make your current dream system mine ;)

Alright, my brain is going numb trying to figure out what to get. So here is your chance(luck you) to help me out.

WANT TOP NOTCH PERFORMANCE that is out right now.
1.4ghz AMD
(which mobo?)
512mb crucial DDR
40 or 60gb hd (deskstar or barricuda or other)
GF3(which one?)
audigy sound card

which power supply?(at least 350w)
which fan and hs?

thanks so much, you have no idea how much help this is
Jerums

right!
1.4ghz AMD
Asus A7A266 if it has the B0 chip or A7M266
or Abit KG7 (with optional IDE RAID)512mb crucial DDR
40 or 60gb hd (deskstar or barricuda or other)
i would prefer Seagate Barracuda, but IBMs good!
GF3(which one?) - Asus GeForce3 Deluxe with 64 MB DDR, a lot of extras with it as Fat said!
audigy sound card
??? Creative Soundblaster Live! Platinum, or Value if on budget
which power supply?(at least 350w)
at least 350W, you using GF3, prefer 400W
which fan and hs?
Swiftech m462 or OCz gladiator. i have a Coolermaster HS/F, but the gladiator reviews are good.

girish


<font color=red>No system is fool-proof. Fools are Ingenious!</font color=red>

Hmmm...

Just my opinion, but I'd buy a boxed 1.2 CPU (and overclocking it to 1.4!) which includes the factory heatsink and fan. Keep in mind, this IS THE ONLY WAY that you will get a factory warranty! Given that the 3-year warranty on boxed CPU's from AMD also covers the heatsink and fan kit, I can't imagine anyone buying anything else.

Next, I would forget about mixing ANY creative card with an AMD based system that uses a Via chipset, so I'd stick to any motherboard using the 761 chipset unless you want to use one of the many solutions out there that is better than the creative labs cards. Remember, if you are looking for anything in terms of support from your audio card maker, you shouldn't be looking at creative labs. Sure, you can get drivers (well, sometimes you can), but forget about ever talking to anyone in support.

Power supply is simple.. Enermax, any model from the EG365P-VE or higher. Simply the best with a great warranty.

Make sure that 512MB is on no more than 2 sticks and if you haven't purchased your RAM yet, I would take a hard look at Mushkin and Corsair modules. The Mushkin hand-picked is DAMN fast, I can't even begin to tell you how nice it is!

Both the IBM Deskstar 60GXP and Seagate Barracuda drives are excellent. You shouldn't have problems with either.

I won't talk about the GF3, I'll leave that to the die hard video guru's that might know (or ask) more about what you intend to use it for.

Steve Benoit

Stable Technologies
'The way IT should be!'

Tyan MP
2x 1.4GHz Athlon
4x 80GB in RAID 0+1
FireGL 5000 Video Card
SB Audigy
12x DVD-ROM
2x DVD-R
72x CD-ROM
24x12x32 CD-RW
3Com 10/100 NIC
4x 500 Watt PSU's in dual redundant array

Water Cooled
Server Box Case
21" Flatscreen LCD
Microsoft USB Mouse
Microsoft Keyboard
Klipsch 500 watt 5.1 Speaker Setup


Dream System, excluding over-the-top stuff; ex. audio = whole home entertainment system > 1000 watts, 65" TV Screen...

Your gonna need more power Oni if you plan on adding much more to that (your CD drives).

Well I'm replacing the DVD and cd burner drives, not adding 2 more to the system, but yes I'm pushing the envelope power wise with this setup.
The Game theater XP is a super nice card, I love the optical out and I use it to make minidiscs from my CDs and mp3s. My only beef with Hercules and their GTXP is that theres no Windows XP support right now. Besides that I think the card is great.
I want my machine to be a profesional editing machine though so I'm looking into an Audigy EX, and a Matrox RT2500 to put in, and maybe dual MPs, that would be the ideal editing/gaming machine really.