I've been planning on an upgrade all summer and watching the prices drop with satisfaction. I'm forced to accelerate my plans to upgrade due to a technical problem (post in the technical support forum). Currently I have an Athlon 2400+.
Here's my planned upgrade:
K8N Neo Platinum
AMD Athlon 64 3400+ Clawhammer
Corsair XMS PC3200 (512MB x 2) (2-3-3-6 T1)
Western Digital Raptor 74GB
Cooler Master Praetorian Black
Total: $946 @ Newegg
Salvaged parts:
Plextor Plexwriter CD-RW
Toshiba DVD-Rom
Teac FDD
M-Audio Revolution 7.1
SB Audigy Platinum
Klipsch Pro-media 5.1 Ultra
ATI Radeon 9700 Pro
80GB Maxtor HD 2 MB Cache
With this upgrade completed, my weakest link will be my video card, but that should by me another couple of years, and then I'll just upgrade again and get a new video card. I am not concerned with the relative lack of future-proofing with the socket 754 compared to the 939 because I never upgrade the cpu or memory without a new motherboard anyway. PCI-E is not something to worry about now as far as I'm concerned.
I'm not much of an overclocker so I stuck with PC3200 which the XMS model I heard works very well with the motherboard.
To summarize my needs, I am a gamer (MMORPG's, FPS, RTS), so lots of memory should help out. I also do amateurish video editting with Adobe Premiere Pro and encoding into DivX, which should all be much improved I have read.
I had a cheap case on my last build and decided to splurge get a nicer case in the Praetorian. Gonna move to the black motiff cause it just looks sexier. Unfortunately my optical drives are beige, but I guess i'll deal with the uglyness til I upgrade those to black next time around.
As for my hard drive setup, I plan on using the Raptor for OS and Applications. I am going to salvage one of my Maxtor's from my current Raid 0 as a data dump for video files and the such, and for page file and adobe scratch disk in my new system. I will not be using Raid 0 anymore because I don't find it worthwhile. Don't have enough money to justify getting a newer 8 mb cache hard drive. I have another post on the forum about problems getting data off my Raid 0 as well.
I was planning on getting the Prophetview LCD that was incredibely popular for the week that it was available, but alas, don't think LCD will be in my future yet as they have some ways to go. I'll give that another year or so before I buy one of those.
Also, I've usually bought mobo bundles with the heatsink and fan already installed. This is my first actual install of a CPU and was wondering if someone could link me to a decent newbie guide for installing them without breaking it.
I probably missed something and sorry for the long post. Please critique and let me know if I missed anything!
Thanks,
Chad
Here's my planned upgrade:
K8N Neo Platinum
AMD Athlon 64 3400+ Clawhammer
Corsair XMS PC3200 (512MB x 2) (2-3-3-6 T1)
Western Digital Raptor 74GB
Cooler Master Praetorian Black
Total: $946 @ Newegg
Salvaged parts:
Plextor Plexwriter CD-RW
Toshiba DVD-Rom
Teac FDD
M-Audio Revolution 7.1
SB Audigy Platinum
Klipsch Pro-media 5.1 Ultra
ATI Radeon 9700 Pro
80GB Maxtor HD 2 MB Cache
With this upgrade completed, my weakest link will be my video card, but that should by me another couple of years, and then I'll just upgrade again and get a new video card. I am not concerned with the relative lack of future-proofing with the socket 754 compared to the 939 because I never upgrade the cpu or memory without a new motherboard anyway. PCI-E is not something to worry about now as far as I'm concerned.
I'm not much of an overclocker so I stuck with PC3200 which the XMS model I heard works very well with the motherboard.
To summarize my needs, I am a gamer (MMORPG's, FPS, RTS), so lots of memory should help out. I also do amateurish video editting with Adobe Premiere Pro and encoding into DivX, which should all be much improved I have read.
I had a cheap case on my last build and decided to splurge get a nicer case in the Praetorian. Gonna move to the black motiff cause it just looks sexier. Unfortunately my optical drives are beige, but I guess i'll deal with the uglyness til I upgrade those to black next time around.
As for my hard drive setup, I plan on using the Raptor for OS and Applications. I am going to salvage one of my Maxtor's from my current Raid 0 as a data dump for video files and the such, and for page file and adobe scratch disk in my new system. I will not be using Raid 0 anymore because I don't find it worthwhile. Don't have enough money to justify getting a newer 8 mb cache hard drive. I have another post on the forum about problems getting data off my Raid 0 as well.
I was planning on getting the Prophetview LCD that was incredibely popular for the week that it was available, but alas, don't think LCD will be in my future yet as they have some ways to go. I'll give that another year or so before I buy one of those.
Also, I've usually bought mobo bundles with the heatsink and fan already installed. This is my first actual install of a CPU and was wondering if someone could link me to a decent newbie guide for installing them without breaking it.
I probably missed something and sorry for the long post. Please critique and let me know if I missed anything!
Thanks,
Chad