Hi, looking to buy a new pc and would like some input as I'm not that savy.

Intel S478 Pentium 4 2.8GHZ 800MHZ FSB CPU
Gigabyte 8IK1100 875P Motherboard
512M PC3500 DDR RAM Kingmax
Western Digital 80G 7200rpm HDD(8Mb Cache)
Radeon 9600XT 128MB GC-R96XTGViVo Gigacube
BENQ 17 inch LCD monitor FP737
Mitsubishi 8x Dual Format DVD Burner Retail Pack
Panasonic 1.44 Floppy
Creative Sound Blaster Audigy2 ZS Sound Card
Microsoft Internet Keyboard
Logitech MX310 Optical mouse



I don't know much about the current video cards or motherboards. I'm trying to keep costs down but still have a good system. Lastly, can someone suggest a nice case with powersupply from umart? I have no idea. Nothing too fancy, I just want it to do the job. Black would be nice.

Cheers.

My comment is: I hate you for making this thread.

Sorry dude.

I just haven't read anything about computers in 4 years. I don't want to buy something and find out later it's a dud.

You guys are the experts afterall! help a brutha out :)

Dont bother spending money on a floppy drive, they're useless these days. Useless as tits on a bull.

8-)

Also get 1gig of ram. 512 wont cut it these days.

for real? 1 gig. massive.

kingmax stuff alright? i know corsair is the good brand, but it's so much more exxy.

i don't know what the "PC3500" means, but i assume bigger is better. is kingmax 400mhz like corsair is?

last edited by Stez at 01:04:08 26/Feb/04

I'm not very knowledgable when it comes to RAM but I've got 1gig of PC3200 DDR400 and it works alright. But this is just generic crap so if you want top of the line stuff better ask someone else.

8-)

I'd steer clear of the BenQ monitor, I have heard bad things about BenQ LCD's.

Go for a samsung or mitsubishi, I got a mistu DV172 and couldn't be happier :)

also possibly LG

mongie is a LG fanboy...


me too :)

also sif you need a gig of ram

Dont bother spending money on a floppy drive, they're useless these days. Useless as tits on a bull.

Unless u wanna flash ur bios or install a raid array to install windows

u don't need one for either gregory u schmuck*








*I could be wrong :P

could be and are wrong evis sux

I suppose I might as well add something more, so here goes.

you can flash the BIOS from in windows these days but I personally wouldn't trust it as far as I could throw khel. As for the raid array, I've never actually tried to install windows onto one, but I'm told you do need a floppy with drivers on and you mash the F6 key while setting up windows 2k/xp/whatever. Only experience with non IDE stuff I've had is my SCSI drives, and windows just saw the card and drives, no external drivers needed. meh.

(I expect this will get nuked but sif care)

last edited by WhoopAss at 02:42:43 26/Feb/04

only thing i see bad there is

BENQ 17 inch LCD monitor FP737

dear god stay away!!!. check this thread for the reason http://www.ausforums.com/x/439207?agn=thread&id=1964538

my 2c

how long are you planning to keep this pc?

if you answered more than a year buy it somewhere else umart only give 1 year warranties, also i wouldn't bother with pc3500 unless you plan to overclock and as far as kingmax ram is concerned go tiny bga, as for the gigabyte board well that's up to you but i find they have too many bells and whistles and thats about it, oh and the monitor... hmm erm how do i say this benq aren't exactly great, have apeek at the samsung range great monitors

so yeah pc3200 is all you need (tiny ba) the p4 2.8 is an awesome choice (best bang for buck p4 chip available atm) i'd move toward an asus p4p800 mainboard but yeah that's up to you obviously, oh and check your warranties!

Get an Asus P4C800-E Deluxe board instead, corsair isnt what it used to be, get a brand of ram called GEIL. CA Sells it, not sure who else, its very good. Video card is personal preferance, I personally would go with an nvidia card, for drivers support, but its preferance.

As for benq being dodgy, its the first iv heard, Iv seen a couple and they are all f***ing sweet for the price, and no complaints from the clients so far. Samsung is good, LGs arnt bad, but I think the samsungs and BENQ are better, dont get olympus or sony. All sony are these days are overpriced and now without quality. They make crap.

and yeah, definatly a gig of ram, not 512.

sif siny are crap - sure they are overpriced but they are NOT crap.

as far as kingmax ram is concerned go tiny bga

Yeah tiny bga is deffinitely the way to go if you're getting kingmax. I've tried both their SuperRAM and tiny BGA and tiny BGA is worth the extra bucks. IF you want the best RAM though, I'd go Mushkin over Corsair.

I've got a GeXcube 9600XT although a different model to yours and it runs pretty well. THe only real issue with GeXcube is that their current models don't support the temp monitor or ATI's overdrive feature. But then neither do some other brands - powercolor and most Saphires.

PC 3200 is DDR400

ie, to get pc rating, multiply by 8

So PC3500 is actually DDR437.

You'd be best to go with a matched pair, and not worry too much about the DDR rating.

