New Build Questions

[catacon]

Should I try to get a real person or will the automated thing work OK?

[hobey19]

atx 2.0 (or smartpower 2.0 if you go down a little further on each). smartpower is antec's name for it, but any psu you see as atx 2.0 or atx12v are the new standard (24-pin as opposed to 20-pin)

craig

[hobey19]

Originally Posted by catacon Should I try to get a real person or will the automated thing work OK?

why not just do it over the net?

craig

[catacon]

Sorry, I didn't see that 2.0 thing.

This computer won't have internet. I might be able to set that up though. If I can't what would you recommend, the real person or the automated?

[hobey19]

automated works just fine, have done it on more than one occasion when the pc is not connected to the net

craig

[catacon]

Cool, thanks alot guys!

Here is a review of all the parts:

*Motherboard - DFI LANPARTY UT nF4 Ultra-D Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce4 Ultra ATX AMD Motherboard - $130

*Case - Antec Solution SLK3000-B Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case - $50

*PSU - Antec SmartPower 2.0 SP-450 ATX12V 450W Power Supply 115/230 V UL, TUV, CB, FCC CLASS B, CUL - $70

*CPU - AMD Athlon 64 3200+ Venice Integrated into Chip FSB 512KB L2 Cache Socket 939 Processor 2.0Ghz - $205

*Memory - CORSAIR ValueSelect 1GB (2 x 512MB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM DDR 400 (PC 3200) Unbuffered Dual Channel Kit System Memory Model VS1GBKIT400 - $75

----------------------------------------------------------

Video Card - BFG Asylum -- have it

Sound Card - Mad Dog 5.1 -- have it

DVD-ROM (2) - Reuse from old comp

Floppy - Reuse from old comp


Things with *'s by them are things I am buying new.

Hope everything looks OK.

[hobey19]

from previous posts, i can't tell if you have a hard drive, and the previous doesn't mention one, so just making sure you have one

craig

[catacon]

I am reusing an WD 40GB IDE one that I have in my current computer.

[Antistupid]

By that, am I correct in assuming that you are also reusing your operating system?

[catacon]

That I am. As I said before, I am reusing Windows XP.

[catacon]

In this picture:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Showim...board+-+Retail

where are the 6 audio ports? I just noticed there are only two that I see by the PS/2 ports.

Also, is ClawHammer/Hammer a good core, or should I stick with Venice?

[Antistupid]

Oh, ok. I didn't see that.

The two that is by the PS/2 ports are S/PDIF in and out ports. I checked the DFI website, and it looks like they ship the audio jacks separately. It looks like it goes between the S/PDIF and the USB ports. Look here: http://www.dfi.com.tw/Upload/Product...Front&All1.jpg You can see the audio jacks on the left side of the picture.
ClawHammer is the innitial core for the A64. I would go with venice, with the fixed memory controller, over the ClawHammer. Both would perform fine, but Venice would be my choice.

[catacon]

OK, cool, thanks. I was worried for a moment there. Will those ports be difficult to install?

[Antistupid]

No, I don't think it would be that hard to install. It looks like you seat it in and then plug some cables in.

[catacon]

I read somewhere that using the onboard audio uses up more CPU than PCI audio. Is that true? Should I use my PCI sound card, or will the onboard be OK?

[Antistupid]

Onboard audio is basically a cheap PCI audio chip that's stuck on your motherboard. It goes through the PCI bus and it does the computing. It isn't anything different from any cheap sound card. If you want really high quality sound for sound editing, then an expensive card would be good, but for anything else, you won't notice any difference.