$1700 AMD Gaming Build

[dek2785]

I have decided to start building a gaming pc and have looked just about everywhere and this is what I've come up with. Any help is greatly appreciated.

Processor: AMD 3700+ San Diego
Motherboard: ASUS A8N32-SLI Deluxe Socket 939
Memory: G.SKILL (2 x 1GB) DDR 500
Hard Drive: Raptor 74GB
Power Supply: Sunbeam NUUO 550W
Video Card: eVGA 7900gt CO
Cooling: Thermaltake Big Typhoon and ZALMAN VF900
Monitor: Viewsonic VX922 (2ms)

Just wanted suggestions as to what everyone thought and if anything needs to be changed out. Ive already got a sound card, case, and cd/dvd drives.

Thanks ahead of time.

 

[mers]

74GB? Bit small no, or you plan on having a second drive?

 

[Tsuwamono]

74 GB is more then enough if your just gaming. but i would suggest a second drive at 7200 RPM to run your OS on and hold all your music/movies or other illegal downloads :S lol

 

[LittleNemoNES]

Originally posted by: Tsuwamono
74 GB is more then enough if your just gaming. but i would suggest a second drive at 7200 RPM to run your OS on and hold all your music/movies or other illegal downloads :S lol

74 GB IS small. I'm not one to hoard movies but I have a large personal music selection. If you buy the cheapest Seagate 7200.10 drive, it should be enough. ~$200. I would switch or buy both.

 

[krotchy]

Originally posted by: Tsuwamono
74 GB is more then enough if your just gaming. but i would suggest a second drive at 7200 RPM to run your OS on and hold all your music/movies or other illegal downloads :S lol

Just curious, why do you suggest putting the OS on a second drive? Having the OS on the 74 gig raptor = much faster boot times than using a 7200 RPM drive. Heck the only real reason I got a raptor was to boot faster.

 

[n7]

Dunno anything about that PSU company, so i'd be wary.

 

[thescreensavers]

I would Change that PSU to a seasonic,or Forton. Theres a forton that 450watts for around $50

dont skimp out on a PSU b/c if that craps out it could take every bit of hardware its attached too

Heres the recomended Forton PSU
Here
or if you have some extra money to burn heres the seasonic
here

 

[Noubourne]

I agree with the PSU recommendations, and from a cost/performance standpoint, there's not a single raptor worth buying IMO. That's just my opinion.

Check out the benchies for the 7200.10 series - I think techreport has some. Only a few are clear Raptor wins, very few, and none by very much. Well, not enough anyway. I'd grab the 320GB 7200.10 for just over $100 and never look back. Raptors average around $1.75 per gig, other top of the line drives are more like 50 CENTS per gig. No brainer, really. The Raptor does not offer 300% more performance, but it costs 300% more, and therefore I won't be buying one!!

At a certain point I'm willing to spend some extra cash for more performance even if it's not cost effective, but when I look at this:

Raptor:
150GB - $275
74GB - $130

Everybody else's top of the line drives:
250GB - $90 (tops)
320GB - $130

Well, there just really is no contest. And I'm a gamer. I have 200 Gigs of games, and it's not even that impressive of a collection really. That doesn't even include my music or movies... you begin to see why I'm no fan of the Raptor (although they are downright sexy).

 

[dek2785]

I planned on getting a bigger HD with the 2nd 7900 in 2 weeks. But if the newer ones are doing that great maybe the raptor would be dumb. What hard drive does everyone suggest something around 250gb would be more then enough.

As far as psu go I didn't want to spend that much on the Seasonic, but will the forton be capable of 2 7900's? If not what psu would be capable at a lower price? Or should I just bite the bullet and buy the Seasonic 600W?

 

[Gamer X]

Get a a dual-core X2 3800+ instead. Also get theCaviar RE2 400GB drive instead of the Raptor.

 

[MrX8503]

If you get both a dual core and 7900gt, this would raise your budget pretty high. Gaming wise i would stick with single core with a 7900gt, but if you could go dual core+7900gt then do it. I would sacrifice some other parts just to do this, the raptor drive for example.

If you arent going SLI now or soon, get rid of the SLI board, you are paying more for nothing.

