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$1261 AMD system or $1429 Intel System?...

S

soccrstar

Limp Gawd
Joined
Feb 22, 2003
Messages
164
OK,

I decided if i'm going to upgrade my current 2.66ghz p4 w/ gigabyte sinxp1394 mobo using generic ram

i might as well go with latest stuff
as i'm not going to change it again for nother 1-2years as i've had this system for year and half now

i already have a monitor (Samsung SyncMaster 191T 19" LCD :D )
I currently have a logitech elite pro keyboard w/ logi MX700 (waiting for MX1000 to be bundled with a keyboard b4 purchasing)
I currently already have a sounbaster audigy 2 platinum sound card
I currently already have a Logitech Z-680 5.1 THX certifed sound system
I currently already have a HP PSC2210 All-In-One Printer

i picked out some items both on intel and amd side
if you going to change anything on either list feel free to do so and also which of 2 that you'd choose

now i got couple questions:
1) how long (tech wise, etc) would these systems last?....
2) of course i'm going to be overclocking :D no way gone spend $600.00+ on cooling system and not overclock so.... Which would give me the best high performance overclocking wise (i'm going to be mostly DVD authoring, encoding, transcoding, converting, mp3ing, burning, heavy duty multi-tasking, Quickpar recovering, extraction, and compressing.
here are the 2 systems
1) AMD - If i go AMD i will buy the CPU, Mobo, and dvd burner for now and buy the rest of system as i get money
2) Intel - if i go Intel i will buy CPU, mobo, dvd burner, and RAM now and buy rest later as i dont currently own DDR2 ram
Thanks for your input!!!!!!!
AMD System
CPU: AMD Athlon 64 3500+, 512K, L2 Cache, Socket 939...........$271.00
Motherboard:GIGABYTE GA-K8NF-9 nForce4 Motherboard..........$150.00
Ram: OCZ EL DC Series Gold Edition 1GB(512MBx2) DDR pc4400..$325.00
DVD Burner: Sony DRU710A.....................................................$92.00
Hard Drive1: Western Digital 36.7GB 10K RPM SATA Hard Drive..$110.00
Hard Drive2: Western Digital 36.7GB 10K RPM SATA Hard Drive..$110.00
Video Card: SAPPHIRE ATI Radeon X700 PRO Video Card..........$203.00
Total Cost (includ Shipping) =.................................$1261

Intel System

CPU: Intel LGA775 Pentium 4 550 3.4 GHz...............................$281.00
Motherboard: ABIT "Fatal1ty AA8XE" 925XE Motherboard..........$248.00
Ram: Corsair XMS2 Pro Series DC Kit 1GB(512MB x 2) DDR2 PC2-5400..$385.00
DVD Burner: Sony DRU710A.....................................................$92.00
Hard Drive1: Western Digital 36.7GB 10K RPM SATA Hard Drive..$110.00
Hard Drive2: Western Digital 36.7GB 10K RPM SATA Hard Drive..$110.00
Video Card:SAPPHIRE ATI Radeon X700 PRO Video Card...........$203.00
sub-Total Cost (includ Shipping) =......................$1429.00

P.S. Going Peltier

I currently already have a dual slot floppy resevoir
I currently already have a black ice radiator
I currently already have a black ice pro radiator
I currently already have a meanswell 320 pelt PSU
I currently already have a ehiem water pump

should i go 360w pelt waterblock or go water chilling via swiftech MCH-452? http://www.sidewindercomputers.com/swmc45thlich.html if i go 360w pelt i will need the 600w meanswell PSU
if i go waterchill i will need a 2nd 320w PSU and a waterblock or maby put 360w pelt on CPU and use waterchiller to run water thru it?.... dont know if that would be sufficient worth the cost vs just going one or either

WaterBlock: Dominator Pro 360 Watt Qmax TEC Waterblock:...........$200
PSU: Meanwell SE-600-24 600W:....................................................$175
GPU: Swiftech MCW50-T:...............................................................$75
Black Ice Xtreme III Triple 120mm Radiator........................................$135
Tubing, clips, misc items................................................................$50
Sub-Total.......................................................................................$635
 
as far as your hard drive choice, just get one 74 gb raptor instead of 2 36gb. its faster and there are links here to back me up, raiding or not.

so one 74gb raptor and a 300gb seagate for storage :)
 
I'd go with the AMD system, but with the following changes:

1 74Gb Raptor (read other posts about performance) for ~$50 less

A 6600GT of some sorts for ~$200

Sony burners are poor quality...expect them to die when the warranty goes bad :( I'd save ~$20 and snag a LiteOn or NEC burner with the same speeds.

