Already got a case with 5 fans. Two on the front taking in air, two on the back blowing out the hot air and a blow hole on the top too. Plus it’s an aluminum case, which conducts the heat off into the surrounding air a lot faster than a steel case (from what I hear anyway).
Now all you need for your ULTIMATE GAMING MACHINE… is games.
No sense in building this type of computer if all you have is Doom…
Well, I just got Deus Ex a few weeks ago. Why didn’t anyone ever tell me about this game? Geeze, it is the…
[comic book guy]
BEST GAME EVER!!!
[/cbg]
I also have Quake 2 which runs fine on my current system and AVP2 which runs at like 1 FPS even when I turn the graphics options all the way down. I can’t wait to see what that game looks like when running under that GeForce 4 card.
As soon as I have the system up and running and burned in I’m getting me the following games:
[ul]
[li]Morrowind III[/li][li]Freedom Force[/li][li]MechWarrior 4[/li][/ul]
And of course, the only reason I’m building this UGM, DOOM III (whenever that comes out). Also, I’ll be scouring the bargain bin in hopes of finding another great game for only $20 like Deus Ex. I’ve never really been big into PC games, more of a console gamer, so I figure I should be able to find quite a few gems cheap.
If UPS and FedEx don’t hurry up and get here I’m going ot burst.
GeForce 4 over Radeon is a good choice… also nice case! I’d like one but it’s way out of my price range.
If your motherboard is using a VIA chipset (and the one you’ve chosen does) do not go anywhere near Soundblasters… they don’t play well with VIA. Get a Turtle Beach Santa Cruz.
SCSI is expensive and overkill for a gaming system. The graphics card is almost always going to be your speed bottleneck for 3D FPS games. And speaking of hard drives, IDE RAID is pointless unless you’re concerned with mirroring drives for data safety… the performance gains with striping are minimal and not worth the expense.
Have fun 
-fh
Thanks for the tip on the sound cardhazel- rah. I’m still sticking with the on board audio for now. I wanna see how it turns out. I’ll keep your suggestion in mind later on down the road if I need to look for a sound card.
I figured I wouldn’t go SCSI because of the expense and because no one ever really mentioned it as necessary to gaming machines in all of the research I did. IDE RAID was another matter. A lot of the opinion I read was split and for awhile I was kicking myself for not getting the second HD, the MB has a built in RAID chip, and going that way. I figure if I ever get enough money to buy a second HD I’ll go ahead and do it but I’m not really worried about it.
As for the case, yeah it is pretty freakin’ cool. But ummm… I didn’t buy it for coolness. Nope, I bought for the very practical reason that I stated earlier that the aluminum will release the heat into the air faster than a steel case would. I am very concerned about overheating on my system. Yeah, that’s it. Also, the fact that I can take the whole thing apart without tools, it is held together by thumb screws, is pretty cool. The MB tray slides out which will help with the installation and lord knows I’m going to need all the help I can get. I was able to find silver faced optical drives and floppies at the same price as beige and white ones so now my whole box will match. I’m pretty stoked about that. Now all I need is a time machine so I can go into this upcoming week and get started on this thing.
It’s not that IDE RAID won’t give you some performance gain, it’s just that given $100 to spend on your computer with the goal of making it faster, the money would be better spent on either the processor or video card.
I wouldn’t worry about cooling based on your setup if you’re not overclocking. The Athlon XP cores are Palomino/Thoroughbred which run cooler than Thunderbirds. You could probably even get away with only two case fans, one in and one out… I’m running a Thunderbird @ 1.4Ghz with only one case fan in a tiny cramped case and it’s OK.
Did you buy a retail Athlon or are you doing the heatsink yourself?
-fh
And leave us not forget regarding games that Unreal Tournament 2003 is coming out at the end of this month…
Heck, I want to upgrade my system just for that one game…
I am getting a retail version, with the heatsink and fan. Buying it that way, I got a one year warranty. If you bought the chip OEM it only came with 15 day warranty. It didn’t add to much to the price so I figured it was a good deal.
