Judge this upgrade!

I'm looking into upgrading the majority of my components and I think I've narrowed it down to this:

- Creative Sound Blaster X-FI Xtrememusic 24BIT Sound Card = $137.73

- AMD Opteron 148 Processor S939 Venus 2.2GHZ 1MB L2 Cache 90NM 64BIT Retail Box = $307.95

- OCZ EL Platinum PC3200 2GB 2X1GB DDR400 CL2-3-2-5 184PIN Pin Dual Channel Memory Kit /W Ramsink = $324.23

- Seasonic S12-600HT 600W ATX12V 20/24 Pin V2.0 Active PFC Power Supply Retail Box = $149.99

- (2 X) Western Digital Caviar SE16 250GB SATA2 7200RPM 16MB 8.9MS Hard Drive 3 Year MFR Warranty = $153.67 (2x = $307.34)

- DFI LANParty UT NF4 SLI-DR Expert ATX S939 NFORCE4 SLI DDR 2PCI-E16 SATA RAID Sound LAN Motherboard = $246.51

- BFG GeForce 7800GT OC 256MB 256BIT GDDR3 PCI-E Dual DVI-I HDTV VIVO SLI Video Card W/ Call Of Duty 2 = $468.95

All of these prices are in CAD dollars and I'm buying my components from ncix.com (probably the best online computer parts reseller in Canada). So what do you guys think about my choices? I want to keep the total around $2000 CAD. Feel free to comment on any of the above choices and suggest which parts I would be better off with. I was thinking about going with Crossfire with X1800XT but that kind of setup was just too much. I will go dual vid card soon though thats why I picked the GT as my video card choice because of its relatively cheap price. I also want to overclock hence the reason why the Opty 148 is my CPU of choice!

IMHO there are better choices than that BFG card when it comes to 7800GT-based cards. The 7800GT OC is no longer the most highly overclocked card as factory-configured.

Also, are you going to use the two hard drives in a RAID 0 configuration (which I don't recommend, though some people like anyway)? RAID 1? Or two separate drives (one for OS and programs, one for storage)?

looks pretty damn good. i personally would go evga for the vid card, but thats just my personal preference. good luck on the build, im sure itll smoke

Johnnyscans said:

looks pretty damn good. i personally would go evga for the vid card, but thats just my personal preference. good luck on the build, im sure itll smoke

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Yeah I was thinking about going with the eVGA card too. BFG warrenty was what made me want to buy that card.

E4g1e said:

IMHO there are better choices than that BFG card when it comes to 7800GT-based cards. The 7800GT OC is no longer the most highly overclocked card as factory-configured.

Also, are you going to use the two hard drives in a RAID 0 configuration (which I don't recommend, though some people like anyway)? RAID 1? Or two separate drives (one for OS and programs, one for storage)?

Click to expand...

Actually I'll be using those hard drives in RAID 0 on my download PC which shall be my current PC I am using. The only reason I'll be creating a RAID 0 is for the sake of having a single partition over both drives so I can store all my data on there. I'll probably just end up using a 74gb Raptor or another small hard drive that performs well in my new rig. As you can tell by my part selection the main purpose of my rig will be gaming.

As for the vid card, would u recommend the eVGA as well?

On a side note... how much do you think my ATI X800 XT Platinum Edition video card would sell for? It's AGP based of course.

P.S. Please state in USD or CAD... it gets confusing because most of the members here are American!

evga vs bfg is apples to apples, each person has their brand they are loyal too. right now thou, it is call of dute 2 vs quake 4.

I wouldn't suggest RAID 0, the down side is gruesome. Also why SATA 2 drives, from everything I've read, current drive units have a tough time filling SATA 1 bandwidth.

You might want to take a look at Maxtor DiamondMax 10 at NCIX. 250GB / $129, 300GB / $154 CAD.

Actually upon further searching I've noticed that the eVGA card is actually $50 cheaper then the BFG one! So I may swing with the eVGA, I was also wondering which hard drive would u guys recommend other than a raptor for performance? I'm trying to cut down costs of this upgrade!

P.S. Do both eVGA and BFG provide life time warranty on their vid cards?