And I'm not sure how extreme you'll be with your peltier cooling, but you could save ~$100 by getting some Corsair XMS TwinX1024 family memory and still be able to overclock very well.

But in a long-story-short summary, go with AMD :D
 
Its hard to say which would be better unless you tell us what your using the system for. The Pentium 4 will be noticeably faster at multitasking if you plan to run multiple CPU intensive tasks. It will also be faster for productivity software, encodeing, and several other areas.

The Athlon 64 will be faster for gaming and FPU intensive applications that use alot of math and are not multithreaded.

You may have more overclocking potential with the 3.4E then the A64 3500+, especially with the Peltier.

MaMMa said:
as far as your hard drive choice, just get one 74 gb raptor instead of 2 36gb. its faster and there are links here to back me up, raiding or not.

so one 74gb raptor and a 300gb seagate for storage :)
Click to expand...

One 74GB raptor is faster in certain areas then 2 36GB raptors but one 10,000 RPM HDD wont be faster then 2 10,000 RPM HDD's in RAID0 overall. It would be impossible for the one 74GB raptor to be faster at writing data. The 74GB raptor will however be faster in seek time so thats why it seems faster for normal desktop usage. If you were working with large files or moving a large file then the 2 36GB raptors in RAID0 would be much faster then the single 74GB raptor.

endoman said:
Go with amd!

Intel vs. Amd: http://www.tomshardware.com/cpu/20040601/socket_939-30.html

The AMD systems dominate in terms of gaming performance and multimedia applications... If your going to be doing a lot of video encoding, go with the intel system... Otherwise, go with the AMD system.

3dmark results: http://www.tomshardware.com/cpu/20040601/socket_939-19.html

:)
Click to expand...

In games yes, in multimedia applications no. There are certain applications, especially ones that are not multithreaded, that the Athlon 64 will be faster. For the most part though the Pentium 4 is still faster for heavily CPU intensive tasks and is noticeably smoother in operation for running multiple applications. An Athlon 64 will come to a stand-still if you try to run more then one application that uses a ton of CPU power. A Pentium 4 will divide up the processing power more efficiently and allow you to continue on with other operations.

Here is a good review -

http://www.techreport.com/reviews/2004q4/pentium4-570j/index.x?pg=1

Also keep in mind that Intel chipsets are more stable and have better memory compatibility. With most Intel systems you just install everything and your good to go. With an AMD system, especially Athlon 64, you install everything, troubleshoot for a few hours, then your good to go lol.

I just built an Athlon 64 3500+ 90nm and MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum and it took me a while to get everything working properly. I have Mushkin PC3200 lvl1 memory ATM and it didn't like that RAM at stock settings at all. I was getting hundreds or errors in Memtest86+ and i was using the same timings as i used in my Intel system. The BIOS also continuously locked up on me until i got the stupid thing flashed in Windows.

Athlon 64's have an integrated memory controller so memory compatibility is up to the CPU. If your having memory compatibility issues then you now have to go with a different CPU or compatible RAM instead of just getting a different motherboard.

Overall performance between Athlon 64 and Pentium 4 LGA775 is pretty well 50/50 so you have to decide what the main uses for the computer will be and go from there.
 
Keyser0804 said:
Wouldnt the amd system be faster after both have been overclocked?
Click to expand...

That all depends on how high the overclock is on each processor and what application your running as to which would be faster.
 
