Going to be getting a new dell soon.

[NHFoxtro]

Does anyone have any suggestions ( Vidio Card, sound card). I think my best bet is the,

8200 Pentium 4 1.86GHz up to 2.2GHz (any suggestion?)
Ram from 128 up to 2GB RDRAM ( I think 512 is enough?)
20GB to 128GB Hard Drive Ultra ATA/100(7200RPM)
( I think 40GB is plenty)
64MB NVIDIA GeForce 2 or 3 (Does AH support 3?)
SB Live   1024V Digital Sound Card
Windows 2000 or XP?

This is just a question for gaming purposes nothing else. I would like to expierence the most that I can out of Multi player Internet games.

[Red Tail 444]

Get 256 MB Ram, and the GF 4 Ti4600

Also maybe 40GB Drive...

WinXP works just fine, I just gotta dell and have no complaints...I erred in getting integrated sound, which doesnt have the gameport feature.

Good luck.

Gainsie

[Lephturn]

Originally posted by NHFoxtro
Does anyone have any suggestions ( Vidio Card, sound card). I think my best bet is the,

8200 Pentium 4 1.86GHz up to 2.2GHz (any suggestion?)

The faster the longer it will last you.  Basically, go with whatever the best bang for the buck is.. depending on your budget.  Assuming that you want to be "reasonable", I think the P4 1.9 Socket 478 is at the best spot in the price curve.  Depends on Dell's pricing, and your wallet though.  If you've got the cash, go as big as you can.

Originally posted by NHFoxtro
Ram from 128 up to 2GB RDRAM ( I think 512 is enough?)

512 is plenty I think I'd go with that IF it's reasonable.  However, I believe you'll be getting RDRAM with that system, so it may be prohibitively expensive.  256 will be fine if that's the case.

Originally posted by NHFoxtro
20GB to 128GB Hard Drive Ultra ATA/100(7200RPM)
( I think 40GB is plenty)

It totally depens on your personal needs, but I find 40 Gig to be plenty as well.  Nice size, probably what I'd pick.  Only go bigger if you store lots of high quality MP3's (I know folks with 60 Gigs + of MP3's) or DVD movies or something.

Originally posted by NHFoxtro
64MB NVIDIA GeForce 2 or 3 (Does AH support 3?)

Well, AH supports Windows DirectX, and the video cards are made to support Direct X, so yes, AH supports the GeForce 2, 3, and 4 lines.  Get a GeForce 3 or a GeForce 4 Ti model.  DO NOT buy an MX labelled card, because they are cheaper but much slower.  If your intention is to game on this box, you don't want to scrimp on the graphics hardware.  If Dell has it available and you can afford it, get the new GeForce 4 Ti 4600.  It's expensive, but it's the fastest you can buy... period.  If you can't get that one, look for a GeForce 4 Ti 4400 or 4200 if available (I don't think they are in wide release yet) or drop down to the GeForce 3 Ti 200 or Ti 500 depending on your budget.  All are kick-butt video cards.

Originally posted by NHFoxtro
SB Live   1024V Digital Sound Card

That sound card will likely do you just fine.  Still, I'd advise you look at one of the more upscale versions like the Audigy line:  http://www.americas.creative.com/products/product.asp?product=134&category=165&maincategory=1
However, if Dell offers the Live 1024 as the only option other than integrated... take it!  The Live 1024 will do a reasonable job for gaming.

Originally posted by NHFoxtro
Windows 2000 or XP?

I think XP is the way to go for the future.  Win2k is very sweet, but for gaming XP is where the industry is going.  XP is a pretty sweet OS.  However, if you feel comfortable with it and don't mind the extra cash, I'd go for the XP Pro version instead of XP Home.  Pro is much more full featured and secure, while Home has some cool features for purely home use, it's kinda crippled for things like LAN networks.  If it's just you and the family on a single machine, Home might be the way to go, but if you plan to have a home LAN or anything, I'd go with Pro for sure.

You didn't mention a monitor, but with a rig like that, it would be a shame not to have a decent quality 19" monitor to view all that goodness.

