P1Fanatic

Didnt want to hijack someone elses thread so here you go.

I need to build a new PC also as want to play HL2 at a decent res.

Current setup is Athlon 1.4 / 768mb PC2100 DDR / Radeon 9600 Pro.

Im thinking along the lines of this so far:

P4 s775 3.0ghz (I want to go back to Intel before anyone pipes up AMD r faster / better etc)

Memory - could remove 512mb from current PC (see above) - is there any real need to upgrade this or go DDR2?

Mobo - Asus P5GD1 915P (not really worried about wireless lan)

Gfx - Radeon 9800 pro seems excellent VFM at around £115. Is it worth paying extra for one of the new Nvidia's or waiting til they come down in price (I never pay £250-£300 for the latest greatest card). Or would my 9600pro suffice with the rest of this build?

Hdd - SATA, but how much of a performance increase would I see with a 10k drive like the Raptors? I dont need that much space other than for games as store my MP3's on an old drive and gonna burn films to DVD

Cheers,
Simon

_Meridian_

iTrader: (1)

Seems OK. Some people may tell you to go for 1Meg of RAM, but 512 will do for the moment. I'm not sure that the 9800 is enough faster than the 9600 to warrant coughing up £115 though - unless you can find a second-hand 9800 anyway. I'd buy the rest oft he kit, then see if it's OK. If you still want more speed I'd wait until after Xmas and see what happens to card prices then.

As for Raptors, they are really only worth it if you run RAID 0 - otherwise a normal SATA drive is fine.


M

P1Fanatic

Yer that was my thinking and sounds best way to go. If it plays HL2 in a decent res with high detail then Im sorted. If not can pick up a new card cheaper after Xmas.

Its amazing how cheap you can build a decent spec box for if you dont go for the latest greatest components with flashing lights, whistles etc. Then again its hard not to say "well I could get x which is faster than y for only n more £'s".

Simon.

Markyboy uk

You will need to change your memory to faster memory. PC2100 is not fast enough (may not even work) with an intel P4 3.0GHz & even if it did work this would be the big bottleneck on your system. I think you'll need at least PC3200 (DDR400) RAM for a P4 of that spec.

I have a radeon 9800 pro 128MB - Great value for the money.

Mark.

P1Fanatic

Thanks Mark. Thats what I thought re: memory. Just trying to be tight I suppose. Think best way is to get new cpu, mobo, mem, hdd and case then use my 9600pro (got a geforce2 I can stick back in to keep old PC working).

Simon.

_Meridian_

iTrader: (1)

It will work because Intel boards allow you to run the CPU:RAM at ratios like 6:4. Sure it will be a bit of a bottleneck, but not anywhere near as bad as running an nForce2 board async. Again, suck it and see.

M