Is the mobo going to be able to make that RAM worth it? Nothing agains the mobo but it seems like over kill.
 
based on the response i got from all of you and i am awesomely greatful for

It is ruled to go AMD but with the following changes, based on your opnions and recommendations

What i am going to be doing with the system is DVD authoring, encoding, transcoding, converting, mp3ing, burning, heavy duty multi-tasking, Quickpar recovering, Par Creation, extraction, and compression and gaming
.
If you have any opnions, recommendations, changes to system, feel free to post

first things that will be bought will be the case, cpu, gpu, and motherboard. dvd burner will follow as will rest of the items

Sub-Final System

AMD System

CASE: Lian Li Black Aluminum ATX Full Tower Case Model PC-75B..$220.00
CPU: AMD Athlon 64 3500+, 512K, L2 Cache, Socket 939...........$271.00
Motherboard:GIGABYTE GA-K8NF-9 nForce4 Motherboard..........$150.00
Ram:OCZ Platinum EL DC Kit 184-Pin 1GB(512MBx2) DDR PC-4200..$375.00
DVD Burner: Pioneer Black DVD+RW/-RW Drive, Model DVR-108..$80.00
Hard Drive: Western Digital Raptor 74GB 10,000RPM SATA, Model WD740GD..$185.00
Hard Drive2 (storage): WD 250GB 7200RPM IDE, MODEL WD2500JB..$145.00
Hard Drive3 (storage): WD 250GB 7200RPM IDE, MODEL WD2500JB..$145.00
Video Card: ASUS ATI Radeon X700 PRO Video Card, 256MB GDDR3.......$250.00
Total Cost (includ Shipping) =.................................$1821.00

Cooling Wise, it got modified as well based on opinions and recommendations. i used to run 226w n 50w pelt on same loop and BIX and BIP would burn your hands it got so hot so from learnin' from that i've decided to go 2 separate loops, thus the pump and resevoir being purchased. currently own ehiem 1260.

CPU waterblock: Swiftech MCW5002-64 Liquid Cooled TEC...$140.00
GPU waterblock: MAZE4-1GPU Peltier Version....................$75.00
Radiator: Black Ice Xtreme III Triple 120mm Radiator.............$130.00
Misc tubing, clips, etc........................................................$50.00
resevoir: Danger Den Bay Reservoir High-Density..................$25.00
Pump: Eheim 1048...........................................................$65.00
subtotal....................................$485.00

Xrave said:
I'd go with the AMD system, but with the following changes:

1 74Gb Raptor (read other posts about performance) for ~$50 less

A 6600GT of some sorts for ~$200

Sony burners are poor quality...expect them to die when the warranty goes bad :( I'd save ~$20 and snag a LiteOn or NEC burner with the same speeds.

And I'm not sure how extreme you'll be with your peltier cooling, but you could save ~$100 by getting some Corsair XMS TwinX1024 family memory and still be able to overclock very well.

But in a long-story-short summary, go with AMD :D
Click to expand...
 
soccrstar said:
What i am going to be doing with the system is DVD authoring, encoding, transcoding, converting, mp3ing, burning, heavy duty multi-tasking, Quickpar recovering, Par Creation, extraction, and compression and gaming
Click to expand...

And you chose to go with AMD based on the fact a bunch of people replied, GO WITH AMD even though most didn't even give a reason why? lol

You would be much better off with a Pentium 4 for the tasks you just mentioned. If you plan to multitask heavily at all it shouldn't even be a question which to get because the Athlon 64 chokes under heavy CPU utilitization from multiple applications at once. HyperThreading on the Pentium 4 makes multitasking fluent and you hardly notice any transition time between applications.

Unless your a heavy gamer and plan to build a rig for gaming, the Pentium 4 is what i would go with.
 
burningrave101 said:
Its hard to say which would be better unless you tell us what your using the system for. The Pentium 4 will be noticeably faster at multitasking if you plan to run multiple CPU intensive tasks. It will also be faster for productivity software, encodeing, and several other areas.

The Athlon 64 will be faster for gaming and FPU intensive applications that use alot of math and are not multithreaded.

You may have more overclocking potential with the 3.4E then the A64 3500+, especially with the Peltier.



One 74GB raptor is faster in certain areas then 2 36GB raptors but one 10,000 RPM HDD wont be faster then 2 10,000 RPM HDD's in RAID0 overall. It would be impossible for the one 74GB raptor to be faster at writing data. The 74GB raptor will however be faster in seek time so thats why it seems faster for normal desktop usage. If you were working with large files or moving a large file then the 2 36GB raptors in RAID0 would be much faster then the single 74GB raptor.



In games yes, in multimedia applications no. There are certain applications, especially ones that are not multithreaded, that the Athlon 64 will be faster. For the most part though the Pentium 4 is still faster for heavily CPU intensive tasks and is noticeably smoother in operation for running multiple applications. An Athlon 64 will come to a stand-still if you try to run more then one application that uses a ton of CPU power. A Pentium 4 will divide up the processing power more efficiently and allow you to continue on with other operations.

