Making the ultimate Doom 3 PC

[Alientank]

Has there been any talk of the release of the R350 or 400?

EDIT: This reminds me, will Doom 3 be more dependant on the video card then the CPU? I know the cpu is needed for calculations etc, but will a stronger GPU be a bigger requirement then a faster CPU?

[Katarhyne]

It's unlikely R350 will be just an R300 with DDR2. ATI doesn't generally change model numbers without some change to the core. For example, R100 was the original Radeon 64MB DDR card, the 32MB DDR card, and the 32MB SDR card (and later, the 64MB SDR card). The RV100 was the Radeon VE. The R200 was the Radeon 8500, the RV200 was the Radeon 7500 - amusing, since the Radeon 7500 was based on the R100 core. But anyway, we don't want to get into their naming scheme, it's brain-dead.

I agree, Julian, that ATI has done and still does some really retarded things (qv, the naming scheme), as a company. But the hardware is solid, and the drivers are improving every day. I'm to the point now where I'll trust beta ATI drivers before beta Nvidia drivers, seeing as how the 40.xx Detonators are extremely unreliable for me. I never worry about customer support; I never need it.

Anyway, it's far too early yet to speculate about R400 and NV35.

Mark my words: NV30 will not compete with R350. Period. NV30 hardly competes with the R300, in the form of the Radeon 9700 Pro. I still find it amusing that so few people have realized that that fan was NOT part of the original NV30 design, and that it was [edit]ripped off from Abit[/b] to get the NV30 core to a ridiculous clock speed so that it could outperform the R300, because Nvidia realized that the NV30 wasn't really going to compare favorably, just competitively, with the R300 - and that's pitiful for a card that will have come out, what, seven months later? Eight months? As I said, current estimates are April.

And before anyone starts calling me an ATI fangirl and an nvidia hater, you should know that I recently purchased my fifth motherboard based on an Nvidia chipset. I love the Nforce chipsets. ^_^

[EVIL]

Yeah.. the nforce chipsets rock!

[Alientank]

OK this is a stupid question but Would an Nvidia card work better on an Nforce board better then an ATI card would? Also I assume they are only for use with Pentium 4 chips. Are there Nforce boards that support 3.06 ghz?

[Katarhyne]

Nforce chipsets are only for AMD Athlon processors. They do not support any Intel processor except the NV2A/MCPX chipset in the Xbox.

The nForce2 supports all AMD Socket A processors.

And, no - I'm using an ATI Radeon 9700 Pro reference board on an Asus A7N8X and it's working fine, at AGP8x. I previously used a Radeon 8500 128MB card in an Abit NV7-133R, and it worked perfectly.

[Alientank]

Kat what board would you recommend for a 3.06 ghz cpu? I need to know this.

[Katarhyne]

...I don't use P4s. You'd have to talk to my brother. You can e-mail him at auxois@gt.rr.com or you can catch him on AIM as "Lord Auxois" or "Auxois Black". He semiprofessionally builds P4s in the same manner that I semiprofessionally build Athlons. It's a kind of playful rivalry we have.

That said, I rather like the Soltek SL-85ERV and ERV2.

[Alientank]

Alright thanks I got both his names on my AIM list so I will talk to him

[Use]

What do you think of DDR400 Kat? I'm looking for a new motherboard for an AMD system. Any suggestions? I woulda grabbed ya on IRC but you just took off ;P I'd like the try out the Nforce chipset but which boards are the best?

[Alientank]

Well I went on pricewatch and got all the top end crap for around $2500 Canadian. That's cheap.

[Katarhyne]

What do I think of DDR400? Well, naturally, it rules. Faster memory is always a good thing.

However...

You'll often see motherboards (most notably the VIA KT333 and KT400-based boards) being advertised as supporting "DDR400 Memory!" or having "333Mhz DDR!". In reality, these boards only really have the capacity to run the memory at 333 or 400Mhz, while the system bus languishes at 266Mhz. This doesn't do you any good - since the CPU, the backside (video, sound, network, storage), and memory are all connected by the system, or frontside bus, data can only be transferred between these things at the frontside bus' speed. In other words, your memory may be capable of 400Mhz data rates, but it's going to be limited by your frontside bus's data rates.

To really get DDR400 memory speeds, you're going to have to run your front-side bus at a true 200Mhz speed (400Mhz effective data rate, thus the moniker "DDR400"). The newest Athlons are rated for 166Mhz, and thus all of the very newest motherboards (most KT400s, all Nforce2s) support 166Mhz bus speeds, and they unofficially support 200Mhz bus speeds. The problem is that ramping up your bus speed will overclock your processor as well, and as such, you need to have some pretty high-powered cooling. I'm currently selling AthlonXP 2600+ systems that run at a 200Mhz bus speed with Corsair DDR400 memory which blow away anything you'll find at Dell, Compaq, IBM, or any other manufacturer, including Alienware, Falcon, and VoodooPC. Sure, they're overclocked, loud, and pricey, but they're rock-stable and you will not find a faster system for sale.

