Building a new PC. Recommendations needed. (1 Viewer)

[brentl]

Save a few bucks and get a Lite-on CDR and a Lite-on DVD. You should still save money and get the second best make.

Yep Plextor is probably the best, but they are pricey.

Brent

 

[DaveGTP]

Glad to see the Epox boards in there. I am very fond of them, 2 of my 4 PCs have had them and they have been EXCELLENTLY stable and a very good value. I really choose them over the competition most of the time. The 8RDA+ is a good choice for the Nforce2 chipset.

Save a few bucks and get a Lite-on CDR and a Lite-on DVD. You should still save money and get the second best make.

I agree with this statement. Lite-on is definitely good, Plextor is the best, but you pay a definite price premium for it. Lite-on is known to be a good brand and a very good value, especially the CD burners. You can pick up a Lite on 48x CD-RW for about $10-20 after rebate from your local Officemax/Staples/Circuit City, etc. I did a lot of research and ended up with one of the newer Toshiba DVD-ROMs, due to its high compatibility with DVD-R/RW/+R/+RW and very decent audio ripping speeds. (TOSHIBA 16X DVD-ROM Model SD-M1712 OEM DRIVE ONLY @ newegg for $44).


Edit: Oh, and if you really want a combo drive, instead of the Plextor CDRW/DVD combo, perhaps you should consider an offbrand Pioneer DVD-RW drive (like a Cendyne or one of those other brands that use the Pioneer hardware). They burn CDs and DVDs, and read both.

But, it seems like the cut to Geforce 3 isn't a great cut. I think from the numbers you would be better off with a newer Radeon 9500 pro or Geforce 4 Ti4200. If you like to crank the image quality up, a Radeon is the way to go for the extra filtering advantage. Perhaps though you are an Nvidia guy though, I only saw mention of Nvidia cards. I will buy either depending on features/performance vs price.
Of course, my upgrade was to a 64 MB Radeon 8500 for $50 from a coworker, so I shouldn't talk. But, I was on a budget and was only upgrading to get my fiancee out of her Voodoo3 2000 (I passed down to her my old original Radeon).

 

[Andy Olivera]

Re: GeForce vs. Radeon

I've heard the GF4 requires a larger power supply that's harder to find, hence the drop to a GF3. True?

The Radeon 9000Pro looks about in my price range. I can get a 128MB model for $92; the GF3 Ti200 128MB is $93. Are the two relatively comparable?


Well, I'll be playing older games(pre-2000) and the occasional DVD. I don't suppose the onboard sound would also provide decent MIDI support?

 

[Max Leung]

Seeing that you're sticking with AMD, have you considered the nForce2 motherboards? The onboard audio on the Soundstorm equipped motherboards are far superior to all the other integrated audio solutions, especially if you are into gaming. The nForce chipset is also very stable and have very few issues compared to the VIA chipsets.
Something like an MSI K7N series (the nforce2 ones, can't remember the specific model numbers) or an Asus A7N8X Deluxe are very good performers. They also have integrated video, Geforce 4MX equivalent (half the speed of a Geforce3, but hey it's cheap! ).
Heck, you can even consider the cheaper nforce1 motherboards. The Asus A7N266-VM can be had for $100 US or less. Built-in LAN, audio (6 channel soundstorm!), and video. The builtin video is equivalent to a geforce2mx. Great budget PC...you won't need to buy any cards!

 

[DaveGTP]

As far as video card ratings, here is a good graph from Tom's Hardware with everything from a GF2 MX to 9700 Pros. The graph has 2 bars, the gray bars are an Athlon 1ghz, the red Athlon 2700+. Good graph for easy-access comparison between the cards. Oddly, a Radeon 8500 is generally quite a bit faster than a 9000 (something about pixel pipelines and the generation gap, I think, perhaps someone else knows offhand).
http://www.tomshardware.com/graphic/...charts-04.html
As far as power, the new GF MX's and Radeon 9700s require additional power supplied from the power supply (and an additional connector).

 

[Masood Ali]

the new GF MX's and Radeon 9700s require additional power supplied from the power supply

Just to clarify DaveGTP's post, I believe he meant to say GF FX and not MX.

 

[DaveGTP]

Oops, my typo, I did mean FX. Thanks.