Here is a good review -

http://www.techreport.com/reviews/2004q4/pentium4-570j/index.x?pg=1

Also keep in mind that Intel chipsets are more stable and have better memory compatibility. With most Intel systems you just install everything and your good to go. With an AMD system, especially Athlon 64, you install everything, troubleshoot for a few hours, then your good to go lol.

I just built an Athlon 64 3500+ 90nm and MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum and it took me a while to get everything working properly. I have Mushkin PC3200 lvl1 memory ATM and it didn't like that RAM at stock settings at all. I was getting hundreds or errors in Memtest86+ and i was using the same timings as i used in my Intel system. The BIOS also continuously locked up on me until i got the stupid thing flashed in Windows.

Athlon 64's have an integrated memory controller so memory compatibility is up to the CPU. If your having memory compatibility issues then you now have to go with a different CPU or compatible RAM instead of just getting a different motherboard.

Overall performance between Athlon 64 and Pentium 4 LGA775 is pretty well 50/50 so you have to decide what the main uses for the computer will be and go from there.
Click to expand...

This man speeks the truth. The company I work for has done internal testing of Athlon 64 equipped PC's for 3ds Max, Maya Lightwave, all Macromedia products, Adobe Products and alot more than that. Thier findings were that across the board while the AMD's outshined the Intel rigs on a few apps (such as Max) by a large margin the areas where they tanked below the Intel's level of performance was more noticable. They also reported less problems with the Intel testbed machine.

Also I have a similar setup to the Intel setup you priced out. I have a different motherboard though. It's very quick and very stable. I had no problems getting my SATA RAID up and going and installing Windows XP Pro SP2 on it. In addition I've had no driver problems or issues either.

She's never locked up or crashed. I've got the video card and processor slightly overclocked and never had a hiccup.

I too agree with the single 74GB Raptor choice. It is faster than a pair of 36's and you don't have to mess with the RAID configuration. The other thing is that it will be cheaper and use less power while taking up less room in your case. In all counts it's a win.

The other thing I would point out is your choice of video card. Unless your an AMD !!!!!! (in which case I would be surprised as your more objective about the Intel vs. AMD argument than alot of people) you should really look at the 6600GT. I've owned both and the GT is faster for everything. Also there are a few driver issues with the Catalyst drivers and the X700 series cards. They've got some strange artifacting problems in some games. Not everyone experiences this but the HardOCP review mentions it. I had the exact same problem with mine.

The 6600GT is a winner against the X700Pro. It's faster, has the possibility of going SLi, it has PS3.0 support and fully supports all the Direct X 9.0C features and the features of it's more expensive 6800 series brethren. I found not 1 game in my library that was better on the X700Pro. Dispite the difference in memory. The X700Pro had 256MB of GDDR3 ram instead of 128MB.

I myself decided against the Abit board due to the fact that I am waiting for an SLi compatible board with DDR 2 support to come out.

If your not interested in SLi at all (doesn't seem that you are due to your X700 choice) you should consider the Asus P5AD2-E Premium. It's the same chipset as the AA8XE Fatal1ty board and costs about the same. It's been reported as a better overclocking board and has more features.

You might also consider the fallowing if your going to stick with Abit, go with the AA8XE Third Eye. It's got great overclocking features, and all it lacks are the ugly ass red lights and the second NIC interface. Which isn't a huge necessity for most people. But the price is MUCH lower. It's about $150 from newegg.com. The Fatal1ty version of course has dual OTES, but there is much debate over the actual usefullness of the OTES feature. Personally I don't care for the extra noice those little fans would put out and if they happen to be sleeve bearing they'll suck hard and get really irritating when they go out.

Just a few things for you to consider. I myself recommend the Intel rig. It's very good for games (not quite as good as the AMD rig) but it's going to be stable and give you a more trouble free setup. Prescott's also overclock like mad. That's something else to consider.

AMD's are fast and great and so are Intel's. At the speeds they can both achieve you'd be much harder pressed to tell a difference in a game or an app between the two than you might think. Each is faster at this or that. Dispite the benchmarks there are people that prefer the feel of the Intel machine and there are potentially less problems with drivers when using an Intel chipset. Intel makes the best chipsets in the world when it comes to stability and drivers.

