[Felix]

i posted in your other topic, guardian.

i think it might've been the ep2 topic actually?

[Felix]

the breakdown of what i posted in the ep2 topic is more or less as such:

radeon hd 2600xt, 512m
athenatech uATX case w/ 350w psu
- the $100 2x1Gb memory deal of the week
- a core 2 duo
- the cheapest uATX, c2d supporting mobo you can find that's from a decent manufacturer
- i'm sure you have a hard drive and DVD you can borrow from someplace

~ $500

[Felix]

[Felix]

as far as firewalls go, pretty much the easiest, most common, perfectly efficient way of doing things nowadays is to go through a router and have the SP2 firewall turned on. so not to worry. also, you can choose to forward specific ports, so bittorrent can work just fine.

anywho- no, going small does not really constrict you, so long as you don't go too small. you'd only be limited insofar as certain logical limitations would be implied; if the power supply is built into the case and proprietary, for example, you're not replacing it, and you probably aren't fitting two video cards to work in tandem (yes people do this nowadays) in there without some heat issues. if you plan on having more than two hard drives and more than one optical drive, no, it's probably not for you, but apart from that. also keep in mind that most off the shelf cases you can buy which aren't marked "micro" or something to that extent are really absurdly large.

as for the soundcard question: nobody i know has a sound card, and i would keep on saying no to you beyond a shadow of a doubt if you hadn't said the word "mixing". if that gives you a better idea.

valve games work just fine on nvidia cards. they're just optimized for ati, and they happen to be practically the only ones.

[Felix]

what you've got to watch out for, though, is that case's 250w PSU, and the fact that it only has "low profile" (read: not any video card to speak of) PCI slots.

fans are also case-dependent, and more or less a numerical thing. do not get any case that has fans >60mm; they will be loud. 2x40mm are typically much quieter than even one 60mm, also.

also, don't spend more than $30 on a dvd drive.

[Felix]

honestly, guardian, the athenatech case is kind of a miracle combination of form and function - it's not THAT big, and 350w is plenty for powerful but energy efficient parts like the hd2600.

trying to plan around low-profile videocards is not worth it, honest. expansion slots are what you plug PCI devices (like videocards or wireless network cards) into. it's (yet another) case of the piece being standardized ten years ago too a size which is now effectively double what is really needed (go buy a modern wireless card for example; it'll look like an L).

SD/MMC/CF etc. are all memory card readers.

[Felix]

honestly, in theory you could fit most/all full size PCI cards into low-profile slots by hacking off the far end of the piece which is supposed to face outside of the case.

what i mean is: http://www.kustompcs.co.uk/acatalog/6721.jpg

i've never actually worked with low-profile cases before; my understanding is that the metal bar just juts out an inch or two not quite so far.

in the case of the (remarkably conservatively designed) video card i keep telling you to buy, mind you:
http://regmedia.co.uk/2007/05/14/amd_2600_xt_1.jpg

you wouldn't have so much luck.

[Felix]

okay, yeah, we're starting to run up against a clear difference of opinions in here. as regards videocards:

the first digit of the model number is what series it is part of. radeon 8xxx matches up roughly to geforce 3/4, radeon 9xxx is a little better than geforce 5 but radeon Xxxx is a little worse than geforce 6, and then radeon X1xxx is equivalent to geforce 7 and radeon HD 2xxx is equivalent to geforce 8.

the second digit is how good the card is intended to be. 8/9 is top of the line, 6/7 is second-tier, anything below that is "budget." as a general rule, the second-tier card from a given generation will be not quite as powerful as the top of the line card from the previous generation, but will have whatever newer features were introduced with that line (such as dx10).

as such, radeon hd2600 = geforce 8600, which you don't see anyone recommending to you because, again, ati makes sensibly designed, efficient, relatively inexpensive yet relatively age-proof stuff, whereas with nvidia the idea is generally to get the best that there is.

