The last system I built was an AMD T-Bird 1.4ghz, Abit KG7RAID (to this day still runs flawlessly). It's about time for something more powerful... So I've done some research (reading your posts) and came up with the following below. I'm pretty sure all of this work well together. My budget was only a grand so I may have to sacrifice the 2gb ram for only 1gb. OR just screw the budget and deal.
Case: The case below comes w/ a 500w and has some good reviews. Can this psu be trusted or should I get a case w/o a psu and purchase them separately? Some Aspire (Dreamer) cases were smaller w/ 420w psu and only like $50...but I decided not to skimp here...
DVD: Should I spend the extra $ for the 8mb dvd drive? Don't know how much of a difference I will notice from 2mb to 8mb...is it worth it anyone?
Mobo: I selected this motherboard for the future possibility of SLI, but right now it's not necessary. Can I get a different board for $60 less that will have the same performance? or just stick with this one?
This system will be benchmarked on heavy multitasking, e.g., several tabbed browser windows, dvd encoding, photoshop, and flash animation creation. I don't want a mac, nothing against them really, I just want a very powerful PC that can handle some intense design work.
_______________________________
AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ Manchester
$322
ASUS A8N-SLI Premium
$167
OCZ 2GB (2 x 1GB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM DDR 400 (PC 3200)
$240
Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD2500KS 250GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 300 MB/s Hard Drive
$107
MSI NX7800GT-VT2D256E Geforce 7800GT 256MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16 Video Card
$300
ASPIRE X-Navigator ATXA8NW-AL/500 Silver/Black Aluminum ATX Mid Tower Computer Case 500W Power Supply
$154
NEC Black IDE/ATAPI DVD Burner Model ND-3550A
$39
Tot = $1329
What else can I consider or do differently to make this system more capable for heavy multitasking and graphic design work?
Case: The case below comes w/ a 500w and has some good reviews. Can this psu be trusted or should I get a case w/o a psu and purchase them separately? Some Aspire (Dreamer) cases were smaller w/ 420w psu and only like $50...but I decided not to skimp here...
DVD: Should I spend the extra $ for the 8mb dvd drive? Don't know how much of a difference I will notice from 2mb to 8mb...is it worth it anyone?
Mobo: I selected this motherboard for the future possibility of SLI, but right now it's not necessary. Can I get a different board for $60 less that will have the same performance? or just stick with this one?
This system will be benchmarked on heavy multitasking, e.g., several tabbed browser windows, dvd encoding, photoshop, and flash animation creation. I don't want a mac, nothing against them really, I just want a very powerful PC that can handle some intense design work.
_______________________________
AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ Manchester
$322
ASUS A8N-SLI Premium
$167
OCZ 2GB (2 x 1GB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM DDR 400 (PC 3200)
$240
Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD2500KS 250GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 300 MB/s Hard Drive
$107
MSI NX7800GT-VT2D256E Geforce 7800GT 256MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16 Video Card
$300
ASPIRE X-Navigator ATXA8NW-AL/500 Silver/Black Aluminum ATX Mid Tower Computer Case 500W Power Supply
$154
NEC Black IDE/ATAPI DVD Burner Model ND-3550A
$39
Tot = $1329
What else can I consider or do differently to make this system more capable for heavy multitasking and graphic design work?