[Red Tail 444]

<-----note to self....never reply until Lephturn has.



THAT'S what I call an answer!

[NHFoxtro]

hehehe Gainsee, Lephturn is informable.

Your rite Lephturn about the monitor, I forgot. hehehe

I was looking at the1702FP Digital Flat Panel 17"
whitch will give me a17" vis
The Trinitron 19" is $370 cheaper with almost an inch more vis,and I was leaning toward the lighter monitor (the 17"FP),but I'll take any suggestions that you have.

[orion8x]

Lepturn pretty much hit it right smack between the eyes. The four most important things to consider for performance:

Monitor: 19" flat screen is probably your best bet on a value per dollar basis. There are many flat screen 19" that sell for a lot less and uses the Sony tube.

CPU: Check out the new line of Pentium 4 CPUs with 512k cache. They're coded "A" such as 2.0A for 2 gig 512k. I just upgraded mine from a PIII and used a P4 1.6A. Talk about sweet! It works just great in AH yielding 60 frames all the time at the highest video settings. I didn't even have to overclock the CPU and it would do 2.2Gig easily without complaining!

Memory: As Lep said, 512 is great! The latest comparisons show that systems using DDR ram runs much faster than SDRam and not really slower than RAMBUS types. So look for a system that will use DDR ram and preferrably allows use of DDR 2700.

Video: Ti200 card. Dollar for dollar, they perform the best! You can overclock most to Ti500 specs.

Check and see if a Dell can build you a system with these incorporated. Otherwise, do you have to buy a Dell? Reason being that you can get some pretty good stuff custom built for less. For example, I just upgraded and bought my P4 1.6A from Mwave, great store that won't kill you on the mailing portion. A system with the following specs:

INTEL PENTIUM 4 DDR SYSTEMS
CG 6039L CASE W/FRONT USB
LITE-ON 16X DVD / 1.44 FDD
DIAMOND SUPERMAX V.90 56K
SOUND BLASTER LIVE! 5.1
ALTEC LANSING AVS500 SPEAKERS
MS KEYBOARD & INTELLIMOUSE
(ABIT BD7-R-Specs; INTEL PENTIUM 4 1.6AG - 478; 512MB NON-ECC PC2100; AOPEN G3 TI200 64MB DDR AGP W/TV; 40GB IDE HDD; SONY 24X/10X/40X CDRW; MS WINDOWS XP PRO; NO MONITOR)  costs          $1150

Flat 19" Sony monitor at Mwave for about $330.

For $1500, you can have a much better system than what Dell or any other name brand can offer. The mobo is Abit, as good as they come. The CPU is retail boxed, meaning sealed/untampered with its fan. Everything else is retailed boxed and you get XP Pro.(Remember, both the CPU and video card can be overclocked easily to give you P4 2.2Gig Ti500 performance. A screamin machine!)

BTW, I don't work for Mwave as other merchants can do the same I'm sure. I just believe in passing on some real "gems" and small businesses that do a bangup job!




Regards!

[Lephturn]

Originally posted by NHFoxtro
hehehe Gainsee, Lephturn is informable.

Your rite Lephturn about the monitor, I forgot. hehehe

I was looking at the1702FP Digital Flat Panel 17"
whitch will give me a17" vis
The Trinitron 19" is $370 cheaper with almost an inch more vis,and I was leaning toward the lighter monitor (the 17"FP),but I'll take any suggestions that you have.

Unless something has changed since the last time I looked, the flat panels still really don't have the "update speed" for gaming.  They are lighter and smaller and all that, but they quite simply can't re-draw the images fast enough.  They are getting there, but you are building a gaming box, so for now a CRT is the way to go.  A decent flat screen CRT 19"  will do very nicely.

Now as for buying a Dell... well I recommend to my friends and family to buy Dell unless they are building themselves.  Please post if you are interested in building something yourself, and I'll give you a whole different list of things to look for.  It's a lot more of a pain to do it yourself, but you will save money and learn lots.  Plus there are lots of folks here on the boards who will help out.

