NewPC,for around 34000/-please suggest best configuration(s)

[saiko]

My brother is buying a new computer, he is going to use it for heavy 3d-graphics based applications like 3dsMax etc,

the budget is around Rs34000/- (+/-)Rs 2000/-

the 2 options he has seen
1.P4 3.0 HT with intel 915 motherboard, OR
2.AMD 64bit, 2800+/3000+ with Asus K8S motherboard.
(with 512 mb DDR 400 and 120gb HDD.)

he wanted me to help.....but i dont have any idea about the recent options available in the local market.....

could u please suggegest some more(best possible!) options and configarations...locally available


thanks in advance.

[pimpom]

"Locally available" ?? Where are you located ? Or do you mean available in India ?

[saiko]

my brother lives in Calcutta.....
by "locally" i meant whatever can be easily found in India.....

i am not located there, so its not possible for me to find out the informations from the market whatever is commonly available.

[sachinc]

You will get the below for around 35k

AMD Athlon 64 3000+ 800MHz FSB
Asus K8Vx Motherboard
Hynix 512 MB DDR Ram 400 MHz
80 GB Seagate HD SATA 7200 RPM
17" Samsung CRT
Logitech Keyboard and Optical Mouse
Cabinet, SMPS, Cooling Fan with front USB
Sony CD RW DVD Combo
Creative 2.1 Speakers
Gigabyte Radeon 9600Pro 128MB

[pimpom]

Athlon 64 3000+ ..... 7400
MSI K8MM-ILSR motherboard ..... 4350
512MB Hynix DDR400 ...... 3800
120GB Seagate Barracuda 7200rpm ...... 3650
Liteon CD-R/W ..... 1500
Sony FDD ....... 300
Cabinet, keyboard, optical mouse, spike guard, mouse pad ...... 2400
Samsung 793MB monitor (17" flat-tube magic bright) ...... 7600

Total so far = 31000/-.

The balance of your budget can be spent according to what your brother needs. E.g., if gaming is also important, then a graphics card better than the onboard one should receive priority - at least an FX5200 (about 3000/-). Or more RAM, or a DVD writer instead of a CD-writer, speakers, and so on.

I live far from Calcutta but I have some good contacts there. If you or your brother would PM me with your email address, I could point you in the right direction or introduce you to my contacts.
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[saiko]

thanks a lot pimpom and sachinc for the info...

....featurewise Asus K8Vx seems to be better than MSI K8MM...Is it? whats the price difference?

those two motherboards have 754 socket which is supposed to be replaced by motherboard with 939 socket (in fact it's already been!).....

is ther any option available with those new 915 pin motherboards...

few more questions,
is nvidia nforce chipsets better than via ones?
how important is it to have PCI-express slots which is common in most P4 915/925 chipset motherboard? as it does not eem to be common in most AMD motherboards.


best regards...
saiko

[pimpom]

Higher configs based on an S939 CPU + mobo will fall outside your budget unless you reduce the other items, which would be meaningless. That's why I suggested an S754 system.

I don't have the current price for the Asus K8V series but it's higher than that of the MSI K8MM-ILSR.

While the K8V-X does have some extra features, keeping your budget in mind, ask yourself if you need those features. Are you really going to use the 2 extra PCI slots, 1 extra RAM slot and Gigabit LAN ?

Also consider the fact that the MSI board has Firewire (IEEE1394) built-in. And if gaming is not important, you can also save the cost of a graphics card.

nVidia chipsets are generally regarded as the best for AMD systems, but VIA comes a close second.

PCI-E x16 slots are for the newer generation of graphics cards. AFAIK, at present they are incorporated only on the more expensive S939 boards.

N.B.: To those who PM'ed me about where to buy in Calcutta/Kolkata, I'd like to make it clear that my sources are NOT some black market operations. They are legitimate retail outlets that, within my experience, have been reliable over the years.

Their prices are not always the cheapest (no seller can offer the lowest price in everything), but they are usually very reasonable, and are sometimes lower than those of many shops in Bangalore, Lamington Road in Mumbai or Nehru Place in Delhi.

I repeat that I will let my sources be known only to those who are willing to give me their email address and other details in their PM.
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[saiko]

thanks again pimpom for ur reply

is there any motherboard available with that s939 CPU and PCI-express configarations as 2-3 thousand rupees more can be spent considering the future upgradability of the system.....as those features are likely to become common in near future.....
(although...in this market every second week the 'latest' stuffs becomes outdated! )

saiko

[progistheway]

Go for 1 GB DDR RAM (512x2). It'll be worth it esp. if u're usin it for 3Dmax and other memory hungry apps like premiere and the like. Also you could get a Samsung SP1213 120 GB for about USD 85 here. I believe it won't be much different there. U could even forfeit the extra RAM and get two of these sleek babys to run in raid-0 conf. Believe me man there's nothin like it. over 70 MB/sec....