Your monitor, its a nice 19" for gaming, but i would never buy a 19" mainly because it has the same max res as a 17" LCD. My opinion is either go 17" or 20+". Viewsonic has a very nice 20.1 wide for $350 right now.http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16824116381

Your cpu heat sink, i would change it to the ac freezer pro 64. It is an excellent heatsink up there with typhoon and its only $23! It also comes with mx-1 thermal paste which is very good. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16835185125

PSU wise, i would not recommend the fortron 450w. Fortron is a very good psu company, but their AX lines are not. I would suggest that you read johnny gurus site or ask galvanized for a PSU recommendation. Do not overlook this component.

EDIT:

I didnt see that you are going to buy a 2nd 7900gt, well the mobo would serve its purpose then. But with all this horsepower, all you can output it to is a 19" LCD.

Either the 400gb RE2 from WD or seagates new perpendicular drives. These two drives are the fastest 7200 rpm drives right now i believe. If you are looking for a 250gb hard drive head over to storagereview.com for their 250gb roundup.

In my opinion raptors are the one thing that has the least amount of performance you get for your money.

 

[jlbenedict]

Originally posted by: krotchy

Originally posted by: Tsuwamono
74 GB is more then enough if your just gaming. but i would suggest a second drive at 7200 RPM to run your OS on and hold all your music/movies or other illegal downloads :S lol

Just curious, why do you suggest putting the OS on a second drive? Having the OS on the 74 gig raptor = much faster boot times than using a 7200 RPM drive. Heck the only real reason I got a raptor was to boot faster.

How much faster is that Raptor booting for you??

Raptors are overhyped.. Today's 7200 rpm drives are more than plenty for a gamer.
You continue to believe you are getting faster boot times.. if you sit there with a stop watch and stare at your computer and count the boot times.. then.. well of course.. what is it? 1/2 second.. 1 second at the most..
Is that really worth it to pay the high cost of a tiny, 10,000 rpm drive over something that costs half as much.. but performs almost identical?

 

[MrX8503]

Originally posted by: jlbenedict

Originally posted by: krotchy

Originally posted by: Tsuwamono
74 GB is more then enough if your just gaming. but i would suggest a second drive at 7200 RPM to run your OS on and hold all your music/movies or other illegal downloads :S lol

Just curious, why do you suggest putting the OS on a second drive? Having the OS on the 74 gig raptor = much faster boot times than using a 7200 RPM drive. Heck the only real reason I got a raptor was to boot faster.

How much faster is that Raptor booting for you??

Raptors are overhyped.. Today's 7200 rpm drives are more than plenty for a gamer.
You continue to believe you are getting faster boot times.. if you sit there with a stop watch and stare at your computer and count the boot times.. then.. well of course.. what is it? 1/2 second.. 1 second at the most..
Is that really worth it to pay the high cost of a tiny, 10,000 rpm drive over something that costs half as much.. but performs almost identical?

I agree, the only thing raptors win are benchmarks. In reaworld performance people are just psyching themselves that its indeed faster.

7200rpm drives these days are faster than ever and are sufficient. I would only consider a raptor if there was no limit to the budget.

 

[fernanartvigo]

dude i dont like that rig at all for 1700 dollars, change sli delux for premium, get a 3800x2, get sli i can do all those thing for 1700 dollars, dont spend all your money on monitor

 

[Noubourne]

I didn't realize that guy linked a low end Fortron. Fortron does make good ones.

The Seasonic S12-600w is good for SLI and overclocking from most user accounts I have read in the past. It's $175 last I heard. Pricey, but not bad for a quality PSU. Another benefit of the Seasonic is that it is pretty well known to be one of the quieter options.

The Seagate 7200.10 series has 250GB and 320GB models. I think the 250GB version is like $85, and the 320GB is around $130. It's brand new, and seems to be easily in the group of top performers. I'd recommend those. Previously I would have recommended the MaxLine III, but a buddy has had nothing but problems with them in his RAID array, and has had to RMA two of the drives more than once. I personally have a Diamond Max 9 SATA drive which has done me right for like 2 years now. My other drive right now is a Seagate 7200.8 (which I like), and I'll be moving back to them for a 7200.10 in the coming months.

 

[fernanartvigo]

yea raptor are crap i regret paying for it, a guy with 7200 rpm loads bf2 faster than me but he has 2 gigs, if it doesnt speed up when my 2 gigs are here ill sell it.

 

[deadseasquirrel]

I agree to drop the raptor. I don't know much about the PSU either.

