Almost settled on a build

[TOAOCyrus]

1. What YOUR PC will be used for. That means what types of tasks you'll be performing. High end gaming, media viewing and editing

2. What YOUR budget is. A price range is acceptable as long as it's not more than a 20% spread $1330

3. What country YOU will be buying YOUR parts from. USA

4. IF YOU have a brand preference. That means, are you an Intel-Fanboy, AMD-Fanboy, ATI-Fanboy, nVidia-Fanboy, Seagate-Fanboy, WD-Fanboy, etc, etc, etc, you get the picture. I want to go with AMD for a future upgrade path to Barcelona. I would like to go with AMD video because I have read that Crossfire performs better in Vista than SLI.

5. If YOU intend on using any of YOUR current parts, and if so, what those parts are.None

6. IF YOU have searched and/or read similar threads. Yes

7. IF YOU plan on overclocking or run the system at default speeds. Eventually overclocking the video, perhaps the CPU if necessary.


This is the build I had decided on for now, its ready to be ordered but I though I would ask you guys to look it over and see if you spot anything that could be significantly improved on.

• MSI K9A Platinum AM2 ATI CrossFire Radeon Xpress 3200 ATX AMD Motherboard - Retail - $119.99
  
  2x Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 ST3500630AS 500GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM - $239.98
  
  GIGABYTE GN-WP01GS PCI Wireless Adapter - Retail - $22.99
  
  AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+ Brisbane 2.3GHz Socket AM2 Processor Model - $84.99 - Placeholder for Barcelona
  
  Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound - $5.99
  
  SAPPHIRE 100212SR Radeon HD 2900PRO 512MB 512-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16 HDCP - $269.99 - Eventually Crossfire
  
  LITE-ON Combo Black SATA Model DH-52C2S-04 - $24.99
  
  Antec NeoPower NeoHE 550 ATX12V 550W Power Supply - $99.99
  
  Rosewill R6AS5-BK 0.8mm SECC 120mm Fan ATX Mid Tower Computer Case - $59.99
  
  2x G.SKILL 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model F2-6400CL5D-2GBNQ - $139.98
  
  Dell SE198WFP 19-inch Widescreen Silver Flat Panel LCD Monitor - $189

Total price including S&H is $1310 USD

Thanks for any input.

 

[gtsing]

Looks pretty good to me if you're happy with the motherboard (the P35 chipset has Crossfire as well). Just one thing. If you're thinking about going Crossfire in the future then I'd recommend a slightly larger wattage PSU such as a 620HX or a PC&C 750 Quad. I could be totally wrong but I think 550 might be a close call.

EDIT Woops I'm an idiot...P35 OBVIOUSLY don't support AMD CPU's!

 

[LightningRider]

Why do you want to go AMD?

At this point it seems Phenom won't be enough to overthrow Intel's performance crown. I would seriously go with an Intel chip, not that I am a fan boy, I have owned both companies in the past. Media editing and gaming will be great on an Intel system and Penryn at this point looks like a better choice than Phenom.

If you went Intel and you want Crossfire, you can get a P35 motherboard. They support Crossfire. You could also go with an X38 board and have 16x bandwidth on both cards (because of PCI-e 2.0), something you can't have on PCI-e 1.1 boards.

I'd also go with a Western Digital 500GB drive over the Seagates. Quieter, cooler, better performers. But if you can get a Seagate 7200.11 drive, it should outperform the Western Digitals (at least on paper it does, no benchmarks yet).

I think you might be going overkill on the RAM, you can get pretty decent RAM for $100 or so per 2GB if you look. And if you are not set on OC'ing I probably wouldn't get the top of the line memory at that price... This could allow you to go with an Intel Core 2, maybe a quad or a cheaper dual core and pick up an X38 motherboard instead (again the PCI-e 2.0 will be nice for Xfire).

Also I don't know what Vista edition you plan on getting but I recommend at least Vista Home Premium and the 64 bit version.

Those are my suggestions.

BTW: If you are wondering where to find X38 boards at this point, NCIX.com (NCIXUS.COM for US customers) has them in stock right now, though I don't know how long they'll stay in stock...

 

[TOAOCyrus]

Originally posted by: LightningRider
Why do you want to go AMD?

At this point it seems Phenom won't be enough to overthrow Intel's performance crown. I would seriously go with an Intel chip, not that I am a fan boy, I have owned both companies in the past. Media editing and gaming will be great on an Intel system and Penryn at this point looks like a better choice than Phenom.

If you went Intel and you want Crossfire, you can get a P35 motherboard. They support Crossfire. You could also go with an X38 board and have 16x bandwidth on both cards (because of PCI-e 2.0), something you can't have on PCI-e 1.1 boards.

I'd also go with a Western Digital 500GB drive over the Seagates. Quieter, cooler, better performers. But if you can get a Seagate 7200.11 drive, it should outperform the Western Digitals (at least on paper it does, no benchmarks yet).

I think you might be going overkill on the RAM, you can get pretty decent RAM for $100 or so per 2GB if you look. And if you are not set on OC'ing I probably wouldn't get the top of the line memory at that price... This could allow you to go with an Intel Core 2, maybe a quad or a cheaper dual core and pick up an X38 motherboard instead (again the PCI-e 2.0 will be nice for Xfire).

Also I don't know what Vista edition you plan on getting but I recommend at least Vista Home Premium and the 64 bit version.

Those are my suggestions.

BTW: If you are wondering where to find X38 boards at this point, NCIX.com (NCIXUS.COM for US customers) has them in stock right now, though I don't know how long they'll stay in stock...

Well Phenom is certainly going to be competitive with Penryn and the processor I chose is about equal to an e6400 while costing 50$ less.

Thanks for the info in the hard drives.

As for ram thats 70$ per 2GB, I am getting 4 gigs. My brother has the same type and he has had great success overclocking.

I plan on transferring my vista ultimate from my old machine and installing XP on that one.

 

[Rage3kMoiz]

These are the changes I suggest:
Buy the monitor, motherboard, case, this DVD burner and this RAM from Newegg. Buy the ones below from NCIX.
Corsair CMPSU-620HX 620W ATX Triple 12V 50A 24PIN ATX Modular Power Supply 120MM Fan 2X PCI-E - $117.66 after $30 rebate
Western Digital SE16 500GB SATA2 7200RPM 16MB Cache 8.9MS NCQ Hard Drive OEM 3YR MFR Warranty - $104.96
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+ Dual Core Processor Socket AM2 Brisbane 2.3GHZ 2X512KB 65NM 65W Retail Box - $83.77
His Radeon HD2900 Pro 600MHZ 512MB 1.6GHZ GDDR3 Dual DVI-I HDCP VIVO Video Card - $267.23 with two games free.

Should allow you to spend less for the same system.