building a new PC

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ledzep58

Geek Trainee
I am going to build a new PC for myself. I really don't game so anything extreme would be overkill. So the question is with the following new hardware will this do me for a few good years.
I use photoshop and paintshop pro a lot for digital photos.

mobo - Asus A8N5X or A8N-SLI Pre.
cpu - AMD 4200+ or 4400+
memory - Corsair 4x512mb
graphics - XfX GeForce 7800GT
PSU - hiper type-r 580W oe enermax liberty 500w

I have a Antec case so that's not needed.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

thanks
 
Do you do any gaming? If not, then the 7800GT is overkill. You don't need a high-powered video card for video/photo-editing.

Any particular reason for going with 4 512MB sticks instead of 2 1GB sticks of RAM?

Do you need any more hard drive space?
 
the video card is on sale and I thought why not, it's rated very high. So what would be a good card? As to memory that is what I have now 4x512mb corsair pc3200. I have plenty of disk space. running 2 seagate barricudas 160G sata and have 2 80g ide drives.
My system now is going to my daughter except for the disk drives. I will get new ones for her.
 
What is your budget and what parts do you need? (are you going to be buying new RAM or taking some from your old computer...)
 
ledzep58 said:
the video card is on sale and I thought why not, it's rated very high. So what would be a good card? As to memory that is what I have now 4x512mb corsair pc3200. I have plenty of disk space. running 2 seagate barricudas 160G sata and have 2 80g ide drives.
My system now is going to my daughter except for the disk drives. I will get new ones for her.
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While normally, I'd highly recommend going for the 7800GT, you won't be using it for anything near it's potential. If you're looking to play Doom 3 or FEAR, yes, by all means, go for it, but if you're not going to game, don't spend $300 on a card that won't give you really any edge over a $50 card. You can get away with a Radeon 9200, X300, GeForce 6200, or other low-end card. Look on-line, and you'll probably find most of these cards around the $50 mark.
 
So what you are saying is go for an inexpensive video card. And yes, no games. I was just thinking why not get a good video card. But if it saves money that's even better. Would a 6600GT or X700 still be over kill? these are about $100
As to a budget it's open. I plan on buying new memory. would getting 2 1G be better than 4 512mb?
 
Getting 2 x 1GB modules could be better as if you then want to upgrade further in the future you can then just add more identical 1GB modules, whereas with 4 x 512MB you've filled up your slots and adding more RAM could prove more difficult as sometimes RAM of diferent sizes/latencies/speeds just causes system instability.
 
ledzep58 said:
So what you are saying is go for an inexpensive video card. And yes, no games. I was just thinking why not get a good video card. But if it saves money that's even better. Would a 6600GT or X700 still be over kill? these are about $100
As to a budget it's open. I plan on buying new memory. would getting 2 1G be better than 4 512mb?
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Yeah, those are overkill, but pretty much anything that's come out since 2000 has been overkill. While I still would recommend something cheaper, at $100, you're not screwing yourself like you would with the 7800GT. The video card does not process the video or photo editing, and therefore, while the 7800GT is a nice card, between that and a cheap Radeon X300, you won't be able to tell a difference, and you could divert the saved money toward an X2 4600 or 4800+ instead where you'd get even more grunt in the right spot. Again, it'd be one thing if you were actually gaming, but your not, hence there being no reason to spend that type of money on something you're not going to use.
 
ledzep58 said:
mobo - Asus A8N5X or A8N-SLI Pre. cpu - AMD 4200+ or 4400+ memory - Corsair 4x512mb graphics - XfX GeForce 7800GT PSU - hiper type-r 580W oe enermax liberty 500w
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Just a few things about the setup that you want. A} As the others mentioned, the 7800GT is great for gaming (I would kill for one), but if you're not interested in games, then it's definitely not needed. I would go for a good old GeForce 4. It's older, but cheap now and a good all-round card. You definitely don't need 4x512mb of RAM! I have 512 mb on my machine and I game (I need some more...). I think 512 should do you just fine. As for everything else, seems decent I guess. Keep in mind that what you should get all depends on what you do with your computer. Gamers = high RAM, good video card, decent processor, etc. You could do with a low-end system, which would save you much money. Cheers.
 
Having the extra RAM helps with photo manipulation so haveing 2GB should future proof that for a while and give enough RAM for photo editing.
 
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