The Intel system only outshines the AMD by a large margin in that reguard. Better memory compatibility, better drivers and less issues.
 
Yeah, he didn't mention in his first post what he was building it for, and half the time everyone here is building a gaming rig so I just assumed. You might be better off with an Intel system for the tasks you mentioned. For me it's all about the games so it's AMD all the way.
 
soccrstar said:
What i am going to be doing with the system is DVD authoring, encoding, transcoding, converting, mp3ing, burning, heavy duty multi-tasking, Quickpar recovering, Par Creation, extraction, and compression and gaming
Click to expand...

You listed gaming last, which is where AMD shines. Everything else you listed Intel dominates, especially the multitasking. Definitely, definitely, DEFINITELY go with Intel.

<-- Never owned an Intel system, not a fanb0i
 
Thank You all for your continued feedback, i have continued to modify the selection based on your recommendations, it seems more is weighin' the 6600GT over the x700p
and to scratch the gigabyte and ocz ram well i did some. i opped for 3x200GB=600GB for 25 bucks more over 2x250gb drives. with all the refines only 30 bucks more. I want to keep the 64 3500+ because of the higher multiplier... upgrade video to 6800GT. that will be good for several years, if games become more demanding can always add a 2nd one n go SLI

Refined-Final System

AMD System

CASE: Lian Li Black Aluminum ATX Full Tower Case Model PC-75B..$220.00
CPU: AMD Athlon 64 3500+, 512K, L2 Cache, Socket 939...........$271.00
Motherboard: DFI LANPARTY UT nF4 SLI-D..........$300.00???
Ram: G.skill (Samsung TCCD) DC Kit 184-Pin 1GB(512MB x 2) DDR PC-4400..$280.00
DVD Burner: Pioneer Black DVD+RW/-RW Drive, Model DVR-108..$80.00
Hard Drive: Western Digital Raptor 74GB 10,000RPM SATA, Model WD740GD..$185.00
Hard Drive2 (storage):WD 200GB 7200RPM IDE, Model WD2000BB.....$105.00
Hard Drive3 (storage):WD 200GB 7200RPM IDE, Model WD2000BB.....$105.00
Hard Drive4 (storage):WD 200GB 7200RPM IDE, Model WD2000BB.....$105.00
Video Card:ASUS nVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT Video Card, 128MB.........$325.00
Total Cost (includ Shipping) =.................................$1976.00

Cooling Wise, it got re-modified as well based on opinions and recommendations. since going Nvidia with GPU waterblock gotta change to DD NV-68 and its non-pelt so going to have to go 2 loops.

now would a BIX n BIP in series be efficient enough to cool a HDD and a overclocked 6800GT?... or should i just get a dual 120mm heatercore for videocard w/ HDD cooler.
i rather go pelt on it but dangerden doesnt yet have a pelt combo for it so going to wait on it. course not going to get everything at once. first 2 getting first is the CPU waterblock n BIX3. others will com Later in time

CPU waterblock: Swiftech MCW5002-64 Liquid Cooled TEC.......$140.00
GPU waterblock: The Danger Den NV-68 waterblock................$135.00
Radiator: Black Ice Xtreme III Triple 120mm Radiator...............$130.00
Misc tubing, clips, etc............................................... .........$60.00
Asetek Hard Drive Cooler 3.5 in. Bay.....................................$62.00
Eheim 1048.............................................. ........................$55.00
Danger Den Bay Reservoir High-Density Polyethylene...............$25.00
2x FluidXP+ water replacement....................................... .....$80.00
Double Heater Core with Fittings.......................................... $65.00? (maby)
subtotal....................................$752.00
 
My final comment on your system that I can see is that you might want to consider a larger drive instead of all those storage drives. The more drives you have the more it will demand from your PSU. You can cut your power requirements down significantly by cutting down to 2 drives or even three. I had four in my old rig and I hated how heavy it was and how much cabling there was involved inside. Of course mine weren't SATA, but the thought still basically applies.

