Advice on building an Athlon 64 system?

WyndulWyndul
edited May 2004 in Hardware
Hi my name is Wynn, I am new to the forums. A friend of mine recommended asking you guys for advice. I am planning on building a new Athlon 64 system in a few weeks. I am a computer science student, but this will be my first real build. I have people who can help, but none of them have ever built a 64 bit system. Do you guys have any special advice about building a Athlon 64 system? Here is what I plan to build:

Case- CHIEFTEC Blue Server Chasis Workstation Tower w/ 450W Power Supply
Mother Board- MSI K8T800 Chipset for AMD Socket 754 CPU (Supports Athlon 64)
Processor- AMD Athlon 64 3400+
RAM- Pmi turbo Memory Duel Channel Kit 184-Pin 1GB(512MBx2) DDR PC-3200
HD- Seagate 160GB 7200RPM IDE HD
Video Card- ATI 9800PRO 128MB
CD/DVD ROM / CD-RW- Lite-On 52x32x52x16 Combo Drive
NIC- 3COM 10/100Mbps PCI Ethernet
Sound Card- Creative Labs Sound Blaster Live 5.1 PCI
Floppy Drive- NEC 1.44

*Im ordering all parts from NewEgg for a total of about $1,340

Comments

  • TheBaronTheBaron Austin, TX
    edited April 2004
    the case is good, but the power supply that comes with it is most likely junk. i would suggest either finding an antec case that comes with a tru430 (they're exactly the same cases, shouldn't be too hard) or just buying a diff power supply

    for the memory i would seriously consider mushkin, it'll be more expensive but will save you a lot of trouble if that memory turns out to have compatibility issues.

    if you dont already own that SBLive i wouldn't buy it, the onboard sound will serve you better. if you want an actual soundcard buy an audigy 2. actually come to think of it which model msi board are you buying?? i think they all have integrated LAN and sound
  • RWBRWB Icrontian
    edited April 2004
    I'm the Onboard Sound type of guy also... go for that instead.

    Also, for about 90 bucks you can get a good Lite-On DVD-RW drive, 8x even! Gof or that instead of one of those "Combo's".
  • WyndulWyndul
    edited April 2004
    Thanks for the advise, I just checked and it does have the onboard Audio and NIC. That'll save me about $50. I'll also look into the case and mushkin memory. Is DDR400(PC3200) (1GB) the way to go? I liked the Pmi because this particular one had a CAS latency of 2-3-2-6, but I guess I can find that with mushkin. Is all mushkin memory compatable with the Athlon 64? Any tips on how to tell what memory is compatable? Thanks, Wynn
  • EgoShowcaseEgoShowcase North Carolina
    edited May 2004
    bump


    can anyone answer that question.
    also did he build the pc?
  • MediaManMediaMan Powered by loose parts.
    edited May 2004
    The MSI website would be a good starting point. They should have the tested memory for that motherboard. Remember that not all memory is tested.

    There are three versions of that motherboard. If you are buying the
    K8T Neo-FSR then it comes with the Realtek ALC655 Codec. Motherboard on-board audio has gotten very good compared to its predecessors of 2-3 years ago. For all intents and purposes it will sound "pretty good" so I suggest you go with it for the moment.

    You can always add a sound card later on and I suggest you look to the M-Audio Revolution as a candidate. It depends on what you want the audio for...listening pleasure or gaming. I find that the M-AUDIO card has a very good audio output for MP3/CD/DVD audio. I don't know the price point of the Creative card you are looking at but if I remember correctly the Revolution is about $90.

    It appears you want a system that is a "Ferrari" build with the best you can get. It's important to answer the question of what you want it for. going with more expensive RAM that has the "best" latency will most likely give you plenty of overclocking room BUT when brass tax is compared...Say if you put Crucial RAM into the system and the best MUSHKIN RAM...you probably won't notice the difference at default settings in the "feel" of the system. You may see the difference in benchmarks comparing two little bar graph lines.

    Again...not saying to buy less/more expensive RAM...just advising you to answer the question for yourself. No point buying a Ferrari if you are just going to park it in the garage...save yourself a few bucks.

    Definitely...you do not need a NIC. :) It's onboard.

    The Chieftec/Chenming/ANTEC case is a good one. It has space for 2 x 80 mm. fans in the rear for exhaust and two in the front as intakes. I may suggest that you first put 2 x 80 mm. fans in the rear as exhaust. You can elect to put 1 x 80mm. in the front in the HDD bay but exhaust is priority. Get a RHEOBUS to control fan RPM so you can choose to dial the fans up to high (loud) when gaming or dial them down to tolerable when not.

    Two Rheobus's which I like?

    Nexus Fan controller

    http://www.short-media.com/review.php?r=182

    Sunbeam Rheobus # 2 (LEDs are fairly bright and can illuminate a room)

    http://www.short-media.com/review.php?r=189

    Hope this helps even more. :)
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