New System Gimme Thoughts

[rjc_013]

Here is the specs

Thermaltake SOPRANO Black Steel/Plastic ATX Mid Tower Computer Case
- Retail 79.00

OCZ ModStream 520W Power Supply
- Retail 108.99

OCZ EL Platinum Revision 2 1GB (2 x 512MB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM DDR 400 (PC 3200) Unbuffered Dual Channel
- Retail 163.99 (18.00 Mail in Rebate)

AMD Athlon 64 3200+ Venice 1GHz FSB Socket 939 Processor
- Retail 160.00

eVGA 256-P2-N518 Geforce 7800GT 256MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16 Video Card - Retail - Retail 299.00

DFI LANPARTY UT nF4 Ultra-D Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce4 Ultra ATX AMD Motherboard - Retail 139.99

Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 ST380817AS 80GB 7200 RPM Serial ATA150 Hard Drive
- Retail 59.99

ZALMAN CNPS7700-CU 120mm 2 Ball Cooling Fan with Copper Heatsink
- Retail 49.99

Total 1,095.65

 

[discochan]

Whats your budget and is this going to be for gaming?

 

[GForce64]

Make case Centurion 5, spend the same amount of money for 2GB of value RAM, and get an X-Fi.

 

[rjc_013]

budget is exactly around that price range I have above, and yes it will be used for 90% gaming.

 

[rjc_013]

bump updated a few things

 

[Tengis]

Make case Centurion 5, spend the same amount of money for 2GB of value RAM, and get an X-Fi.

I agree with the ram thing... 2gb of "value" ram would be a better buy then "performance" ram. If I could go back... Ide buy 2gb of Value over my lower latency performance any day. And you can still OC well with deviders.

More ram > Slightly faster ram

 

[daphatgrant]

I agree with the ram thing... 2gb of "value" ram would be a better buy then "performance" ram. If I could go back... Ide buy 2gb of Value over my lower latency performance any day. And you can still OC well with deviders.

More ram > Slightly faster ram

QFT

 

[gwai lo]

Plan on oc'ing, correct?

Just thought that if you were running stock, then you'd be able to move your money around a bit..

 

[kirbyrj]

I'd get a plain XP-90 instead of that Zalman and just get a quiet fan. Save yourself maybe $20. Ideally, I'd see if you can get maybe a 3700+ San Diego if you can save enough $$ here and there.

 

[Tengis]

Why exactly are you buying an aftermarket fan? To OC? Unless you are ocing I would suggest you just save your money. You dont need to worry as much about temps if you arent OCing, and the stock heatsink isnt loud at all.

 

[rjc_013]

yes I will be overclocking and I heard good things about the zalman 7700, the 3200 is cheap and I dont have much to spend right now , so I figure I can OC it now and get a 4000 or other socket 939 in the future.

 

[kirbyrj]

yes I will be overclocking and I heard good things about the zalman 7700, the 3200 is cheap and I dont have much to spend right now , so I figure I can OC it now and get a 4000 or other socket 939 in the future.

What you really mean is...

yes I will be overclocking and I heard good things about the zalman 7700, the 3200 is cheap and I dont have much to spend right now , so I figure I can OC it now and get a X2 3800+ or other socket 939 in the future.

 

[rjc_013]

ya it was late

 

[unhappy_mage]

I agree with the ram thing... 2gb of "value" ram would be a better buy then "performance" ram. If I could go back... Ide buy 2gb of Value over my lower latency performance any day. And you can still OC well with deviders.

More ram > Slightly faster ram

I bought 512 MB of Corsair 3200 low latency back when that was $200 a stick. I'd much rather (in retrospect) have gotten a gig of cheap stuff. Just got to a gig this Christmas, and the machine's much smoother and more responsive, not to mention less swapping.

 

[DamienThorn]

Here's just a couple thoughts:

1) If you're not going for a quiet case, see if you can find one that sells a good PSU along with the case (i.e. an Antec or Enermax case). You might be able to save a few bucks.

2) As other people have stated, get 2GB of value memory over 1 GB of performance memory; you'll see a better stock speed, and you may or may not be able to reach a comperable speed while OCing.

3) Personally, I'd go with another mobo like ASUS, Abit, or MSI; all offer good OCing potential and are less finicky than DFI boards can be. That's not to say that the three brands I recommended don't occasionally have flaky boards, but when I put together a computer I want stability first, and everything else after that. While many DFI boards are stable, there seem to be a lot of them that are flakey out of the box.

4) I'd get a larger HDD; 80GB is just so small. If you can afford it, get at least 200GB so that you're not going to run out of space any time soon.