[Alientank]

Kat I hear they are bringing forth new mobo's for the .09 micron p4's running ddr400 at 667 and 800mhz fsb's. Would that take advantage of the rams capabilities fully?

[Use]

Katarhyne said:

I'm currently selling AthlonXP 2600+ systems that run at a 200Mhz bus speed with Corsair DDR400 memory which blow away anything you'll find at Dell, Compaq, IBM, or any other manufacturer, including Alienware, Falcon, and VoodooPC. Sure, they're overclocked, loud, and pricey, but they're rock-stable and you will not find a faster system for sale.

Two questions:

How much? and do you take money orders? ;P

as for my unfinished p4, I got a soyo P4X400dragon lying around with the via chipset. It claims to have ddr400 support like you said. I'd be willing to get a different p4 board if you had any suggestions?

[Captain Red]

You’re all a bunch of nerds
:P

[Ichor]

Soon to be a bunch of nerds playing Doom 3 for days at a time, heheh.

[dsm]

Ct_red_pants said:

You’re all a bunch of nerds
:P

Shut up, of course they are nerds! This is a tech forum - there's bound to be nerds in a tech forum.

[Katarhyne]

Kat I hear they are bringing forth new mobo's for the .09 micron p4's running ddr400 at 667 and 800mhz fsb's. Would that take advantage of the rams capabilities fully?

Well, Alientank - what I was saying applies largely just to Athlons. P4s have a quad-pumped front-side bus - QDR, if you will - and thus the memory speed is generally the limiting factor. On P4s, it's often not such a bad idea to run your FSB at 133Mhz (533Mhz QDR) and your memory at 200Mhz (400Mhz DDR) or even faster than that. That is, on current DDR P4 boards. Soon, new P4 boards will be coming out that support dual-channel DDR like the Nforce, so it won't be necessary to run your memory at exorbitant clock speeds to get the highest performance from your bus.

Katarhyne said:

I'm currently selling AthlonXP 2600+ systems that run at a 200Mhz bus speed with Corsair DDR400 memory which blow away anything you'll find at Dell, Compaq, IBM, or any other manufacturer, including Alienware, Falcon, and VoodooPC. Sure, they're overclocked, loud, and pricey, but they're rock-stable and you will not find a faster system for sale.

Use3D said:

Two questions:

How much? and do you take money orders? ;P

as for my unfinished p4, I got a soyo P4X400dragon lying around with the via chipset. It claims to have ddr400 support like you said. I'd be willing to get a different p4 board if you had any suggestions?

As I've said before, I don't particularly watch P4 stuff as avidly as I watch Athlon stuff, but I particularly like the P4X400 chipset. The last P4 system I built used the Soltek SL-85ERV board, which has that chipset. It DOES have true DDR400 support.

As for my systems, I've only ever sold one over the internet and I got screwed somewhat. I'd be happy to do it again, but I'd have to make certain I got my money - I may be well-off, but $3000 is a lot of money. Coincidentally, that's how much my top-end systems cost. Like I said, they're pricey. ^.~

[Alientank]

Is there already ddr400 memory out Kat? Also I see on pricewatch they have like ddr2100 2200 etc. What is the ddr400, anything over 3000? And what would I be looking at for a gig of the stuff to use with the new 800 mhz boards and 3.4 ghz .09 micron p4.

[Katarhyne]

Pricewatch tells me $91USD for 256MB Corsair XMS3200 (DDR400), and $172 for 512MB. Good memory, it's what I use almost exclusively.

PC2100 is 133Mhz, PC2400 is 150, 2700 is 166, 3200 is 200, and 3500 is "DDR433", or like...215Mhz memory. Weird stuff. Anyway, keep in mind that the only ones of these that are really official are PC2100 and PC2700. The rest of them are purely made-up.

[Alientank]

Katarhyne said:

Pricewatch tells me $91USD for 256MB Corsair XMS3200 (DDR400), and $172 for 512MB. Good memory, it's what I use almost exclusively.

Alright, would you recommend it over RD1066? Well, then again, I want to use it with the 800 mhz FSB motherboards that will come out next year. Have you heard anything about release dates for them? And could I expect a huge performance boost with a gig of ddr400 RAM on an 800mhz fsb compared to on a 533 mhz fsb? Also, will mobo's be made to be compatible with the new 3.2 and 3.4 ghz .09 micron p4 chips that are coming next year as well, early on. Sorry for the questions but these are all things I need to know.

[gatewatcher]

Alientank said:

Well I went on pricewatch and got all the top end crap for around $2500 Canadian. That's cheap.

I want to know how you pulled that off, what with buying a P4 3ghz chip and all.

