Depends on the differance in price and how confident you feel in installing the CPU. When I bought my A64 3400+, I went the OEM + heatsink route because it was cheap and I knew it'd be a simple install. Static Bracelet may be worth the few bucks, I've never used one, but have never had an issue to to the fact I have an area with hardwood floor and do all my hardware installs and upgrades on that. 

All upgrades and computer building should be done naked (it's just common sense :) 

I'll take a stab at all these posts and questions with some advice. Not end all be all, but a few hints and tips when it comes to purchasing hardare.

Blitz:
Looking at the rig you mentioned I had a few suggestions. First off, why the different HDs? If your going to put them in a Raid 0 setup, you should really just get 2 of the same. The Seagate gate one you mentioned is quailty by itself too, that's alot of space. Remember if you place a set of SATA drives in a RAID0, you get twice the performance because it splits the data across both drives. This however means if one drive goes bad, so does your other.

Also your videocard I think will leave you wanting more. You really should consider at least a Nvidia Vanilla 6800 if your looking at mainstream cards. It has 12 pipes and the core is only a little off the GT models. In Doom3 benches it even beat the X800Pro. It smokes the 9800 pro in all benches as well. If you got that 9800Pro you'd be GPU limited in a lot of games, don't handicap your rig like that if your going to spend the money. Perhaps just ditch a gig of that ram instead.

Processor wise, if your going to go Intel, and your intent on playing Doom3 alot you may want to actually consider a Prescott core instead. The extra L2 cache size does provide a performance boost. I believe I read it on Tomshardware.com. Otherwise, in just about every other title I'd suspect the Northwood you chose would be fine. As mentioned as it is an OEM chip, you'll need to consider a cooler. I personally would just get a retail box that comes with a cooler if your not going to overclock. Otherwise, look at a Gigabyte 3D Cooler Pro. It lights up cool, and has great performance from every review I've read.

Jago:
Do not purchase any of those cards unless you want to play Doom3 at it's lowest and ugliest settings. They all have slow clocks, and low memory bandwidth because of the 128bit memory controllers (or something like that). What kind of system are you running on now, if it's a older rig you should maybe look at a Nvidia 5700 , or 9600. The 9600s tho I believe are mostly just 128 meg cards. Performance wise you should read the articles on Firingsquad.com about mainstream cards and their performance in game. Save yourself some more money before purchasing a videocard.

You can look at the performance benches at http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/doom3_pt3/ . Blitz you should read that too.

As mentioned before there are a lot of guides out on the net for Doom3 performance on various topics. Below is just a quick list of links that you can read up more. Later I'll compile a list of HL2/Source benches that were done recently on the CS:Source port.

http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/doom3_perf/
http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/doom3_perf2/
http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/doom3_pt3/
http://www20.graphics.tomshardware.com/graphic/20040809/index.html
http://anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2146
http://www2.hardocp.com/article.html?art=NjQ0

By no means comprehensive, but all those together should really inform you on upgrading your videocard if your mostly interested in Doom3 performance.

Till next time 

When I said "twice the performance" on a RAID0 setup, I meant twice the space. Wanted to clear that up. 

Blitz, since this is your first self-built system, I wouldn't even worry about RAID. I'm guessing you aren't, considering those 2 drives are different capacities and makes.

Like prod did mention, if you are eyeing the 266$ 256mb 256bit radeon 9800 pro, for a little more you can get a generic 6800. Up to you really, unlike prod, the rest of us exist in a world where money _is_ a factor.

Personally, I just ordered some new athlon64 stuff, but will be waiting a little while to get a new video card. 

Blitz
Yes, like ProdigyXL said, you should get the "Prescott", they say the performance is noticably better, and it doesn't cost much more, actually, here in Australia, it is actually cheaper than the supposedly slower "Northwood" CPU, so check it out

Jago
If you are stuck with those cards to choose from, I would go with the FX5700, although, you should get a 256MB version, it wont cost much more, and the difference will be worth it.