Now your not going with a 6800GT or other high end card so it's not like your PSU will be starved for power, but I find that a single larger drive is actually a better buy in most instances.
 
yea but thing is i'm still going to be using this current rig. I will be pulling stuff out of this one to put into new rig. my audigy2 sound card, antec 500w PSU, dvd-rom, and cd burner are going to new rig. everything else stays, in addition to 2 of those 200GB HDD will be added to this system along with a new PSU to power it, though i think i have an extra psu laying around.

in new rig, gon have the pioneer dv-108, dvd-rom, cd burner, 6800gt, audigy2, 74gb 10k raptor for OS, 200GB WD for storage and thats it.

that being, dont think that will strain the PSU (antec 500W TruPower PSU)
if rails starts dropping i can always move the cd burner over

P.S. Thankx for your write-ups Sir-Fragalot and everyone else :D :cool: :)

Sir-Fragalot said:
My final comment on your system that I can see is that you might want to consider a larger drive instead of all those storage drives. The more drives you have the more it will demand from your PSU. You can cut your power requirements down significantly by cutting down to 2 drives or even three. I had four in my old rig and I hated how heavy it was and how much cabling there was involved inside. Of course mine weren't SATA, but the thought still basically applies.

Now your not going with a 6800GT or other high end card so it's not like your PSU will be starved for power, but I find that a single larger drive is actually a better buy in most instances.
Click to expand...
 
In your original post when I saw your Fatal1ty listing for Intel boards, I was assuming you were going for a gaming computer. If you were making a computer mainly for gaming, I'd recomend the AMD system.

However when you listed what you would be using the computer for, the majority was encoding, decoding, multimedia, etc. The Intel system would be much better suited for these tasks.

If you're going with the AMD system you last listed, you picked the DFI LANPARTY UT nF4 SLI-D. You then listed the "ASUS nVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT Video Card, 128MB.........$325.00" for your video card. I'm not sure which 6800GT that is, but with 128MB and for $325, I'm assuming it's not a PCIe 6800GT but the AGP version. The Nforce4 board will be using PCIe, so you'll have go to with the PCIe variant. Currently the 6800GT PCIe cards are hard to find.

I do have a PCIe 6800GT and got it from here. They're stock directly from BFG so they "should" get more in stock soon. But good luck finding a 6800GT in stock...anywhere.
 
Xrave said:
In your original post when I saw your Fatal1ty listing for Intel boards, I was assuming you were going for a gaming computer. If you were making a computer mainly for gaming, I'd recomend the AMD system.

However when you listed what you would be using the computer for, the majority was encoding, decoding, multimedia, etc. The Intel system would be much better suited for these tasks.

If you're going with the AMD system you last listed, you picked the DFI LANPARTY UT nF4 SLI-D. You then listed the "ASUS nVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT Video Card, 128MB.........$325.00" for your video card. I'm not sure which 6800GT that is, but with 128MB and for $325, I'm assuming it's not a PCIe 6800GT but the AGP version. The Nforce4 board will be using PCIe, so you'll have go to with the PCIe variant. Currently the 6800GT PCIe cards are hard to find.

I do have a PCIe 6800GT and got it from here. They're stock directly from BFG so they "should" get more in stock soon. But good luck finding a 6800GT in stock...anywhere.
Click to expand...

I called Chumbo and it will be two or three weeks before they have more to sell to anyone that hasn't ordered one already.

The PCI-E 6800GT costs a minimum of $399.99 and tha'ts only at Chumbo. Everyone else has them for close to $500 or more. Good luck finding one, I've been trying for over a month to get mine. Had I known about Chumbo at the time I would have gotten mine already.

On the motherboard I disagree with the statement about DFI.

Asus > DFI

But that's my personal experience with DFI products talking.
 
What i am going to be doing with the system is DVD authoring, encoding, transcoding, converting, mp3ing, burning, heavy duty multi-tasking, Quickpar recovering, Par Creation, extraction, and compression and gaming
Click to expand...

I own an AMD. If I was doing what you describe, I'd go Intel all the way. AMD is a BAD choice for what you have listed.
 