[Alientank]

The good mobos are going for tops $50, the good 80 gig hard drives are going for cheap as well, about 150 bucks. dvd and cd r drives are less then 50 bucks. audigy 2 sound cards are less then 200 bucks, good crt monitors you can find for less then 300 bucks. the p4 3 ghz I found for 700 american. Kat said she found 512 mb of the ddr 400 mhz ram for about 190 bucks I think. So about 380 for me since I want a gig. Speakers I haven't checked for but no doubt 6 or 5.1 surround sound ones arent that expensive. It equals out to around 2500 canadian.

[Katarhyne]

A good motherboard's going to run you at least $120US, or more.

As far as I know, the next-gen P4 motherboards are going to be dual-channel DDR (dual-channel DDR400 == 800Mhz data rate == 200Mhz QDR bus), so DDR400 or even DDR433 (if you can find good CAS2 parts) would be your best bet as far as memory.

As far as your other questions, yes, you will see a huge performance boost from 533Mhz FSB => 800Mhz FSB, and I don't know if motherboards are being made to be compatible with the new 90nm P4s.

[Alientank]

Katarhyne said:

A good motherboard's going to run you at least $120US, or more.

As far as I know, the next-gen P4 motherboards are going to be dual-channel DDR (dual-channel DDR400 == 800Mhz data rate == 200Mhz QDR bus), so DDR400 or even DDR433 (if you can find good CAS2 parts) would be your best bet as far as memory.

As far as your other questions, yes, you will see a huge performance boost from 533Mhz FSB => 800Mhz FSB, and I don't know if motherboards are being made to be compatible with the new 90nm P4s.

I would figure that the new chips would be compatible with the 800 mhz fsb mobos. I hope so atleast or I will be extremely pissed.

[Dubh]

This is what I will be aiming for in Feb 2003
All prices are in Euro which is equivalent to US Dollar.
Any comments/advice on this setup?

Asus A7N8X Deluxe DDR Motherboard - With 8X AGP & 6 Channel Audio 222.31
CONNECT3D RADEON™ 9700Pro 128MB -8 x AGP 549.00
AMD Athlon XP Processor - Various - Socket A 2.7GHZ 423.14
Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 2 Platinum 239.67
ChiefTec TX-10 Tower Server Case 140.84
MAXTOR MX6L040J2 40GB 7200 RPM 103.31
512MB DDR512PC2700 208.26
512MB DDR512PC2700 208.26
Sony Trinitron 21" CRT 908.26

[Alientank]

Dubh said:

This is what I will be aiming for in Feb 2003
All prices are in Euro which is equivalent to US Dollar.
Any comments/advice on this setup?

Asus A7N8X Deluxe DDR Motherboard - With 8X AGP & 6 Channel Audio 222.31
CONNECT3D RADEON™ 9700Pro 128MB -8 x AGP 549.00
AMD Athlon XP Processor - Various - Socket A 2.7GHZ 423.14
Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 2 Platinum 239.67
ChiefTec TX-10 Tower Server Case 140.84
MAXTOR MX6L040J2 40GB 7200 RPM 103.31
512MB DDR512PC2700 208.26
512MB DDR512PC2700 208.26
Sony Trinitron 21" CRT 908.26

The computer I listed is better then that, and I'll be paying less then you are. You would pay 549 US for a Radeon 9700? Are you nuts? You can get them online for $200.

[Katarhyne]

Not bad, Dubh - but why are you getting an Audigy 2 for your A7N8X-based system? The Nvidia Soundstorm that comes on your motherboard is in many ways a superior audio solution. Also, I'd lose the Chieftec case for a Lian-Li or Coolermaster aluminum design. But other than that it looks great.

Alientank, he's not in the US and while the Euro is essentially equivalent to the US Dollar in value, the parts still cost considerably more over there. Most of the vendors on Pricewatch do not sell overseas.

[Alientank]

Oh ok

[Dubh]

Yeah, Looks its a nice setup.
About the Radeon, that was just one vendor.
I have gotten a price of 250 Euro since then.
Incidentally, prices in Ireland aren't that much more expensive than in the states. I travel to the States every year (for past 10 years)
It used to be alot ALOT more expensive here but things have changed in the past few years.
In some cases prices are considerably less.
Not to blow my countrys trumpet or anything but Ireland is one of the leading suppliers of hardware for Europe.

Will the onboard sound really be better that my original plan??
If so GREAT.

I plan to build this rig over the next 3 months hopefully Doom will be released in March/April (maybe optimistic but hey!)
The only real trouble with a machine is the price of a decent sized monitor. Any suggestions on screens?

[GS-1719]

Dubh said:

The only real trouble with a machine is the price of a decent sized monitor. Any suggestions on screens?

21" is just needlessly big imo. You're going to have run some very high resolutions if you do take that option. I would say 17/19" at most on a flat CRT which are nicely priced.