As for your ti4200 vs FX 5500, don't beleive all the bench marks/reviews etc. (it may well be true in this case, but) While I was waiting for my GF6800 Ultra to show up, I went out and bought a FX5700 256MB card so I would be able to play DooM3 with a DirectX9 card until my 6800 Ultra showed up. All the reveiws, benchmarks I read said that it would be slower than a ti4600. I had a ti4600 Ultra, so I thought that it would be slower again. Anyway, I went to the store to see what DirectX9 Nvidia cards they had in stock, they had a FX5700 256MB, I asked they person, and he said "no, you would be wasting your time, because your ti4600 ultra would be faster". But I really wanted a DirectX9 card for DooM3, so I bought it anyway. Turns out, the card IS noticably faster than the ti4600 Ultra, whether or not it is the 256MB vs 128MB or not I don't know (it wouldn't hurt) but it proved all the benchmarks/reviews I had read wrong, so I now take them with a grain of salt.
Anyway after all that my 6800 Ultra turned up 2 days later, so the FX5700 is now packed away in the cupboard. 

All of the CPU/Heatsink combo packages I looked had negative user comments saying that the processor got too hot with the out of the box heatsink. So I dunno =( 

I'm looking for a PC for me to take to university.
The budget should be roughly �2000
It will be used for many purposes, but the most demanding will be gaming and mapping of course.
I'm looking for an all round system, with a good TFT and good speakers.
I lean towards wanting an AMD processor and a geforce 6800 (it wins for doom 3!)

I dont have the time to build the system myself, so it'll have to be prebuilt, and availible in the UK. I also don't trust myself with putting top-quality kit together to a very high standard :) . I have some choices i've already found, but I'd really like you guys to suggest some other options. These are some i've been looking at:



Scan Computers
http://systems.scan.co.uk/Systems/ConfigureFS.ASP?SystemID=55
Pros: Great manufacturer! Uses my dream case, great keyboard+mouse, cherry-picked components.
Cons: Expensive as hell! Ouch! I'd have to lower the spec in a few ways (they include an mp3 player for some reason :/). Also, have they got a 6800 ultra in stock?

Mesh Computers
http://www.meshcomputers.com/updated/xtreme_3.htm
Pros: a great Sony 19" LCD, fx53 cpu, 500 gigs of HDD, audigy ZS Platinum
Cons: case doesnt look too hot, has software and joysticks i dont need. Generally though, really damn good as far as i can tell.

Overclockers UK
"Ultima" Pentium IV 'Northwood' 3.4 GHz
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/full_systems.html
Pros: experienced custom pc company, great components
Cons: have heard mixed reports on delivery times and customer service. The price doesn't seem too spectacular. CPU is a little crap?

Carrera PC's
http://www.carrerassc.co.uk/carrera_sysconf2.asp?systemvar=h
configure this with some high specs and youve got a good pc i think
I really like Sharp LCDs too



To me it seems that the MESH is the best deal, if you can beat it, show me the goods! :) The only thing wrong with that is I dont want a case that shitty for 2000 quid, and I dont have great faith in their abilities to set up the system as well as someone like scan would.

these are just ideas, I'd love to see some more suggestions...
TIME IS RUNNING OUT
thanks for any help you could give guys 

You haven't really built a computer if you haven't used hammer at some point ( 'form factor compilant' PCI-NIC).
Buying brand stuff is for pansies!

And 9800pro being a bottleneck is pretty humorous in my opinion. 38fps at 1024 resolution in doom3 is plenty fast enough for me, espcially since in the game it doesn't go that low very often. 

2000 squids to blow. I'd go for Evesham, I've used them twice and have been generally impressed with quality and reliability. They have a good reputation as well and they aren't DEll which is a big bonus.

http://www.evesham.com/PCs/index.asp?e=50CDAA2C-7250-4FB6-96A8-2C360BD2D322

I'd lean towards getting a good CRT for now, I looked into TFTs/LCDs but they're still not really recommended for gaming. Plus you save several squids that way for more ram/GFX etc.

