New system for a friend...

[HitMan-sC]

I had a friend of mine approached me the other day and asked me to build him a computer, within a budget of around $800-900. He's in need of an upgrade badly, and this rig is probably going to be used for gaming and multimedia. Here's what I pieced together from newegg:

Case: X-Dreamer II - $68 Shipped.

Power Supply: Thermaltake 420W - $43 Shipped.

Motherboard: MSI K8T-Neo FSR - $72 Shipped.

Processor: AMD Athlon64 3000+ - $146, Free FedEx Saver

Memory: (2) PQI 512MB PC-3200 - $128.71 Shipped

Hard Drive: Seagate 160GB 7200.7 Barracuda (NQC) - $114.69 Shipped

Video Card: Leadtek 6600GT AGP - $220 Shipped

DVD Burner: Samsung 16x DVD-/+RW - $65 Shipped

DVD/CD-RW Combo: Lite-On 52x32x52x16 Combo - $42 Shipped


With a couple of fans, a floppy drive, and a 56k modem (yes, I know), the total comes to around $940 shipped. This is probably more than what he originally wanted to spend, but I'll talk to him. In the meanwhile, any suggestions? I'd like to have this system ordered by tomorrow afternoon.

 

[mbmadness]

I like a lot of the parts you have selected. It looks like it's going to be a nice system.

Here are the things I would change:

I would get one of these NF3 250 motherboards instead.
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=13-130-470&depa=1
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=13-130-457&depa=1

I would get this Mushkin memory for $136 because of it's good price, it's relatively good timings of 2.5-3-3, and it has been tested by Mushkin to work with MSI motherboards.
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=20-146-299&depa=1

http://www.mushkin.com/epages/Mushk...642740c0a80102063b/Product/View/990885#k8nneo
http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=2036&p=6

I would cut the DVD/CD-RW Combo: Lite-On 52x32x52x16 Combo from the system and get just a regular DVD-ROM instead. The DVD burner will burn CD-ROMs also, so there is no need to have two drives that have CD burn capability.