I've got a buddy who wants a system the is fast and snappy, but has no gaming requirement. I'm thinking I'll go for the following or something very similar:

Newcastle A64 3000+ (2.0 GHz)
S754 nForce3 motherboard
2x512MB PC3200 RAM
40GB HDD
128MB FX5200

Three questions:
1. Should I go for a faster CPU?
2. I plan to use my old Antec Smartpower 350W in this system. Is that a bad idea?
3. What do you think overall?

is he doing email, internet, digital, photos,the odd letter, personal web site - that kinda stuff ??

if so you could half those specs and it woulndnt matter

also why the fx5200 its cheap but $40 is still $40 use integrated gfx
does he need a gig of ram ?
+ dont most budget cases come with psu's keep yer antec

i was in the same situation myself was going to build one but in the end went down to office world and got a 2.4 celeron 512mb ram 40gig hdd for £310 couldnt of built it for much cheaper
but heres the real beauty of it and trust me joe youll like this if it goes wrong i dont get bothered he takes it back the shop...

He currently has a 2 GHz mobile Celeron with 256MB of RAM in a laptop. What he gets now needs to feel significatnly faster than that.

Dual monitor option.

I don't know. With enough typical programs open, can you use more than 512MB of memory in Windows XP?

Budget cases come with budget PSUs.
This is a chance for him to get a cheap PSU and for me to dump mine for a little cash (I don't foresee needing it ever again).

So he could get by with a K8 Sempron?

New nVidia IGP chipset is due v.soon & of course ATi already have an integrated gfx chipset (with multi-monitor support if mobo implements it) out for K8.

He needs more hard disk space. 40gb is crap if he's big into storing music or movies. I'd say go 80gb minimum.

guess hes outta luck then if he's not running any program that stresses a 2g celeron - well you know the rest

for the ram : you can easily use more than 512mb under xp sp2, with firewall, antivirus, antispyware, internet with many tabs open (firefox and others), music in the background, etc

ram is cheap, go for 1024, if your friend wants something fast, it's a good option (our hard disks are still so low, when there's swapping); he could really NEED 1024mb if he works on images (photoshop), videos and so on...

and what will the successor of xp ask for ram quantity? thinking of it, this longhorn will ask maybe another rig with DDR2

my 2 cents

1. No, no need.

2. Should be fine, unless the PSU just has a random death from natural causes.

3. Does he need the dual-monitors? Otherwise the 5200 is a complete waste of money IMO.

Is he just a general user (web, email, photos, mp3s, movies, etc), or does he have some more specific area he'll be doing stuff in (sound, video, photo editing, things like that)? If it's the latter I would consider bumping him to 1.5Gb RAM, in the interest of longevity.

Honestly I think that if he's just a general-use guy, you could dump him on a X2 4800+ with a 7800GTX and 4 Gb RAM, and it wouldn't feel that much "faster and snappier." Of course, this is ignoring the fact that his current comp is probably bogged down by spyware and/or simply the age of the windows install.

He's just a general user; more than 1024MB of RAM is out of the question.

He's seen my dual monitor setup and is willing to pay the $40 bucks to have that option.

He does know that you have to buy a second monitor, right?

good enough, but I think the today (and specially tomorrow) user needs a larger HDD.

His laptop is probably lke 90% of the other laptops out there, and absolutely suffocated with programs on start up that make his 2Ghz Celery seem more like a P3-450.

Any 2Ghz CPU (even a Celery) would be plenty for someone that isn't a hardcore gamer.

If you want a "snappier" machine, I definitely agree with the comment about going with 1024 megs RAM. I expect if he is like most "regular" users, he will have several different apps going on at the same time (e-mail, web, audio player), and more RAM is going to help more than anything besides the CPU. The CPU speed will be fine. One thing you definitely want to make sure is that he goes with a decent hard drive, and SATA is the only way to go. I really feel that the speed of a system's hard drive goes a long way to giving it a faster "feel". I agree with the previous comment about going with at least 80 gigs. If he is going to have any kind of broadband connection, he will need that much.

He IS going with 1024 MB of RAM! Don't you guys read????

Good rig, Joe. Don't need a faster CPU. The vid is better than on-board - don't care what anyone says to the contrary - and you can't go wrong with your choice for the money.

Also the 350W will deal with what's there very nicely.

Liking it.

I wouldn't bet on it - it may work but it may not.
Luckily it's only a 5200 for gfx & not something like a 6800GT.

It'll be fine.

Look at Anandtech's numbers from their GF7800GTX tests. That's either a 4000+ or FX-55/57 CPU (don't remember which) and obviously a 7800gtx. Highest power draws for the entire system is about 280W.

It's the no. of Amps on the 12V rail that is critical although as I said luckily its only a 5200 for gfx.
You wouldn't believe the no. of PSU related problems that you see at ABIT, DFI & MSI forums & these are with nominally 500W PSUs (not very good ones though)...

I know that we are talking about nF3 boards but e.g. for nF4 DFI now require that you use a 24-pin ATX plus additional connectors as fitted to the board & "highly recommend using a minimum 480 Watt power supply unit"

http://www.dfi-street.com/forum/showthread.php?t=7619
A64 NF4 and NF3 Power Supply Requirements:

"YOU NEED A 24 PIN PSU TO MAKE THE NF4 BOARD WORK PROPERLY! Epspecially with the 5v memory option. No discussion on this.

If you have an overloaded 12v rail with less than the 25A that DFI recommends, don't even attempt to overclock. You will have CPU errors that cannot be fixed by upping the voltage. The memory controller is on the CPU for A64 and "starving" it for power results in not only CPU errors, but also memory controller errors. Forget the NF2 and Intel chipset logic in terms of your PSU and power requirements. It does not apply here. A64 is a completey different animal."

Of course I wouldn't try to use this supply with a 6800GT. I already yanked it out of my system (4x HDD, overclocked P4, Radeon 9800 Pro, 2x optical drive) because it wasn't hacking it. But a 5200 vs. a 6800GT is like my Honda Civic vs. a McLaren F1 - no comparison.


Textanker, good point about the hard drive. The 40GB drive I listed has 8MB of cache and spins at 7200 RPM. On an nForce3 board, I don't think a SATA drive would be any better. As far as tha capacity goes, the friend has 15GB now and hasn't used it all, so...

If its the PSU that I think it is its 16A on the 12V which would be considered marginal by most on an AMD64 system even with a low end gfx card.