Is he even listening? He posted numerous times after burningrave101's response that he should go Intel, and he is still going AMD? :confused:
 
Yup as people mentioned, for all encoding/multitasking needs you will need to go with Pentium 4. If gaming is your top priority, then it will be amd.
 
was busy rest of day and was thinking
after reading numerous reviews and such i'm optin' for p4. its best for encodin' and will easily do 4+ghz which will be even sweeter

i will begin orderin' parts in 3 weeks (Case, BIX3 & a dremel) to begin moddin' the case for the Blackice extreme 3 rad. gon fit it directly on top. rest of parts will follow as money comes

this is what i think is the final system build

P4 3.4ghz Prescott.........................................................................................$281.00
ABIT AA8XE...................................................................................................$248.00
OCZ Platinum EB R.2 LE DC Kit 1GB(512MBx2) DDR2 PC2-4200......................$415.00
Pioneer DVR-108.............................................................................................$80.00
Western digital 74GB 10k RPM SaTA...............................................................$185.00
Western Digital 200GB....................................................................................$105.00
Western Digital 200GB....................................................................................$105.00
Western Digital 200GB....................................................................................$105.00
Asus 6800GT (256mb).....................................................................................$450.00
Lian Li Black Aluminum ATX Full Tower Model PC-75B.......................................$220.00
TOTAL.....................................$1974.00
 
AMD:

Liteon dvd burner over the sony.
One 74gb raptor and a larger sata drive for storage.
 
soccrstar said:
this is what i think is the final system build

P4 3.4ghz Prescott.........................................................................................$281.00
ABIT AA8XE...................................................................................................$248.00
OCZ Platinum EB R.2 LE DC Kit 1GB(512MBx2) DDR2 PC2-4200......................$415.00
Pioneer DVR-108.............................................................................................$80.00
Western digital 74GB 10k RPM SaTA...............................................................$185.00
Western Digital 200GB....................................................................................$105.00
Western Digital 200GB....................................................................................$105.00
Western Digital 200GB....................................................................................$105.00
Asus 6800GT (256mb).....................................................................................$450.00
Lian Li Black Aluminum ATX Full Tower Model PC-75B.......................................$220.00
TOTAL.....................................$1974.00[/QUOTE

The 3.4Ghz Prescott is nice (cheapest chip with a multiplier you can change on the AA8XE), but for an overclocking system you're laying down way too much $. I'd wait for a 2.8 E0 (520J) which should be sitting pretty at 4.2 / 14x300 (which the AA8XE is capable of with proper cooling) and would save you a cool $100. I'd also go with the vanilla AA8XE over the fatality board saving yourself another $100 since there's virtually no difference in terms of features or performance. And as for video card if you really feel you need that kind of performance wait for a X800XL and save yourself another $150 and get more performance to boot especially after a good OC. If you wanted to do something to really boost your performance I'd say dump the 3 200GB drives and replace them with 2 300GB sata maxtors w/16mb cache. A hell of a lot more modern (NCQ, SATA, etc.), faster, quieter, and less power draw. I'd also drop the fancy memory as the comparable performance benefit you're getting over some good value select is definitely not worth the extra $215 and even the cheapest ddr2 will sit pretty at ddr2-667 so you can have your 1:1 for years to come. These changes give you better processor performance (from a stratospheric OC'd 300 fsb), better graphics performance, and better storage performance for $300 less:

Final System:

P4 2.8ghz E0 Prescott....................................................................................$159.00
ABIT AA8XE...................................................................................................$161.00
Corsair Value Select Kit 1GB(512MBx2) DDR2 PC2-4200..................................$199.99
Pioneer DVR-108.............................................................................................$80.00
Western digital 74GB 10k RPM SaTA...............................................................$185.00
Maxtor 300GB w/16mb cache..........................................................................$194.49
Maxtor 300GB w/16mb cache..........................................................................$194.49
X800XL (256mb)..............................................................................................$300.00
Lian Li Black Aluminum ATX Full Tower Model PC-75B.......................................$220.00
TOTAL.....................................$1673.97

If you really kick yourself over how much money you were about to spend I'd also advise dropping the raptor as these new maxtor drives are just as fast and a hell of a lot cheaper for the storage you're getting. That'd knock your total down to under $1500 if you dropped it and only cost you another $10 to switch it out for another 300GB drive.

Just give it a week or two for the 520J's to start showing up in larger quantities in retail.
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It will probably be a while before the ATI X800XL starts to ship in any quantity and Maxtor drives are well known to have a higher failure rate then Western Digital or Seagate.

I would look for a couple 300GB or 400GB Seagate Barracuda 7200.8 drives because their better quality then Maxtor drives and they carry a 5 year warranty.
 
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