We’ll I finally broke down and instead of upgrading my 2.5 year old P3 system, I bought these components…
Main Components:
Kingwin KT-436B-WM Aluminum Mid-Tower
-All Aluminum. Windows on both sides and a top window!
-4x usb ports and 1x fire wire… Also has slide out motherboard trey.
Gigabyte (motherboard combo) kt400 7vax w/ 8X agp
a) Corsair 512mb 3200 ddr
b) AMD 2000 XP
-the motherboard supports 2100-3200 ddr and 4x, 8x agp video cards
Western digital 100 gig hd w/ 8mb cache
-hopefully the 8mb cache will speed up some apps.
Western Digial 30 gig hd
-the 100 gig is used for entertainment, while the 30 gig will be used for school work and work in general.
Gainward Geforce 4 TI 4200 (128 mb.)
-This card has overclocking features that will let me get to 4600 level.
Windows XP and Norton 2002 virus protection
-bought Windows XP for $85 and Norton (OEM) for $12. Not a bad deal.
TOSHIBA 16X-DVD/48X-CDROM EIDE INTERNAL *2X DVD-RAM playback!
-This dvd player has gotten some great reviews and it’s cdrom is at 48X.
8… TDK 48X/16X/48X EIDE INTERNAL CDRW
-This cdrw has gotten some great reviews and will look pretty good in my new case.
MITSUMI 1.44MB FLOPPY DRIVE
-Wasn’t going to go with a floppy but you never know when I might need one.
Sub Components:
12" Cold Cathode Kit - White
10" Silver Rounded Single Device Floppy Cable
2X 18" Silver Rounded Dual Device ATA-133 Cable
16 Blue 1/2" Nylon Cable Sleeve
3.5" Blue Tie Wraps
I want to trick out my case.
Cyborg Everglide mouse pad
-it’s thin, blue and works good with optical mice
Microsoft optical mouse and microsoft natural keyboard pro (OEM)
-The keyboard and mouse only cost $15.00 each, but they are OEM products. Still the items are new.
Plantronics DSP-500 digitally-enhanced gaming/multimedia headset
-I will not have speakers for a month or two so i got this. It’s gotten so-so reviews but has the microphone. And it’s usb and I found it for only $60.00!
Belkin Nostromo SpeedPad N50/ Belkin Nostromo Dual Analog US
-Got the speed pad because I’ve heard great things about this item and the game pad because I’ll need one.
Total = $1450.00 (rounded)
I allready have:
Sony G420S 19" Trintron Monitor
Epson C60 printer
I figure I did pretty good. I should have a kick ass system that will play all the new and future titles as we’ll.
Also… Since I will sell my current system for $300-400 then I should recoup back some of my expenses.
Did I make the right choices? Would you have done things differently?
thanks…
Now all i gotta do is put this thing together… Oh who’s build a PC’s guide should I use?..
PC gamer’s
Maximum PC’s
Conmputer Games
Gamespots
Anandtech’s
How are the windows? Are they alittle bit to much? Do they scratch easily? And how is that gamepad? It looked a little weird, but it got great reviews.
thanks…
Also… I agreed with Jason Cross and his recent article… He stated that the asthetics (look) of a case should be just as important as whats in a case. Looks matter just as much as horsepower. That’s why I went with the Kingwin case.
We’ll I figuered the performance wouldn’t have made that much of a difference and I was trying to save a bit of money. I figure I’ll upgrade to a faster processor in 6 months. I’ll probably get the AMD processors (2700 or 2800) that will have the increased fsb next time I upgrade.
uhm, hmm. If you too 2.5 years to upgrade from your PIII, how come you’re planning on upgrading the CPU in six months? :D :D :D
And since you probably only have one system, what are you planning on doing with the 2000XP in six months - at which time you couldn’t get your best friend to take it from you for free. ;)
I don’t think the windows will be any problem. i ahave a lian li pc-65 with clear side and a blue cold cathode and i didn’t have any problems with scratching.just be careful where you lay the side and you shoudl be fine. My only problem was finding a good place to mount my cathode. i ended up with it upright along the back of the computer, but i wanted to have it horizontal across the top or bottom, but the components block too much of the light.
Huong
I’d get a different motherboard. I’m working on a roundup of seven KT400 boards now, and the Gigabyte was the only one that was relatively unstable. It even rebooted during game tests a couple of times. NeverWinter Nights refused to run. Note that this was all on clean Windows installations with fresh drivers and pretty stock components.
So far, I like the Shuttle AK37GT, the MSI KT4 Ultra and ABIT AT7Max2. All were solid, and reasonably speedy.
The windows are cool, slightly tinted and durable (but I’m careful). I have a dual 12" blacklight CCD I picked up from Azzo along with the uv-sensitive silver braided cables (5 in all). It’s a very nice effect, and the tint combined with the subtlety of uv ccds makes for a tastefully understated look.
The gamepad is very good for complex tasks. I actually used it to entirely drive my second PC in daoc… everything my mana chanter (tagging along behing my pac healer) ever had to do was programmed in - it was seamless and removed the need for reaching for the other keyboard. Don’t bother installing the CD drivers, they’re buggy - get the ones online.
I know the problems that you have encountered… Toms hardware also encountered this problem and they said that it is now fixed.
Here is part of the paragraph:
“First, the bad news: unfortunately, the Gigabyte board almost completely refused to work with the Athlon XP 2600+ after a few seconds, it would turn itself off again. Even upgrading the BIOS did not improve matters; only a test with the Athlon XP 2000+ showed that the board appeared to function. However, Gigabyte confirmed that this issue only happens with some pre-release samples (some bug within the thermal protection of the new Athlon XP) and already sent us the mass-production version of this board, which runs flawlessly and will take part in our huge KT400 roundup soon.”
Hey good system ! Exactly what I would have purchased. Although I am biased towards ASUS motherboards so probably would have got an ASUS. But it doesn’t matter what it is as long as it is stable.
I don’t think I can ever go back after having to haul my new machine and my old machine up the stairs from where I built them. Even just moving the aluminum case to open it up and work on it is easier. It is almost effortless to move it in comparison.
