Got $1500 to spend on new sys

[middeneast]

First of all I'd like to say I live in Switzerland, so all values have been cheaply translated based on Yahoo's exchange rates, with a little help from OOo Calc (like excel) - A little off-topic, but an excuse for the more or less inaccurate prices.

Ive got about $1500 to spend, or €1250, or CHF1920, and i buy all of my stuff from a french site (www.ldlc-pro.ch); its the first time I used this site, but given all the good feedback it's got and given that a good friend advised me to use it... I trust it.

The purpose... I don't know. I don't know what I do at my pc all days I surf the internet, chat, play games on high res (1600*1200), i run an L2J server from time to time which takes up a lot of cpu and ram... plus i want this computer to last 2-3 years before I get aggrivated at how few space I have on my hd, plus I want to shut some friend's big mouth of how good his computer really is and how slow mine is.
I do use a lot of space, I'm always running low on space - Windows going "Drive C: Low on space" and Mandriva concluding the drive is full...

Oh yeah. I forgot to mention that I spend most of my time in Linux when I'm doing my work (homework, really. Yes I'm still in school) and when I play games I go to Windows (nooo). I'd have a 50Gb FAT32 partition for all of my music and stuff I share between windows and Linux, and the other 450gb i devide up between windows and linux.

People say I really don't need a new computer; just upgrade some parts of it. The thing is: I bought a dell computer before, and you know how easily upgradable those are... *cough* sarcasm *cough*

Anyhow. I've got a case (Thermaltake Tsunami Dream. Heh heh), a powersupply (450W I believe it was... cheap brand. silly me.) and ive got the keyboard and mouse. (Btw. Dont even ask how I managed to fit my Dell pc inside the tsunami dream case. I cant even use the power button at the front of my case; i had to take the switch out of my dell case and leave it inside my tsunami dream case, which made me have to open my case and look for the switch every time i wanted to boot my pc up )

So far - It's a cheap site I'm buying it from - I've got this

EDIT: Scroll down to see a more updated version of this... assembly?

ASUSTeK A8N32-SLI Deluxe
$199.8 €167 CHF257.8

Corsair TWINX2048-3200C2 2x1Gb PC3200 C2
$314.3 €263 CHF405.5

AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ 2x512Kb
$337.0 €282 CHF434.7

HIS Excalibur X800GT IceQ 256mb 980/400Mhz
$177.4 €149 CHF228.8

2 x Western Digital 250Gb 16Mb S-ATA II
$239.3 €200 CHF308.7

2 x NEC ND-3550 Noir (Dvd burner)
$84.28 €71 CHF108.7

Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 4
$60.97 €51 CHF78.65

Evercool 120mm fan (with blue leds)
$8.39 €7 CHF10.83

2 x Evercool 92mm fan (with blue leds)
$15.96 €13 CHF20.6

Thermalright XP-90C (CPU cooler)
$51.52 €43 CHF66.47

Cat 5e 20m cable
$14.06 €11 CHF18.14


Total
$1504 €1259 CHF1939

I spent a lot of time thinking about buying a 3500+ or a X2 3800+... still dont know
And... I still dont know whether I should get the X800GT, an X800GTO (same fan) or some nVidea gpu
Oh ya... I'm not buying an OS - Obvious, no? Buying Windows is a waste of money anyways and I usually download the free version of Mandriva off the internet.


And... I'd overclock basically anything that goes in my case.

Any advice would be most welcome!

 

[fishmahn]

Why SLI? You pay a premium for it if you don't use it right away, and many times people don't use it at all unless they use it immediately because the next generation card is better than 2 of the old generation. Epox 9npa series, ABit AN8 series or DFI NF4 will overclock very well in the non-SLI versions for less usually (DFI if you're into tinkering with settings to get it right, but it OC's fastest). Don't know if you can get them over there or they fit your feature needs, but there's a few choices. I've heard the non-SLI Asus 939 boards don't OC well.

Ram seems good.

Onboard sound is usually pretty good, some people can't tell the difference (I can, but I'm not picky so onboard sound is good enough to me). May be able to save some there if not needed for something.

the GTO is good for its price range, but I'm not a real video card expert - hopefully one will come along or throw a question into the video card forum.

Mike.

 

[middeneast]

Mmm First of all; thanks a lot for your quick response!
Mmmm *goddqmn these Azerty keyboards! they drive me nuts* (im at a different computer, my dads laptop, im in belgium right now )

Okay yes youre right, the audigy 4 can go, dont care so much about the sound to be honest; well just like you said, there is a difference in quality but not so much it bothers me anyways.

