Angry the Clown Posted February 21, 2004 Report Share Posted February 21, 2004 RIGHT, I am just about ready to order all the bits for my new PC. This comprises of a Cooler Master case, Asus mother board, 1gb of Corsair Ram, a 120gb Samsung hard disc plus an additional 80gb Samsung hard disc for media storage, a Sony DVD drive and my existing Sony CD Writer, 430w Antec PSU aaaaaaand a 3ghz Pentinum 4. I'll reuse my current sound card in my Dell for a while. NOW, the final choice I've got is regarding the graphics card. The Sapphire 9600xt is ?121, whilst the Sapphire 9800 Pro (just the Pro, not the All in Wonder) is ?164, so that's ?43 difference. What, dear friends, should I go for, given that I am making this PC to be as future proof as I can, though understand that I mean future proofing a PC as far as I see my personal demands being over the next four+ years. The answer perhaps seems obvious, but I do wonder if the 9800 is overkill for me. The new PC will actually be great incentive to enjoy PC gaming a lot more than I have allowed myself to in the past and I am GREATLY looking forward to the likes of Rome Total War and Battle for Middle Earth this summer. I like to save money where possible, but I have to ask if the ?43 (actually ?35 since I can claim back the tax in writing all the components off as a business purchase) is genuinely an insignificant amount extra to pay for the quality I am going to get form the card. Daniel Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Angry the Clown Posted February 21, 2004 Author Report Share Posted February 21, 2004 Right that's it.... going for the 9800 pro.... Daniel -- talking to himself again Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
exile Posted February 21, 2004 Report Share Posted February 21, 2004 You are doing the right thing. Overkill is a word that shouldn't be spoken when you are talking about PC's because they will obsolete themselves pretty fast anyway Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Romier S Posted February 21, 2004 Report Share Posted February 21, 2004 Again Dan your making the right choice. You'll be very happy with the 9800pro. When you get it send me an AIM and I'll throw some pointers your way on how to get the most out of that bad boy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Angry the Clown Posted February 21, 2004 Author Report Share Posted February 21, 2004 You are doing the right thing. Overkill is a word that shouldn't be spoken when you are talking about PC's because they will obsolete themselves pretty fast anyway Yes, it's very much been my argument in justifying most of what is going into the new PC. The components I have chosen are enough to last me at least four years as far as my own demands in PC performance are likely to be concerned, and that's without overclocking. I'd hope it's safe to say that upon their release this summer I should be running Rome: Total War and The Battle for Middle Earth like there's no tomorrow. When you get it send me an AIM and I'll throw some pointers your way on how to get the most out of that bad boy. Excellent. Is it worth getting the Arctic Cooling VGA Silencer for it, or is something like that best purchased when I am looking to do some overclocking with the card? How loud is the stock fan...etc on the 9800 pro anyway? I am going for the Sapphire version as planned (Retail Lite version). All the components I want are in stock, so all going well I will have everything by next weekend. I don't actually have any recent PC games to try the card with mind you. I may have to fix that... Daniel Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Angry the Clown Posted February 22, 2004 Author Report Share Posted February 22, 2004 Well, everything is ordered. I should have it all by the middle of the week as their shipping is next day. Just a question of putting it all together really. I had best download a few demos of the latest games to try out the card. The Medieval: Total War package including Viking Invasions is relatively cheap too. That should be a good test of how well the new PC and card can handle thousands of characters on screen at any one time. Daniel Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Romier S Posted February 22, 2004 Report Share Posted February 22, 2004 e Medieval: Total War package including Viking Invasions is relatively cheap too. That should be a good test of how well the new PC and card can handle thousands of characters on screen at any one time. Medieval is a great game but not very strenuous. For the most part all those characters are small and sprite based so I doubt the 9800 is gonna break a sweat there. If you want a great test of the card I would suggest downloading the Command and Conquer Generals demo (same engine Battle of Middle Earth is based on). With shadows enabled and at high resolution its a great test for the card. the recent Painkiller demo is also a great test. Its optmized well and at can really show off the eye candy. there are a few others you can try and I'll post a few more in a little bit. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Angry the Clown Posted February 22, 2004 Author Report Share Posted February 22, 2004 I may not be running a thing at this rate as I'VE LOST MY XP PRO DISC! AKIUHRKUWHFKJRHFJKERHGKJEHGJERHGRKJH!!!!!!!!!!!!! Dan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Angry the Clown Posted February 24, 2004 Author Report Share Posted February 24, 2004 All systems go. All my stuff shipped today and should be here tomorrow. I shouldn;t think building the PC will commence before the weekend. I'll be in London on Thursday so I may get Call of Duty or see if Mafia is going cheap. Daniel Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Short Posted February 24, 2004 Report Share Posted February 24, 2004 Dan: The UK could be different, but here in the states, Mafia can be had for $10 at places like Wal-Mart. Just picked up a copy a few days ago. Brian Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iainl Posted February 24, 2004 Report Share Posted February 24, 2004 As a free test, I've got all 500-odd meg of the Far Cry demo lying around; I bagged a CD free from Game last weekend. I'll bring it round with me, along with anything else that looks tasty (ADSL is grrreat). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Angry the Clown Posted February 25, 2004 Author Report Share Posted February 25, 2004 It's all here, sat beside me. Oh how lovely all the bits look. The Coolermaster case is a sight to behold (this is it here). The case should last me a decade or more. Hopefully it's all been a rather hefty splurge of money well spent. My two sticks of 512mb xms Corsair Ram were ?10 cheaper than advertised at Overclockers.uk where I got everything from, which is nice. I got a small bonus too, a single penny dropped out of the box for the P4. :green: Dan: The UK could be different, but here in the states, Mafia can be had for $10 at places like Wal-Mart. Just picked up a copy a few days ago. Hah, with the current rate of exchange that US price makes it about ?5. I'll be lucky if I can find it for about ?15. Call of Duty may outrank it in the purchasing priority, but I've so wanted to play Mafia since it's initial release. My copy of Medieval Total War including the Viking Invasions expansion arrived this morning too so with that, whatever high spec demos Iain here can conjure up, and whatever game I pick up before the weekend, the PCs gaming capabilities should be well tested. Daniel Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iainl Posted February 25, 2004 Report Share Posted February 25, 2004 Bum. I've gone and deleted the UT 2k4 demo after all; never mind, I'll re-download it. Since I need to have minimum details and 800x600 to get it smooth on mine, I'll probably go all envious. Very shiny case, by the way. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Angry the Clown Posted February 25, 2004 Author Report Share Posted February 25, 2004 Right well with Iain's help, for which I am most grateful, the processor and heatsync has been attatched along with the ram and the graphics card. Right now I am living a nightmare of cabling and figuring out what exactly goes where and whether I have enough of em to go around. Daniel Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Angry the Clown Posted February 25, 2004 Author Report Share Posted February 25, 2004 Ok well it powers up ok, no green light on the dvd rom drive. one on the cdrw drive is ok. fans work, graphics card fan spins, but there's no signal coming through to my monitor. Daniel Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Whooter Posted February 25, 2004 Report Share Posted February 25, 2004 Originally posted by Daniel Brecher@Feb 25 2004, 04:32 PM Ok well it powers up ok, no green light on the dvd rom drive. one on the cdrw drive is ok. fans work, graphics card fan spins, but there's no signal coming through to my monitor. Daniel You have the secondary power cable from the video card hooked up, right? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Angry the Clown Posted February 25, 2004 Author Report Share Posted February 25, 2004 I do indeed. The card is powered as the fan works. Daniel Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Buck Posted February 25, 2004 Report Share Posted February 25, 2004 Originally posted by Daniel Brecher@Feb 25 2004, 05:32 PM Ok well it powers up ok, no green light on the dvd rom drive. one on the cdrw drive is ok. fans work, graphics card fan spins, but there's no signal coming through to my monitor. Daniel Does the DVD drive open when you push the eject button? Is your card a dual display by any chance? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Whooter Posted February 25, 2004 Report Share Posted February 25, 2004 What size power supply are you using? What happens if you power it up, you get the horrible "nothing" and then you use the reset button to reset it? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Short Posted February 26, 2004 Report Share Posted February 26, 2004 I had a similar problem with an old computer of mine. Either the motherboard or CPU had gone bad, I'm not sure which, since I just replaced both. I'd imagine it was the MB... could be your problem as well... I think the next time I buy a MB, I'm going to get a MB/CPU combo... putting on the heat sink was very stressfull since it took quite a bit of force to get the spring clip where it was supposed to go and I was afraid I was going to break something. Have you tried removing the CPU and reseating it? Try reseating the RAM too. Brian Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iainl Posted February 26, 2004 Report Share Posted February 26, 2004 How many beeps (if any) do you get? Also, is the CPU fan spinning? Unfotunately, I'm getting the bus home this evening, so I don't know if I'll be able to come take a look. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Angry the Clown Posted February 26, 2004 Author Report Share Posted February 26, 2004 Does the DVD drive open when you push the eject button? No, it doesn't. Is your card a dual display by any chance? It has two outputs if that' what you mean. One is a direct VGA, the other DVI. It cam with a DVI to VGA convertor, and I tried hooking it up both ways. What size power supply are you using? What happens if you power it up, you get the horrible "nothing" and then you use the reset button to reset it? It's an Antec 430w power supply. It all seems to power up fine. Only way to reset it right now seems to be via switching off the psu at the back. I've checked to see if 430w is too little to be powering everything, so I unplugged power to the cd drives and the secondary HDD, and just ran my primary hdd and graphics card. Nothing. Have you tried removing the CPU and reseating it? Try reseating the RAM too. Not yet. How many beeps (if any) do you get? No beep. Also, is the CPU fan spinning? Yup. All fans, graphics card and cPU fan spin nicely. Daniel Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iainl Posted February 26, 2004 Report Share Posted February 26, 2004 Ah. One thing I DIDN'T do (I've just remembered) when I put the motherboard in the case last night was attach all the case wires. There should be in the case to go to the power and reset buttons, and also further ones that do things like hard-drive lights, speaker connection and so on. Make sure you've got all these connected up right (and the right way round, too) - one possible reason for no beep would be that the speaker isn't connected... No beeps at all on boot suggests a problem with the beeper, as CPU, graphics card and memory errors all get beep codes. If you check your motherboard manual, it might tell you if your bios is Award or AMI, but either way there are a lot of loud beeps to signify things like dead CPUs. By default, the floppy will be the first boot device - go get a bootdisk from either your Dell or http://www.bootdisk.com Oh, and a hard shutdown on an ATX device is to hold the front power button for five seconds; if that does anything it will be interesting. fingers crossed... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Angry the Clown Posted February 26, 2004 Author Report Share Posted February 26, 2004 I rigged the buttons ok, I think (as it powers up after all). Mind you, I've not looked ot the HDD LED on the front lights up, so let me check if I have indeed rigged some of those the wrong way round. Dan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Angry the Clown Posted February 26, 2004 Author Report Share Posted February 26, 2004 Those all seem to be connected ok. I tried them the other way round, the work just as well. Still no beep. HDD light is ok though. So it powers on, I get the HDD light. Reset doesnt seem to do anything right now, and I can;t seem to shut down the thing by holding down the power button. Dan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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