url: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819103539



memory - Corsair Memory, Inc.
CORSAIR ValueSelect 1GB (2 x 512MB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM DDR 400 (PC 3200) Dual Channel Kit System Memory ( i have already bought this, so im using it)

url: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820145440



hard drive - Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD2500KS 250GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive

url - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822144701



cd/dvd drive - SAMSUNG Black 18X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 8X DVD+R DL 18X DVD-R 6X DVD-RW 12X DVD-RAM 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-R 32X CD-RW 48X CD-ROM 2M Cache E-IDE/ATAPI DVD Burner

url - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16827151133



case - ( this has been the hardest descison for me, i have gotten it down to 2 , im dead stuck between them both though, please sug. here)


1) RAIDMAX Sagitta ATX-921WBP Black/Silver SECC Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case 450watt PRESCOTT/ SATA Ready Power Supply

url - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16811156180



2) RAIDMAX SMILODON ATX-612WBP Black SECC STEEL ATX Mid Tower Computer Case 500W Power Supply

url - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16811156062



video card - ( ok, first of all i ahev a 256 mb video card, but its pci lol ya i know, anyways should i keep this or get a pci-e video card, also whats the diffrance heh)


and power supply - will come with the case on the sagitta, the smildoon ill have to look into one




once agin, im not all that experianced so your help would be appreciated :banana:
also as far as i know all this stuff should be compatable , if you see anythign thats not please tell me

[AJ@PR]

So far, everything looks good.

I would suggest, if $ allows it, to get a total of 2GB of RAM.
(heck, if money allows it, get 4GB... but 2 is def. better than 1. Although, 1 would work fine.)

As to video card, don't worry about your PCI card. In my present computer, I don't even have a video "card". Just, on-board video.

I like the Smilodon case better... based 100% on looks. Just my opinion. :)

Public Service Anouncement:::
Remeber to buy/get/use a UPS.

I guess, so far, so good! :)

[jreffy]

Your video card situation is determined by what you plan on using this PC for.

[CanaBalistic]

If you plan to do any gaming i would sugjest you spend at least $200 on a new video card

[ajmilton]

I would suggest, if $ allows it, to get a total of 2GB of RAM.
(heck, if money allows it, get 4GB... but 2 is def. better than 1. Although, 1 would work fine.)


true. don't bother with anything over 4gb though. windows can't see anything over 4gb. 1gb should be adequate for just about any application outside of ... i dunno, hefty 3d rendering or something.



As to video card, don't worry about your PCI card. In my present computer, I don't even have a video "card". Just, on-board video.


...
gonna call ya out on this one. get a real video card. onboard sucks if you want to do >anything< that uses graphics, from gaming to cad to photoshop. if it has a graphical element, you will get an obvious improvement with an actual video card over onboard.
otoh, if you just want to play MUDs all day long, don't worry about the video. but then, i wouldn't worry about that GB of ram either, 256 meg is adequate for text-based gaming :P

[AJ@PR]

true. don't bother with anything over 4gb though. windows can't see anything over 4gb. 1gb should be adequate for just about any application outside of ... i dunno, hefty 3d rendering or something.
...
gonna call ya out on this one. get a real video card. onboard sucks if you want to do >anything< that uses graphics, from gaming to cad to photoshop. if it has a graphical element, you will get an obvious improvement with an actual video card over onboard.
otoh, if you just want to play MUDs all day long, don't worry about the video. but then, i wouldn't worry about that GB of ram either, 256 meg is adequate for text-based gaming :P

On the 4GB vs 2GB, I'm completely in agreeance with you.
1 should be 'enough'.
2 is good.
4 is pushing it.

As to the real video card, I'm also with you.
The problem was the 'wording' on my last post.
I meant to say that he shouldn't "worry/be ashamed" of having a PCI card at the present, because (1) he's getting a better one (hopefully a PCI-e), and because (2) I don't have a video card presently... :p

Ha!
Anyways, I'm with you AjmiltoN. :)

Peace!
AJ

[lonestar714]

wow thx guys, well i was looking into some more ram , i mean 1g will do but ya, i think i should step it up also. i think im leaning towards the raidmax smildoon as far as the case goes, but i still like the look of the sagitta. I believe I will upgrade my video card, as i would like to play bf2, so ya ill proably drop some there. also should i invest into a sound card??. i do hook my computer up to a surrond system, althogh the on-board has 5.1 . and last thing this may sound like illegal but w/e i was thinking of running a copy (non - legit) of windows xp, now normaly i would not do this but since we are so close to vista, i find it hard to buy 2 operrating sytems, just asking. btw if anyone does run a non legit version of windows xp does it work????

[ajmilton]

couple things
first, anecdotal:
playing wow with 512mb of ram in my system and a fairly new vid card (the one i was dancing all around about a month or so ago), i got 10FPS in org. when i put another 512mb in, i now get 50+FPS in org. before i put the vid card in, the old one was a 440MX (new one is ... 7600gs?gt? i dunno) and i got 3-4 FPS in org. much more improvement by adding the RAM. i'm not sure that i would get much more improvement by adding ram at this point, and i'm slightly tempted to switch my video cards again and see what sort of performance i get out of the old video card and the 1gb memory
i'm not sure what sort of system hog BF2 is, but WoW is pretty damn greedy.

and second, there's a reason that sounds illegal :P or, at least, against forum rules. if you're concerned about upgrading to vista, i believe all windows XP sales now come with a free upgrade to vista.
i'd verify this on newegg, but it seems to be down atm.

uh third, sound card...
unless you're an audiophile, i think most onboard sound cards are adequate. chances are your headphones or speakers aren't good enough to tell a huge difference :p if your onboard supports 5.1, then it's probably more than adequate :P

[AKA_RA]

you had a bottle neck somewhere. by adding a second stick of ram you may have enabled the second memory channel therefore double bandwidth at the same time you double capacity.
i play wow on my main system and sometimes on my second box, which sadly runs an mx4000, yes, 4000, series pci graphics card. the system has a single channel setup of 2x256. i get 10-15 in org during high traffic times, if i can sit through the queue. what settings were you running?

[ajmilton]

that's a good point, that may have been as much help as anything else

i still run at fairly low graphics settings, partly because i like having higher fps :p i think anything significant is still at the minimum setting.

*continues thread hijack*