Comments on the hardware specs?

[battery841]

I am building my friend a new computer shortly. It's going to be mainly a gaming system. I'm curious what people think of this configuration, and what should be changed. I don't want to see the price go up too much more.

Athlon T-bird 1Ghz
256MB-133 DIMM
ASUS A7V133 133A mobo
SB Live! Value edition
ATI Radeon 64MB DDR
USR V.90 PCI modem
CasEdge 734ATX w/ 300W AMD Approved PS
Mitsumi 1.44MB 3.5" Floppy drive
Viewsonic E70 17"
Creative Labs 52X ATAPI CD-ROM
40GB Quantum Ultra-ATA/100
Tbird Super Round Heavy duty processor fan
2 Cabinet mount fans

Optional: Altec Lansing ADA880 Digital Speakers

Currently, this box is running around $1,153.08 without S&H and tax. It's $1,396.07 with the speakers.

 

[Andrew99]

Athlon T-bird 1Ghz - I'm getting an 850 ... 1G was more than I wanted to pay for ...

256MB-133 DIMM - $90.. what brand?

ASUS A7V133 133A mobo - heard good things about this board...

SB Live! Value edition - have had this for a while ... no problems with it.

CasEdge 734ATX w/ 300W AMD Approved PS - 300 W is nice ...
Viewsonic E70 17" - Viewsonic is nice ...so is 17"

All in all, this system is better than the one I'm putting together ... but it is also more expensive ...

 

[BadThad]

ATI - I don't care for their driver support. I would go GeForce2.
Quantum HDD - I'm not too confident with Quantum, personally, I think IBM is #1.
Mitusmi floppy - They are suck. Pick a different brand, seen too many mitsu's fail. [edit]Alps is the best, fastest floppy made, BTW[/edit]

Other than that, it looks good.

 

[osgood111]

Try a LS-120 drive


Space Heater

 

[Nitemare]

I would stay away from the quantum hard drive as well. The IBM ATA 100's 7200 rpm are the bomb. Maxtor's top of the line is good as well. I've had a Maxtor for years 6.8 5400, not ever a problem, quiet, and fairly quick. I had a job once where I was building PC's, we used seagates, ibm, western digital, quantum, maxtor, and a few others. WD was by far the most DOA, but quantum's were the second most.
The rest sounds sweet as well. I like your choice of MB and case/PS. I'd go with a Geforce line, either a GTS or a Pro. Radeon's are a little better than the GTS in some tests, but with each batch of detonator drivers, the Geforce only improves, that and the Radeon is severely crippled when it comes to running 16 bit programs.

 

[FusionTorch]

Also make sure that the case has at least a 300W power supply

 

[Dead3ye]

If this going to be a gaming system, dump the ATI card and get a Geforce 2 GTS.

No mention of a mouse, I prefer the MS Explorer.

 

[Nitemare]

No, You have got to get a mouse with an optical sensor. There is no comparison between them and one with a rubber ball thing

 

[Tooter]

Get the new Philips Acoustic Edge sound card. From the reviews, it puts SB to shame. Plus there's a thread in Hot Deals where you can get this card for $75 delivered.

 

[Kappo]

I second Badthad's suggestion...I bought a radeon and went back to GeForce2 after having it about two weeks...

Also...I have used IBM HD's for quite some time and COMPLETLY love them...fast and quiet...if you can spare the cash I would say get a board with onboard ATA/100 raid and get two 30 gig IBM's...to be honest it has been the biggest overall performance increase that I have done...my "seat of the pants" evaluation just blew me away in terms of performance...

As for the floppy drive...hehe my thing is that I RARELY use it unless I am installing some new hardware (and most of the time not even then)...I just get the cheapo ones...if it dies then I have $10.00 or so to get a new one (or you can be REALLY cheap like me and map a drive to another computer because you are too lazy to replace the one that died )

Dunno about the viewsonic...but DEFINATLY get a flat screen monitor (not a flat panel...just a flat screen)... I havent seen one that I dont like yet compared to my generic cheapo monitor

Depending what OS your run...I would say get even more ram, considering how cheap it is right now...if you are using WIN2k (my personal recommendation) then the more the merrier

Just my thoughts...