DVI is the digital version of VGA (which is analog).

if you are not overclocking your processor, you do not need a heatsink (it comes with a stock one already). also, as regards motherboards, why not buy this one? (i'm kind of asking that rhetorically, you see; my experience is with nice little microATX stuff, which, yeah, that athenatech case requires.)

also, when buying an LCD monitor, you want to keep in mind that it will look dramatically better at the highest resolution it supports than any other due to the nature of LCD. while i think panoptic is exaggerating slightly to say that a 2600 will require most of bioshock's advanced features turned off to run well at, say, 1280x1024 (it won't), it's certainly going to take a performance hit if you start wanting to play games at 1920xfuckme, and again with an LCD you really really really want it running at its maximum resolution all of the time.

get a c2d rather than a dual-core, definitely, but do keep in mind that you start paying dramatically more money for less and less significant increases the faster you go. also, though it kind of goes without being said, in looking at the recommended system requirements for games (which, by the way, up until six months ago still standardized the processor speed in terms of a p4 - about half as efficient as a c2d), if you have a fast enough processor, then the game's not going to run any better for having a faster one. video cards are a different matter.

and hey, lest this topic stop sounding like "felix is cheap; panoptic is not," do you really think you need all that storage?

[Felix]

i feel like i've pretty much said my piece at this point, but based on the above post, i'd just like to clarify that the x1950 is not a directx10 card (and running it on <400w is a little worrying), whereas the hd2600 is, and frankly six months is an absurdly short amount of time to plan on waiting between upgrades. though it's been said before, source is, for the most part, extremely undemanding compared to anything else you'll be wanting to play. don't forget that.

and i guess i'll reiterate one last time based on the case panoptic linked in his last post that it stands to reason that the only cases i find to be at all sensible-looking are those which have some kind of "micro" designation. having the space for five optical drives really turns me off; to each their own.

my budgeting, assuming you take the larger hard drive along with more or less everything else i've recommended as the topic has played out, would run you about $850 with monitor in the final analysis.

also, 1440x900 is a nice choice.

i'd be happy to answer any other questions you have, at any rate.

[Felix]

call me biased because i'd love to see this thing in person all put together in a couple months' time.

bioshock; eh, i can't imagine you wouldn't get 40+ frames in 1440x900 with everything on the highest or second-highest setting except AA.

[Felix]

it's 100% post-processing (by definition) so logically, yeah, it's a pretty signifcant hit, second only to resolution.

ALSO! guardian. good news. the fact that you think of 40 frames per second as "pretty reasonable!" (for the most demanding game on the market, mind you) means you are officially in my camp. unequivocal diagnosis.

ALTHOUGH KEEP IN MIND that this just struck me: i was not taking it to heart until now how often you for some reason plan on upgrading this thing (seriously six months is crazy talk), but my case/PSU pretty much locks you into nice second-tier ati cards. the idea with these, as i said before, is that it's just silly to buy one more often than once every two/three years, but just so we're clear.

[Felix]

consoles games variously run at 30 (MGS3), actually, which you probably knew. and 40 looks remarkably closer to 60 than 30.

10/100mbps ethernet is what every network card on the planet is.

also - sigh - though i hate them, if you dislike the athena case so much, these are that much more expandable.

[Felix]

heh, nope. really it'd just make upgrading to the inevitable geforce 9800 a year and a half from now only cost five hundred dollars.

(please don't be stupid and do this)

(upgrade to the radeon4500 in twice as much time for two hundred bucks)

[Felix]

for what it's worth, if you must i'd recommend an 8800 over an x1950.

[Felix]

would you rather have a 2006 civic or a 2002 passat?

[Felix]

okay, yeah, i admit that was pithy as hell, and also it kind of stands to reason that when trying to come up with the automobile equivalent of "top of the line consumer device" the best i could do was a passat.

with respect to all of the points you raised above, i'd like to clarify that my original intent in recommending the 2600 went hand-in-hand with the small case, relatively weak PSU, etc. it was always a package mentality, and if he's definitely going qpack over athenatech, then it's that much less relevant.

[Felix]

shaper, go ahead and read through this topic; given the few requirements you've set, i'd say my advice is more than generalizable to your needs, and this topic is actually pretty readable overall given the subject matter.