Bollox to the case and shit. Evesham ones (not the fancy X shit, the normal ones) are pretty elegant anyway. 

Soon, I'll be plonking down �1500-2000 squid on a brand new desktop pc. Primary usage: gaming, mapping, Maya. At the moment, I'm thinking Alienware. Any thoughts? 

See reply to Starbuck. 

Don't buy Alienware. You're paying a ton extra to get a neat case. 

(me secretly wants the groovy case) 

case aside - they make spiffy systems, no? 

alienware makes nice stuff, but they are overpriced.

you'd be better off making the thing yourself. you can save quite a bit that way. and you can buy a nice case. ;) 

Given that most of the people on this board are specifically upgrading with Doom 3 in mind I thought I'd compile a couple links to benchmarks for actual CPUs recommended for the game. Many benchmarks that have been posted so far only take into account the graphics card and not that platform that the card is running on.

As I've mentioned before I read that the Prescott cores for Pentium 4s are faster and below you'll find evidence of that. Unfortantly many of these articles only account for higher end processors. Still they are very informative and will give you a guiding light in creating the right system for you.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/doom3-cpu.html
http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2149
http://www.gamespot.com/features/6104596/p-4.html

Those are really all I could find but the Anandtech one is the most comprehensive. It says all that needs to be said about the CPU and Doom 3.

I am considering post a series on creating different gaming rigs on certain budgets. If anyone is interested let me know.

P.S. Don't by Alienware, there is a multitude of reasons, but most because they are just too pricey. 

For the record, I am very impressed with how well doom3 runs on my (new) athlon64 3000+ with only a geforce 4 (without tweaks). I run 1024 med and it just flys. I haven't seen a noticeable slowdown yet. I'm sure a gig of ram helps things also. I was planning on seeing how it ran with the gf4 before considering buying a new graphics card and I'm glad I did, I'll be waiting a while. Something to consider for those looking to upgrade methinks. 

I'm about to order my computer I posted above right now, so I'm wondering if there's anything else anyone noticed about it. (incompatibilities, nuances, etc.)

Also, scampie I looked at that heatsink you linked and it says it's only for 3.6ghz and over so I dunno if that'll work. 

it doesn't matter as long as it's for the proper socket, otherwise it won't fit.

i think they probably meant it's good for 3.6ghz and above plus everything below. 

yeah, evesham was definitely an option, but for the same money, MESH Computers win by a fair margin, and I see them as a similar company. I generally agree with the case statement, but that mesh case is just :P :P.

Also, you are of course right about CRT's but this is for my room at my halls of residence, and i want to have room to sleep.

As far as the "build your pc or you aren"t a real man" comments go. i haven't seen any spec that can beat that mesh for the same money if you buy individual components, and i've asked some smart clevor people. As i said before though, prove me wrong! 

Starbuck: Computers built by hand go faster, thus you get more for less. 

I run 1024 med and it just flys.

Try putting it on the high detail setting. You'd think it would run a lot slower... but for me, there is actually no difference in performance between medium quality and high quality (the resolution change made a big difference, but the change from medium to high quality made no difference, at least in timedemos). I have to run at 800x600 high qaulity (also with a geforce4) but my cpu is a good deal slower than yours. 

Try putting it on the high detail setting.
You mean 800x600 high like you run? I briefly tried 1024 high and saw a noticeable performance hit. I'm more than satisfied with 1024med but I'll try 800high or 1024high, maybe with those image cache tweaks, and see what its like. 

Nah, I wouldn't want to drop the resolution - if its running well at 1024x for you, then that's excellent.

I just meant that, regardless of the resolution, make sure you try all the settings (well, except ultra :)

When I first set it up I just assumed I couldn't run it well in high quality because the game recommended 'medium' for my setup - and from what I read on the web, medium was best for 128 meg cards. However, at least at 800x600, setting it to high had no performance hit.