Building a PCI-Express pc - are these parts ok?

I'm going to build myself a new PC, I think that PCI-Express is probably a good idea in the long run, as is AMD64.

I'm not heavily into games (or anything else too intensive), so having the most powerful kit isn't too important.

I haven't been keeping up to date in the last couple of years, so what do you think of the parts I'm thinking of? (I'm almost clueless about the best type of budget PCI-X graphics card :blush: )

• CPU: AMD Athlon 64 3000 S939 (retail)
• Board: Gigabyte GA-K8NF-9 NForce4, ATX, DDDR400, PCI-E, Gbit Lan, USB 2.0, AC'97 Audio, 4 x SATA, Raid
• RAM: 2 x 256 Mb Corsair Value Select, DDR, PC3200, non ECC
• Graphics: 128Mb Gigabyte PCI-E GeForce 6600 Tv/DVI (directX 9.0c)
  
• Hard disk: 160Gb Seagate Barracuda (7200rpm, 8Mb) - SATA - NCQ
• DVD Writer: Sony 16x DVD±RW Black Dual Layer DVD Writer
• DVD Reader: Sony Black 16x DVD-ROM + 48x CD-ROM IDE
  
• Case: (basic!) Scan 3XS '2013' Black Silver ATX Midi Tower 400W Passive PFC PSU
  
• Monitor: 17" Iiyama PLE435S-S Silver, 15pin D-sub, DVI-D, Speakers, 10msec, 350:1, 350 nits, 1280 x 1024

All can be found at Scan (I think it's ok, people used to recommend it a lot!). The total cost is about £600 (+90 for XP pro), which is much cheaper than an off-the-shelf equivalent from even good places.


Is there anything I'm missing, or anything I could be doing better without spending a fortune?

I built a PCIExpress based machine about 6 months ago, and did a lot of research at the time. I dont know if this is still true for nVidia (i.e. the Geforce card), but nVidia didn't have a true PCI Express interface.

They actually took AGP Cards, used an AGP-2-PCIEX bridging chip, and then plonked a PCI Express connector on the end.
Personally I would stick with ATI Chipsets for PCI Express graphics. I've had an ATI X800 for some time now - absolutely awesome!

Anything from an X300 upwards is good if you're not looking for hardcore gaming performance.

... also ensure the CPU you're talking about definitely fits the socket on the MB ;)

Ah, I heard a rumour about that bridging chip for the graphics (couldnt remember which way round tho), I'd better check it out a bit!

I reckon ATI cards are pretty good from my current card - an early 32MB AGP card that work were chucking out ages ago, that still easily held its own [apart from ram/dx features] a year or so ago. Not sure why I picked an nVidia :confused:

likely replacement: 128M Abit PCI-E ATI RX300SE Guru Tv/DVI,
or 128Mb Sapphire PCI-E Radeon X300 SE 64-bit DDR VGA / TVO


The CPU/MB are both socket 939/Amd64, so I think thats safe.


Does anybody know if Scan is a good place to buy from?

Just as a side note. SE cards are often not what they look like. Like a ATI 9800SE card is most often a "rebuildt" 9500 card and so on. But if you are going to choose one of those then I would go for the Sapphire one. Sapphire makes really good ATI cards.




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Please note: The ATI cards are NOT true DirectX 9.0c cards i.e. they don't support Pixel Shader 3 (I think it is 3, latest one anyway) along with all the 9.0c features.
However, this is a little old and I'm unaware if it's still true.

ATI was also looking at the bridging idea too, but I think the 6600GT should be true PCIe because it was originally just a PCIe card, which was later ported to AGP, not the other way round. Once again, don't quote me on that.

thanks for the info folks :)

as I don't tend to play the latest games I dont think a lack of speed/dx-9c features will be a major issue for a while, so a cheap card for now is probably best - I can buy a "proper" one when I get a need for it, by then (at the rate I go for new games) I will probably need directx10 anyway!

At the moment it is called DirectX Next, and it is not supposed to be out before Longhorn..:)


Well in that case, go for the X300 card. The Saphire one. That is at least my 2 cents...:)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Ideas Man

ATI was also looking at the bridging idea too, but I think the 6600GT should be true PCIe because it was originally just a PCIe card, which was later ported to AGP, not the other way round. Once again, don't quote me on that.

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ATI never went down the bridging route. nVidia came to market wayy before ATI did with PCI Express cards - because they were simply modifying existing AGP cards. I would imagine too that they've true PCI Express cards now.

Though, PCI Express won't give any performance increase over AGP for simply playing games.

I never looked much into PCI Express. Since I don't have it my self. But isn't the bandwidth on a PCI Express bigger then on a AGP port? Hence playing games would be faster? Or is the bandwidth the same, and there isn't any difference at all?

As far as I recall, PCI-E is 16x against AGP's 8x :)

That was what I thought too. And then you will have PCI-Express*2 and so on later on. Well well. If that is the truth then games that uses a lot of dynamic objects, and a lots of textures will run faster. But not games that require this.


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Quote:

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Originally Posted by NoteMe

I never looked much into PCI Express. Since I don't have it my self. But isn't the bandwidth on a PCI Express bigger then on a AGP port? Hence playing games would be faster? Or is the bandwidth the same, and there isn't any difference at all?

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AGP will provide 4GB/s shared between upstream and downstream. PCI Express on the other hand will provide dedicated 4GB/s upstream and 4GB/s downstream.
The HDTV is one of the very few applications where one would require high bandwidth in both directions.

Games on the other hand; the data's only flowing in one direction :)

An update for those who are interested..

After too many issues with my "trusted" suppliers not being able to get suitable parts, i've finally got it all sorted now (arriving early next week).

I ended up with a 256Mb Saphire Radeon X600 PRO, and minor improvements on the hard disk/ram, and apparently a much better monitor (Sharp LL172A) for the same money as I first budgeted for :)