At 1280x1024, you're in a tricky spot. Here's why:

SLI (usually) doesn't offer much value at that resolution... with Oblivion being one of the games that will give you a good 80% kick even at that resolution (a single GT with 17.2fps avg and SLI GTs with 31.7fps avg). That is Oblivion, one of the most graphically demanding games, during its most graphically demanding parts. Normally, it doesn't work out like that for SLI at 1280x1024-- see Quake4 here (about a 25% boost). That's 100% more money for 25% more performance. Not a good value.

1280x1024 is also a resolution where, at least with Quake4, dual-core CPUs may be able to help out. Quake4 gets a 30% boost at 1280x1024 with dual-core. But, still, at 1280x1024, the CPU speed often does not matter-- Oblivion, FEAR, COD2.

So, yeah, it's a tough decision where to spend your budget. Do you go for SLI, where most games only benefit slightly at 1280x1024 and hope that future games behave more like Oblivion? Or invest in dual-core for what amounts to a 30% increase in only a single game (Quake4) right now at 1280x1024 but is sure to include more in the future?

Me personally.... I'm a high-resolution-CRT fan. I'd pick a monitor that didn't limit me to 1280x1024, drop down to a 3000+ (or 3200+ if that A8N can't handle 300+fsb), and jump on SLI. But that's just me.

 

[jlbenedict]

Do you have to buy now?
How much longer could you hold off, if possible?

The reason I ask these questions is because , (1) AMD's AM2 is now in production and is currently showing up at various resources. Socket 939 isn't quite dead, but future CPU upgrading on that particular socket will eventually cease..
(2) Intel's Conroe is around the corner as well.. sometime in July I believe..


If you upgrade often, or have the intentions of upgrading in the future.. I think it would be best to wait a little bit. If you have no intentions of upgrading, then by all means.. buy as much as you can afford.

 

[raildogg]

Originally posted by: thescreensavers
I would Change that PSU to a seasonic,or Forton. Theres a forton that 450watts for around $50

dont skimp out on a PSU b/c if that craps out it could take every bit of hardware its attached too

Heres the recomended Forton PSU
Here
or if you have some extra money to burn heres the seasonic
here

Wow why wasn't my Seasonic sleeved? Must be the newer version.

Get a Raptor 150GB. If not, get the Raptor 74GB and a Western Digital 250GB. Good combo.

 

[Tsuwamono]

Originally posted by: krotchy

Originally posted by: Tsuwamono
74 GB is more then enough if your just gaming. but i would suggest a second drive at 7200 RPM to run your OS on and hold all your music/movies or other illegal downloads :S lol

Just curious, why do you suggest putting the OS on a second drive? Having the OS on the 74 gig raptor = much faster boot times than using a 7200 RPM drive. Heck the only real reason I got a raptor was to boot faster.

Faster load times for games is why i did it. And as for the boot times, i tend to turn on my PC and leave it on for a few weeks at a time so it doesnt really matter to me. Plus my PC boots in about 15 seconds anyway so meh. im patient enough to wait 15 seconds.

 

[CreepieDeCrapper]

Originally posted by: raildogg
Wow why wasn't my Seasonic sleeved? Must be the newer version.

not sure about the 430w and 500w versions but as far as the s12 600w goes, here's a reply from case-mod.com's sales/support staff:

There are 3 total revisions in the history of the 600W S12.

April 2005: first revision - now obsolete and should not be found anywhere
on the market
July 2005: 2nd revision - used newer capacitors and quieter fan. May still
be found online.
May 2006: 3rd revision - still has new capacitors and quieter fan. Now has
ATI crossfire and SLI approval. All cables are now sleeved. The PSU is now
RoHS compliant.

 

[akshayt]

go with a 200-300gb class hd

forget 3700, go with 3000 venice or 3200 and radeon 1900xt

won't you need to take ddr 400 on amd 64bit?

 

[Tsuwamono]

ya man, akshayt is right. You can only use up to DDR400(PC 3200) ram on AMD mobos unless your running AM2 which from your mobo it appears you are not.

 

[Howard]

What games are you planning to play?

 

[dek2785]

I've been waiting to build for awhile and decided to just start now since AM2 doesnt show much performance increase. I plan on playing Quake 4 Battlefield 2 CS:S and any other games I come across really. I looked at the 7200.10 Seagate and picked the 320gb one. Thanks.