New system - Comments?

[wakko]

Well,

I went out yesterday and supported the local economy by spending money on new parts for a much needed upgrade.

I did a little research before I bought anything, but I pretty much knew what I wanted. Here's what I got, any comments, pros or cons are welcome.

Motherboard: ASus A7V8X with USB 2.0 (4 ports), onboard audio (which i disabled), and onboard NIC (which I also disabled) - no Firewire nor RAID
Processor: Athlon XP 2700 - 2.167GHz (I had a 1GHz T-Bird)
RAM: 512 MB PC3200 DDR RAM - 1 stick (I had 384MB PC100 RAM)
Sound card - Sound Blaster Audigy 2 (I had a Sound Blaster Live! Value)
Speakers - Altec Lansing 621 (wow, these sound incredible) (I had some Altec Lansing ADA-305's)
External Hard drive - Iomega 80GB 7200rpm USB 2.0

The Iomega Hard Drive comes with a copy of Norton Ghost 2003 so you can ghost your machine, load it onto the external hard drive, make a boot floppy, and reload the image from the External Hard drive should anything go wrong. It also came with some Iomega backup software which could prove to be useful.

I'm running Windows 2000 Pro (SP3) with the latest 4-in-1 drivers from Asus, and the latest USB 2.0 drivers.

The parts I carried over from my old setup are:

- Intel 10/100 NIC - PCI
- GeForce 2 Ti - 64MB RAM
- Adaptec AHA-2940U/UW - Dual Channel SCSI controller

After discovering the 40.x detonator drivers weren't very good for this new system, I installed the latest 43.x drivers, and everything works smooth. (I had some jumpiness in my D2: LoD graphics, but the new drivers fixed that.)

I am getting better FPS in D2: LoD (around 75), as one would expect. I haven't tested BF1942 or other games yet as I am still installing things as I go.

PS: After all was said and done, my old Yamaha 8x/8x/24x SCSI CD-RW decided to die on me. So, there's something else I have to replace. Luckily, I could just unplug it because my SCSI chain on the narrow side was terminated on my other CD-ROM.

 

[t'kron]

GF2 cards are getting to be quite old, next thing you need to do is update to a GF4 or ATI 9700

 

[wakko]

Originally posted by t'kron
GF2 cards are getting to be quite old, next thing you need to do is update to a GF4 or ATI 9700

Yea, I thought about that. But I had already spent around $1,000 when I was done.

So, replacing my CD-RW and buying a new video card is next on my list. I am going to go with GeForce 4 Ti with 128MB RAM at least.

 

[NoNameRequired]

A comment - Upgrading the GeForce can wait. Your current card looks fine for the current games. If I were you, I would wait until it cannot handle the games you want to play. Then go out and get a newer card. By then you could problably get yourself a better card than the GF 4 Ti.

 

[wakko]

Originally posted by NoNameRequired
A comment - Upgrading the GeForce can wait. Your current card looks fine for the current games. If I were you, I would wait until it cannot handle the games you want to play. Then go out and get a newer card. By then you could problably get yourself a better card than the GF 4 Ti.

*nods*

On that note, do the GeForce FX cards look like they'll be worth it?

 

[Dtere]

Altec Lansing speakers are fricken hardcore. I just built myself my computer about a month ago, and i used Altec Lansing 2100 speakers, they are so friggen awesome. They're small, and they put out some wicked sound.

i didn't really see the point in buying a Radeon 9700 since it costs $300 +. So i got a Geforce 4 Ti 4200 128 mb. works just find for me i love it.

CD-RW's are cheap right now, i got myself a TDK 48x/24x/48x for around $60. Burns cds in 2-3 minutes, and i love the burn protection that comes along with it, i have way fewer screwup burns, saves a lot of money if your a burning fan.

Hmm... Why an external hd? so you can go from comp to comp?

 

[wakko]

Originally posted by Dtere
Altec Lansing speakers are fricken hardcore. I just built myself my computer about a month ago, and i used Altec Lansing 2100 speakers, they are so friggen awesome. They're small, and they put out some wicked sound.

i didn't really see the point in buying a Radeon 9700 since it costs $300 +. So i got a Geforce 4 Ti 4200 128 mb. works just find for me i love it.

CD-RW's are cheap right now, i got myself a TDK 48x/24x/48x for around $60. Burns cds in 2-3 minutes, and i love the burn protection that comes along with it, i have way fewer screwup burns, saves a lot of money if your a burning fan.

Hmm... Why an external hd? so you can go from comp to comp?

These speakers are 2.1 and pump out 200 watts. The subwoofer is 14 inches high.

The GeForce 2 Ti works just fine for me too, so I might stick with it for a bit.

I need a SCSI CD-RW, and the Yamaha 48/48/whatever is around $120-$140 from the place I get it here in Austin.

The reason I need SCSI is because all my IDE plugs are taken by 4 hard drives. (10GB, 6GB, 20GB, and 60GB) Although, if I ever want to get into DVD's, I can consolidate my hard drives, and free up an IDE plug.

The external HD was an impulse buy for backup purposes. It comes with it's own copy of Norton Ghost 2003 that allows you to make a ghost image of your hard drive and save it and restore it from the external USB hard drive (it'll work with Firewire if you buy the Firewire model). It's pretty neat.

Edit: Oh yea, and Norton Ghost 2003 allows you to make a bootable floppy that loads a DOS USB 2.0 driver to recognize the external hard drive.

 

[ManOfAThousandNames]

The GeForce FX 5800 is slower then the current ATi cards. It runs faster in low resolutions and without antialiasing, but the ATi 9800 Pro kicks it's ass when it comes to high res and AA.

They're both quite expensive right now (Around $350-$400+). If you want a good gaming card that's relatively cheap go with the GF 4 Ti line of cards. I'm running a GF 4 Ti 4600 and it plays all games smooth as silk on glass at high res with max settings.

You can probably get a Ti 4200 for about $100-$150 and a Ti 4600 for $150-$250. Both are very good cards for the money.

Also: If you go for the 4200 get the 128mb version. It may cost about 10 dollars more or so, but the extra vram will be worth it.

Alot of new visually stunning games are coming out this year (Half-Life 2, DOOM 3, Deus Ex 2) and upgrading to a new video card would be a good thing to do.

 

[uh...ok]

As NNR stated, I'd probably wait until said games actually do come out and, if they don't work on the current video card, THEN get a new one.

 

[Wargasm]

the old gf2 mx is based on the old crap the riva tnt 2 used shit . clocked higher tho but that is about it . the core is as old as my redwings (boots)

the gf TI 4200 64 mb does the job now with all the vertex shading crap and is cheap .