Thread: Building a PC
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Luca
ಠ_ರೃ
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Minnesota
 
2005-06-22, 19:51

Working link.

The case could be a bit better... often times a little extra fit and finish goes a long way towards how much you like the system. Put it in a crap case and you'll hate it, put it in a good one and you'll like it. I'd suggest spending about an extra $30 on the case. Nothing fancy or expensive, but maybe something a *little* bit nicer than that ugly Rosewill crap. Since you have a microATX motherboard, maybe you'd enjoy a microATX case as well? I've heard good things about Inwin cases.

The other thing is that graphics card. Don't even bother with the GeForce MX4000 (just a rebadged GeForce 4MX). The motherboard you selected has an integrated S3 video chipset, so if you don't care about graphics performance you should just save your money and use that. If you do want a little graphics performance, get something a little nicer than a GeForce 4. There are several options for cards that are still very cheap but perform better:

GeForce FX5200
GeForce FX5500
Radeon 9250
Radeon 9550

All but the 9250 support Pixel Shader 2.0 and DirectX 9. None are super performers but they're not too bad either... if you have any desire to do any gaming with this box, any of the following should run current games fairly well at medium settings, especially the Radeon 9550. They're not exactly "future-proof," but it doesn't sound like you're making a gaming box anyway. As long as you make ABSOLUTELY SURE that you don't get one with a 64-bit memory interface (128-bit is a must), any of those should be much better than a GeForce 4MX.

And while I realize that you're probably saying you don't care about graphics performance, I still say you should avoid the GeForce 4MX, if only to convince companies to STOP F*CKING MAKING THEM!!! They're awful cards, outdated when they came out and even worse now.

PS. I should mention you picked a good motherboard/processor combo. Semprons are great low-end chips that'll still easily handle anything you throw at them, and they absolutely molest comparably-priced Celerons. Of course I'd love to suggest going with Socket 939 and an Athlon 64, it's ridiculous and you don't need that kind of performance. Save your money.

Last edited by Luca : 2005-06-22 at 19:57.
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