Also, I think Dell has a line you can get with DDR SDRAM instead of RAMBUS.  I think it's the 4400 line?  Go with the DDR SDRAM instead for compatibility reasons as well as price.  If you go DDR SDRAM you'll be able to afford 512 MB for the price of 256 RDRAM.

[Red Tail 444]

I have a P4 1.6, and a GF2MX card...

256RAM 40GB Drive.

Does anyone recommend I overclock CPU or video card? I get 60-high 80 frames usually..

[Samm]

Dude you're getting a dell .

[SKurj]

Red Tail my advice for anyone wishing to overclock is this...


Do you have the 'spare' cash sitting around in case you fry something and need to replace it?

You will get a small increase overclocking the video card, I don't think its worth it.

A video card upgrade would be a quite large performance increase for you.  If money is an issue, perhaps the GF4 MX's will suit you.


SKurj

[Nemo]

CPU: Check out the new line of Pentium 4 CPUs with 512k cache. They're coded "A" such as 2.0A for 2 gig 512k. I just upgraded mine from a PIII and used a P4 1.6A. Talk about sweet! It works just great in AH yielding 60 frames all the time at the highest video settings. I didn't even have to overclock the CPU and it would do 2.2Gig easily without complaining!

Can you overclock a Pentium 4?  I thought they were "clock locked"?

Nemo

[Lephturn]

They are clock locked I believe, but that really means "multiplier locked".  IE, the CPU runs on a Frontside Bus at X speed, and the CPU itself runs Bus speed x multiplier.  Therefore although you can't change the multiplier, you CAN up the bus speed that it is based on to overclock it.

[orion8x]

A 1.6gig P4 CPU runs on a clocking of 16.0 with a front side bus of 100mz. Many motherboards will let you adjust the FSB and the really good motherboards will let you increase it 1mz at a time if you wish. The 2.2Gig is reached when you apply a FSB of 133mz.

I've run just about every machine I've ever owned overclocked since using 80386 processors and has yet to fry a CPU. I have 4 running in overclocked mode at home for the kids and Dad and they're all working fine.

The P4 "A" series are particularly good for overclocking because of the 512k cache(read the reviews for all the technical details). I believe they are are even more stable.

How one uses a CPU is a matter of personal choice. When I upgraded, I thought 1.6mz on a P4 was not enough, so I had planned on overclocking it to get as much noticeable performance as possible. The key word is "noticeable" and really begs on the law of miminishing returns; i.e. given that the connection is solid and I can get AH to run smoothly in all situations, that's where I stop pushing my machine. To my surprise, the P4 1.6A I purchased appeared to really do the trick for me (I was using a PIII at 933mz).

I would take Lepturn's offer on advice for a machine; that way you will have multiple opinions but I believe you will get all you want with the machine specs I posted. See MadOnion site and see if you can review what combinations give you the best performance; they test their rigs with the 3D Mark package.

It would be really nice to see someone put together an AH oriented test to see what frames you can get given various specifications. Grey Eagle had one for Air Warrior and that acted as a really good benchmark to see what players were getting using a variety of CPUs and video cards, etc. It was also a very good site to see which brands were the most effective. We're all on a limited budget at some point, so how can we spend our hard earned dollars most effectively.

Good luck with the new rig!

[Red Tail 444]

Dimension 4300, Pentium 4 Processor at 1.6Ghz
256MB SDRAM
17 in (16.0 Viewable,.25MM) M782 Monitor
64MB NVIDIA GeForce2 MX Graphics Card with TV-Out
40GB,ATA-100,7200 RPM,Hard Drive
Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition
10/100 PCI Fast Ethernet NIC Factory Install
MUSE XL optiplec soundcard w/ PCI Bus

I paid 1300, and I have 3COM 221 cable modem.

I get 60-89 frames per second, with a mean of about 74. My vid is underpowered, but the game still runs smoothly. Spending cash on a GF3 or 4ti 6400 won't improve much for me other than frames, so this is working fine for me.

Hope this info helps.

gainsie

[SKurj]

Yup Gainsie you are correct!!

In many of the new titles being released currently you would get some new eye candy using the GF4 Ti's (not the MX's) but in AH it would just be frames.


SKurj