And about the A8N32-SLI; Theres a possibility that I'll buy another gcard later on, since I was rather disappointed to see that most recent games would just run at 1280*1024 and I know it sounds a bit cocky but I hate playing games at anything lower than that; Ill play at 1600*1200 if possible (its not a flatscreen, in case youre wondering) so I'd need something better than the X800GT(O); but at least i could sli them if i decide to buy something else?

Now... something else; I was wondering if I need the X2 3800+; or would the 3800+ - which is about the same price - be more appropriate? I wont do much multitasking anyways, except for may be a game, msn and some other tiny stuff.

Again, thanks.
Wahhh Took a long time to write this reply; stupid laptop.... plus im watching a bad movie in the meanwhile, so ya...

Thanks for any help

 

[fishmahn]

I prefer to play at higher res too - 1280/1024 is my preference now (only 17" crt's... )

SLI is only for nVidia cards. ATI has Crossfire boards out and they're pretty good looking too. Like I said however, if you buy a 6600GT now and expect to SLI it in a little bit, think about this - another 6600GT will still be 150-ish but there will be something twice as fast for not much more and sometimes less. ebay the old card and get a cheap upgrade thats faster than the SLI'd pair. That happened to lots of people with the 6600/6800 'SLI upgrade'. The 7800GT is faster than SLI'd 6800GT's (overall) and costs less than buying the 2nd 6800GT to make your SLI pair...

You can take the 50-100 you save by not getting an SLI mobo and add it to your video card so you can play at higher res's and not need to upgrade so fast. Get a 7800GT for about 300 (US pricing - don't know what you can get it for there), or a 6800GS for 215-ish. I've got to look up info on the X1800 series - they're pretty fast cards too and if you decide to go for a crossfire board (crossfire is less restrictive than SLI and that may make it more useful - time will tell) you'll want an ATI.

Anyways, that's up to you.

To save some money can you get OCZ or Patriot RAM? Maybe Geil or G.Skill? Corsair is many times overpriced, though they are very good.

Since you're mostly gaming, the 20% faster Core clock will make it seem faster most of the time.

Hope that made sense above...

Mike.

 

[middeneast]

Mmmm... I gues Europe doesn't have much RAM to offer. Probably due to import taxes or whatever. Anyways: Nope, I got Corsair, Kingston, Apacer and OEM (Although Apacer only goes down to 2.5 with a PC4000; CL3 with PC3200; PC2.5 with PC2700 and CL2 with a PC2100 - And OEM goes down to CL3 with a pc3200 >_< and Kingston is just naturally expensive: 2x1GB CL2.5 costs CHF439.90 while Corsair's 2x1Gb CL2 costs 434....

Heh "Yea... Corsais good; but sometimes a little overpriced" - said a friend to me, trying to get me to buy Kingston.

Darn it, no cheaper ram for me

Gigabyte GA-K8NF-9 Ultra
$107 €90 CHF138

Corsair TWINX2048-3200C2 2x1Gb PC3200 C2
$336 €281 CHF435

AMD Athlon 64 3800+ 512Kb (Venice)
$340 €285 CHF439

XFX GeForce 7800GT 256MB
$400 €335 CHF517

2 x Western Digital 250Gb 8Mb S-ATA II
$230 €192 CHF296

2 x Lite-on SHW-1635S
$85 €71.5 CHF110

Evercool 120mm fan (with blue leds)
$9 €7.5 CHF11.5

2 x Evercool 92mm fan (with blue leds)
$17 €14.5 CHF22

Thermalright XP-90C (CPU cooler)
$55 €46 CHF71

Cat 5e 20m cable
$15 €12.5 CHF19.5


Total
$1597 €1337 CHF2060

Well as you can see this is a bit too much; so i guess ill have to look for something to get rid of... the graphic card was a bit expensive; but i would feel more comfortable buying something from XFX than from Leadtek...

(Before you ask, no I didnt make the price in € 1337 on purpose )

 

[middeneast]

WOOOOW! No seriously WOW! I went on newegg and there are SUCH huge price differences between that site and the whole of europe. Its frighting!
Ill see what good that will do me. Trying to get my pc important from the states - Sound nothing but bad luck to me =P Jaesus, if 2Gb of ram cost $200 over here I'd have ram for breakfast yum yum ram, eh?

Anyways Im off to bed, its 12:41AM over here -

If anyone got any news on importing components overseas. Gimme a post