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View Full Version : Going to build a new computer



WZot
May 18th, 2005, 10:43 PM
Soon I will build a new computer! This time I want to think it well through and try to make it as Linux-friendly as possible. I have pretty much decided that I want an Athlon 64 processor. This one looks nice:
AMD Athlon 64 3800+ 2.4GHz HT Socket 939, 512KB Cache, Boxed, "Venice"

Thats pretty much the only thing I am certain about so far...

Mainboard: Socket 939...but Asus, ATI, ABIT, MSI, EPoX... Wich one do you have best experience with? I would like to have firewire and of course USB. Audio onboard would be nice, no need for PCI as there will be no much difference on my speakers anyways.
RAM: At least 1GB.
HDD: 250GB SATA.

Graphic card: At least some hardware acceleration in games is a "must". I'm going to use this machine to play World of Warcraft through Cedega, and seems from the forums that Nvidia chips is the way to go... Though wich producer of graphics card? I want it as decent as possible...but theres a limit to my cash. ;) PCI Express or AGP?

Motherbord and graphics card is actually my biggest concern... Any feedback and ideas are warmly appreciated!

GarySaved
May 18th, 2005, 11:20 PM
The thing I have seen you need to watch for, is things included right on the motherboard. It looks nice on paper, but I had a motherboard with the graphics card built in, and the sound card built in. It was O.K. as long as I used the OEM install CD, but if I went to any other OS, I was finished. It said it was Trident compatible, but I never got anything to detect it.

A newby kind of tip, but I fell for it. (Once)

NoTiG
May 19th, 2005, 12:25 AM
Ever think about going for a 10,000 RPM drive instead of the 250 GB ??

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822144160

I guess it depends if you need 250 GB or 75 GB :P me personally i would never fill 250 .

darkoptix
May 19th, 2005, 12:43 AM
First thing is first... PCI Express is the better way to go BECAUSE pci-e cards are already cheaper than agp... so you save cash and get better preformance.
For sound, unless you plan on having you computer hooked up to sound system(reciever or whatever), onboard is good enough. Like on a PCI-E nforce 4 I think motherboard had 8.1 surround. Nforce is a good chipset, and I would recommend. The CPU you choose IMO is great. So yeah the last thing I would say is to go for a SLI motherboard for future upgrades.

NoTiG
May 19th, 2005, 12:54 AM
I would recommend for a motherboard the MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum SLI Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce4 SLI ATX AMD Motherboard - Retail

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813130487

I think your right in going with an Nvidia graphics card instead of ATI... since the drivers are better.

One more thing: the cpu your getting the amd64 3800 is like 375$ right now. THe expected roll out for the dual core amd 64 processors is suppose to be next month which means prices should drop. If you cant wait till then you might want to get the cheapest one possible (amd 2800) .. which you can get for lik $125 or maybe cheaper. THe amd 64 x2 athlon 4400 is only going to cost 575 :)))))) which is only 200 more than the one you chose :P . if you can afford it i would wait for that baby because its like having 2 cpu's!!!

oddabe19
May 19th, 2005, 03:56 AM
I'd say go for a Gigabyte mobo. I use them in all the PC's I build, i've ALWAYS been happy with them, my roomate has one for AMD 64 which he loves.

IIRC, Serial drives/RAID/SCSI are still shady in linux. Go for IDE, slower but so trustworthy.

Go for an NVIDIA 6000 Series. ATI still makes crummy driver support, but they're getting better.