New PC

[Ideswa]

Hi,

My PC is getting "aged", it has been modified 3 times and the motherboard has been replaced, so I decided I needed a new PC. I am going to build it myself, and I have come up with the following configuration. I order the parts at Alternate, unfortunately for most of you, in Dutch.

Motherboard Socket 775 Asus P5W DH Deluxe
Intel® 975X, Socket 775, 1.066 MHz

CPU Socket 775 Intel® Core™ 2 Duo E6600
(2x) 2400 MHz, 4096 kB, 1066 MHz, Conroe

Memory DDR2-800 MDT 2 GB DDR2-800 Kit
2048 MB, CL5 5-5-12, PC2 6400 (2 parts)

Harddisks 3,5 inch SATA Western Digital Caviar SE16
320 GB, 8,9 / 16 / 7200

Graphics nVidia PCIe GigaByte 8500 GT Silent
512 MB, GeForce 8500 GT, 128 bit

DVD-reWriters IDE LiteOn LH-20A1P
20 / 8 / 8 speed, 20 / 6 / 8 speed, 16 / 48 speed

Besides, I (of course) also have compatible: housing, fans and stuff.
Total prize: € 844,-

What do you think? Do you have any advices?
Thanks in advance.

[Frobozz]

Can you give us an idea of what you want to use it for? Although I think as long as you don't care a lot about gaming that system should do whatever you need.

[Ideswa]

Some gaming (I'm not a hardcore gamer), programming, photoshopping, viewing movies. I just want it to be fast in every day use and in gaming.

I was thinking: Athlon™ 64 X2 6000+ (2x 3000 MHz) !! for € 169,- !!
That's a lot cheaper than Intel. But what are the "consequences" of a 64-bit system? Is it less portable?

[maxorator]

64-bit system totally supports 32-bit stuff. I am currently running 32-bit XP on a 64-bit Athlon with no problems.

As far as I know Intel Core 2 Duo is 64-bit too.

[Ideswa]

No speed loss? Do I have to modify the BIOS to run the processor in 32bits mode?

[matsp]

64-bit mode is an extension to 32-bit mode, and there's no need to modify anything to support 32-bit mode - in fact all 64-bit mode OS's start in 32-bit mode first (for a few dozen instructions at least - some do more work in 32-bit than others), then switch to 64-bit mode.

There's no drawback to a 64-bit capable processor other than (perhaps) that it costs a little tiny bit more than the comparable 32-bit variety - if there is a comparable one. AMD for example don't produce any 32-bit processors any more - they are all 64-bit nowadays, even the "cheapo" Sempron ones (yes, you can probably still find some "32-bit only" processors in some shops/online places, but those are old stock, rather than recent production - nothing wrong with buying old stock, you can find bargains that way, just like in the car dealers when they are trying to get rid of last years model).

In most cases, the new model processor that supports 64-bit is faster than the 32-bit comparable previous model. If not, they are equal speed.

--
Mats

[firyace]

Just don't expect to do any present-day games in good fps and quality because its a 8500 series. Since you are not a hardcore gamer, it is not recommended for you to buy high end video cards anyway but could you at least consider the 8600 series? Its not for hardcore gaming, but it at least have the graphical power to run games at a reasonable performance.

And for the HD, is it SATA or SATA II? SATA II is a bit cheaper at my location too so I think you should check it out. For me, a 500GB costs about a little more than $100

[Frobozz]

could you at least consider the 8600 series? Its not for hardcore gaming

How do you define "hardcore gaming?" Personally I went with a silent GeForce 8600GTS from MSI and I find it handles all of my games (Age of Empires 3, Galactic Civilizations) quite adequately. I can even turn on antialiasing without noticable decrease in performance.

I've dug up a link to my video card being sold on Alternate: http://www.alternate.nl/html/product...l?artno=JAXNH1

I paid $180 US and it is selling on here for € 195. I fed their price into Google and it came back as $266. Talk about rip off.

[firyace]

How do you define "hardcore gaming?" Personally I went with a silent GeForce 8600GTS from MSI and I find it handles all of my games (Age of Empires 3, Galactic Civilizations) quite adequately. I can even turn on antialiasing without noticable decrease in performance.

I've dug up a link to my video card being sold on Alternate: http://www.alternate.nl/html/product...l?artno=JAXNH1

I paid $180 US and it is selling on here for € 195. I fed their price into Google and it came back as $266. Talk about rip off.

First of all: 8600GTS > 8600 GT
and that I am just suggesting a 8600GT instead of an 8500 because it makes a big difference between the two cards.

Whereas for your concern of what I meant as hardcore gaming, it is when you are playing games such as oblivion and wants everything maxed and still be at a playable framerate. Its like wanting to reach perfection in playing pc games.

And I have to say that although 8600GTS is definitely a good card, the performance on games is lower than the Nvidia series 7900 GS and above.

[jwenting]

I would go for 2 physical harddisks. One to keep operating system and applications (and swap/temp files), the other for application data.
Makes disk operations faster.
You might even consider a smaller 3rd harddisk specially for swap and temp files.