I’ve never played Unreal Tournament at all. Never really liked multi-player games. I always got my butt kicked in Quake 2, the only one I’ve ever played in multi-player mode. I figure with the rampant cheating and me being an honest guy it wouldn’t be a good mix. I don’t mind losing to another player because of skill but I can’t stand losing to another player because of cheating.
Two more games to add to my list of games to get:
[ul][li]GTA III[/li][li]Warcraft III[/ul][/li]
Goodbye console gaming, hello PC gaming.
Memory - Crucial RAM is very good as well. I found Kingston RAM a little flakey at times, and (in my circles anyways) Crucial is generally recognized to be a bit higher quality.
Also I would buy the retail chip, ditch the included CPU fan and get a better one. I use a Thermaltake Volcano on my XP 1900+.
Reason I picked the retail chip is because it comes with a 3 year warranty versus a 30 day warranty for the OEM. I already figured I would upgrade the heatsink and fan on my own after I get the machine up and running. It only added $16 to the price of the chip so I figured it was a good trade off.
So…how’s it run? When can I come over and play? 
Well, I finished building on Monday, updated the drivers, and let her just burn in since then. Everything seems to be fine so far, no crashes but she seems to be running a little bit hot or it could be just me. Average CPU temp is 124 degrees and chasis temp is 101. Average GPU temp is about 143 and the video RAM is about 114. The diagnostics software is telling me that everything is fine so I’m not really worried about it. I’m going to install AVP 2 tomorrow and then run out and get at least one game that will use her to her full potential. Final specs are as follows:
[ul]
[li]Soyo SY-KT333 Dragon Ultra Mother Board w/LAN[/li][li]AMD Athalon XP 2000+ 1.66 GHz CPU [/li][li]Kingston 512 MB PC2700 333MHz DDR Memory [/li][li]Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 80 GB ULTRA/133 7200 RPM HD [/li][li]Asus V8460 ULTRA/DELUXE GeForce TI 4600 128MB DDR Video Card[/li][li]Pioneer 16X DVD-ROM[/li][li]Antec True Power 430 Watt Power Supply[/li][/ul]
It is all wrapped up in a kick ass aluminum Lian-Li PC case.
As a side note, what is the best benchmarking program out there? I want to make sure I am using her to her full potential, graphics-wise.
Nice machine, Amp. If you’re interested in the title, Neverwinter Nights is a good game to get to check out the power of your video card. I was playing the game up until two days ago on an ATI Radeon 32MB DDR and it played fine with the options turned down, but when my GeForce4 Ti 4200 came in the other day and I got to turn all the options on high and up the resolution, it really, really looked good (and played smoothly, which is the most important to me).
BTW, I think that Asus GF4 is supposed to be the best video card on the market right now, even better than all the other 4600 cards.
I don’t know about the best, but it is the best looking. The copper heatsink and the purple PCB go very well together. I’m thinking of picking up either Morrowwind III or GTA III this weekend.
I don’t know about the best, but it is the best looking. The copper heatsink and the purple PCB go very well together. I’m thinking of picking up either Morrowwind III or GTA III this weekend.
I believe the “standard” benchmarking program is 3DMark, available at madonion.com.
As far as temps go, what’s your ambient room temp?
Well, my room temp is about 85 degrees when the AC isn’t running, which it usually isn’t.
51C… for an Athlon 2000+ that’s actually pretty cool. AMD rates the XP line for up to 90C, so you’re well within tolerance. My 1.33Ghz TBird idles at around 57C and hits 63C under load and it’s never had any problems. It’s actually not a bad comparison, since the 1.33Ghz TBird and XP 2000+ have almost identical power draw.
The video card I don’t know… if you’re not overclocking it and it’s not causing problems, I’d assume it’s OK. I know GF4s run really hot.
-fh
That’s good to know. I was actually pretty worried. I don’t wnat to burn up the first system I’ve ever built.
Umm, I’m no expert and don’t really know anything, but if this is supposed to be an ULTIMATE GAMING MACHING regardless of price, wouldn’t you go with an Athlon MP? They cost more so they must be better right?