Also, take a look at the new Samsumg Syncmaster 172x. First 12ms flatscreen on the market. We just got one in, and I can assure you they are wicked, and would match your radeon nicely

Edit: Also, check out some serial drives, much neater :)


last edited by jmr at 11:18:55 26/Feb/04

oh yeah go sata, i did *pretends to pat 160 samsung sata* runs cool and outperforms a comparable wd drive oh and it's cheaper too!

Ok so scrap the floppy drive.

And change the LCD to another brand which I'll look into.

And change the RAM to 2x512mg PC3200 Kingmax

What's a serial drive?

I don't know anything about the video card - i just took a guess and picked one out of the list at umart.

And motherboard I know absolutely NOTHING about.

How big a powersupply should I get for this?

last edited by Stez at 12:17:29 26/Feb/04

more money is always better with computer s*** :P

What's a serial drive?

this is a SATA drive - Seagate Serial ATA 80GB 7200RPM Instock $115.00 $125.00, basically they run faster and more stable than an IDE drive. They use a different connector but that should be supplied with your mobo.

I don't know anything about the video card - i just took a guess and picked one out of the list at umart.

Do you need Video In? Otherwise I would go for this model. It is much faster (has a higher memory clock) and if you shop around you should be able to find it cheaper as well.

How big a powersupply should I get for this?

Big, I'd go 400watts+.
suggestion

serial is serial ata it's a new hdd interface, and odds are your mainboard will support them, as for the 9600 have a close look at exactly what card it is the 9600 range is very broad oh and btw a 5700 Ultra outperforms any 9600 card including the extreme, as for your mainboard it's your choice personally i'd go with an ASUS board unless for some reason you favour gigabyte (they do tend to be cheaper, but basically when it cokmes to P4 boards you want something that supports HT and 800 fsb, sata (all sata is raid and ide capable) dual channel ram, and onboard gigabit lan, the ASUS P4P800 Deluxe wireless edition is an awesome board (don't trust me look around at some reviews also here you'll note that the P4P800 is an 865 chipset board with performance on par with almost any 875 board... if you don't require firewire or pata raid then the non deluxe version will save you a few $$$... as for a psu any TRUE power 350 or up psu will see your needs met and exceeded just steer clear of generic psu's boasting high wattages (as sold with cheaper cases)

you seem to have brushed over the warranty issue but yeah that's up to you... good luck

the 9600 xt and 5700 ultra are very close on most benchmarks if u look over at toms hardware. They recommend but for bang for yah bucks the 9600 over the 5700 ultra but. really depends on wat brand he wants now.

With power supply get a nice on enermax or antec true power

just get the computer i got lol my thread was a couple weeks ago

samsung 785mb
2.8 800fsb p4
altec lansing 621
antec case 3700
430watt antec psu
gigabyte 8ig1000 pro-g mobo
2x256 kingmax 3200 pack
80gig seagate sata hdd
52x32x52 liteon burner
microsoft media keyboard

+ a gf4 4400 i already had

runs ut2k4 flawlesly

Ok so i've made some adjustments. What you think?

DVD burner 8x dual mitsubishi - $240
HDD 80gig Seagate Serial ATA 7200rpm 8m cache $115
Keyboard Microsoft Multimedia Black (computer alliance) $49
Mouse Logitech MX310 $59
Creative Soundblaster Audigy2 ZS $188
CPU P4 2.8 $268
RAM 512mg PC3200 Kingmax $139
M/Board Asus P4P800 865PE $177


VideoCard WinFast A360 TD FX5700 MyViVo 128M $259
???OR???
GeXCube 128mg 9600XT Extreme (computer alliance) $289



Ignore the prices - they're just for my own records. They're Umart.
I still haven't decided on monitor - either a 17" LCD or a 19" from bobbly_bob 2nd hand, or a 17" 785MB. Are CRT still way better for video and games?

I'm still confused about the videocard. Help would be appreciated.

Also I don't even know what RAID is - if this m/board has a disk controller or whatever, let me know please.

Lastly, I was looking at getting a case from computer alliance which is $139 including 400w powersupply. It's one of those cool-looking jobs. Is that gonna be a dodge powersupply in it? link: http://www.computeralliance.com.au/parts.aspx?qryPart=3202

ta.

With Umart's warranty...

If it has a 1 year warranty, but the part has a 3 year warranty for example, does this mean that after 1 year you have to deal directly with the manufacturer in getting it fixed/replaced?

Sounds like a lot of hassle, but umart is so much cheaper than everywhere else :/

heheh thats pretty funny to weeks ago i brought:
p4 2.8
p4p800
512 ddr kingmax 3200
gexcube 9600xt 128mb
80gig seagate

im happy with it, you should be to

VideoCard WinFast A360 TD FX5700 MyViVo 128M $259
???OR???
GeXCube 128mg 9600XT Extreme (computer alliance) $289

Is that FX5700 an ultra? They never seem to be very clearly labled :\. Regardless the GeXcube is a faster card and since I have one, I have no hesitation in recomending it.

Also I don't even know what RAID is - if this m/board has a disk controller or whatever, let me know please.

Not important, since you only have one hard drive, but most new mobos support raid except for the really cheap ones.

Thats right with the warranty. I find that most things will either go wrong in the first few months or just after the manufactures warranty expires anyway.

awesome :)

some c***s may whinge about all the "new pc" threads here, but seriously it's the best. Even a noob like me can sort out what i should and shouldn't be buying.

Ta everyone.

I couldn't find any of the "5700 ultras"

umart don't have them, neither do ca. I just listed the closest match which i presume is not an ultra.

Looks like GeXcube will be the winnar...

this is one of the cards i'm referring to, also yes and no on warranty ask umart whether the full warranty is available and who exactly you have to go to, would be a real pain to have a hdd, cpu or mobo fall over 18 months after purchase and then chase all the warranties up yourself wouldn't it?

also this is the card to get when grabbing a 9600XT, must say these two cards are pretty much in the same league

Power - check out the HardOCP link in that Albatron/CA page you linked. It is a direct comparison between the Albatron FX5700U and a standard ATI 9600XT.

When it comes right down to it the FX5700U and the 9600XT are running neck and neck performance-wise in most of the games here. There are some instances where the 9600XT is faster, but most of the time it is such a tiny amount that gameplay feels the same. The image quality differences between both cards seem to be dependent on the game itself. In NFS: Underground apparently the FX5700U has slightly better Anisotropic filtering quality, but it has very bad lighting quality. The 9600XT has a much more smooth lighting transition and this is more noticeable then the filtering difference. Therefore right now in NFS: Underground the 9600XT provides the better image quality. In Flight Sim 2004 the 9600XT has a clear advantage with Anisotropic filtering providing much better quality than the FX5700Ultra. Also keep in mind the 9600XT has better Anti-Aliasing quality, in every game. So talking in terms of performance both cards are very neck and neck, but in terms of IQ the 9600XT edges out.

Thats against a standard 9600XT card with 500/600 clock speeds for GPU/RAM. The GeXcube 9600XT extreme has a 500/700 default clock speed, so it is faster than most 9600XTs and is also cheaper. The FX5700U is a nice card and a worthy alternative to a standard 9600XT, but the GeXcube card is deffinitely more bang for buck.

yeah that review says that others say other stuff, i prefer nvidia personally cos i know i get 100% compatibility and very few issues. also stez seems like someone who hangs onto his gear for a while and i know albatron have an excellent warranty policy (better than asus atm) they also have 3yrs over 2, but then again if it was me 1 yr more warranty prolly wouldn't sway me eitheri guess at this stage it's fair to say they are comparable cards and stez has both options... really up to him

last edited by power at 07:00:31 27/Feb/04

Sorry to revive this (it's not that old), but I'd thought I'd post my final selections. Thank You to everyone who helped out with info etc.

DVD burner 8x dual mitsubishi - $240
HDD 80gig Seagate Serial ATA 7200rpm 8m cache $115
Keyboard Microsoft Multimedia Black (computer alliance) $49
Mouse Logitech MX310 $59
Creative Soundblaster Audigy2 ZS $188
CPU P4 2.8 $268
RAM 512mg PC3200 Kingmax $139
M/Board Asus P4P800 865PE $177
Xtreme A28K Case (computer alliance) $139
GeXCube 128mg 9600XT Extreme (computer alliance) $289
Samsung 172-X 17" LCD Monitor (Gamedude $799)


Once again, ignore prices. Last question, do i need a floppy drive to install Windows XP? I remember having to install cdrom drivers off floppy before i could install windows ages ago...

And is there any useful differences between XP home and XP pro? I'm good using computers - not a newbie...just a little behind the times right now. Currently I use W2K Pro so I don't really know what XP has to offer apart from looking pretty (which has sold me!).

*EDIT Ok I just read another thread that says some s*** about dual channel ram, and the kingmax sucks. I was planning to get another 512mg down the road so I'll stick with 1 stick. Geil a better option than Kingmax? Corsair is too expensive.

last edited by Stez at 23:44:24 03/Mar/04

Geil is excellent RAM i run a gig myself in the same board you are planning to get

dont buy from computer alliance

don't listen to Spook

ditch the 9600 and get a 9800 pro. GD have the GeCube 9800 pro for $420 = win.

you dont need a floppy to install windows, just when you got all your s*** together, put the xp cd in the drive, set the cd rom to boot first and away you go :D

Yeah but GD blow ass from everything I've heard.

I want to buy as least as possible from them. ie. monitor only

floppy drives are fine, they are 15-20 bucks and you may need to use it, murphy's law ya know..

GEIL ram is nice, get 1 gig, BF1942 lubs a gig of ram, also other giant games from hell coming out will prolly need a gig for it to run smooth..

Yeah but I figure i could just buy 512 ram now, and then 512 later when I need it and it'll be a bit cheaper?

can i still run dual ram if i buy 512 Geil now, and 512 Geil later?

dual channel works best with matched pair ram..

i.e. GEIL twin ultra, two sticks of matched ram, 2x 256 = 512..

you can get 2 more sticks of matched ram later, yes...