Building New Computer - What do you think?

[foxz88]

Hi! This is my first post on Tomshardware and I'm seeking advices / opinions for the new computer I am planning to build at the end of May.

I know I could wait a bit for the AM2 socket or the Conroe from Intel but I'm no sure it's worth the wait. I would prefer buying a very good system now and change almost everything in 3 years.

I want to overclock it on air so I tried to choose every parts according to that. I'm selling my old computer so I wont be taking parts from it. I made a lot of research for the parts but I need a second opinion!


Processor:
----------
AMD ATHLON 64 X2 4400+ 939 TOLEDO OR Opteron 165 if available

Heatsink:
---------
Scythe Ninja with Panaflo 120 mm 2500RPM 104CFM 41.5DBA

Is their something better below 100$

Case:
-----
Antec P180 with one extra 1200mm Nexus Silent Fand and one 80mm Nexus Silent Fan

Memory:
-------
OCZ OCZ4002048ELDCPE-K 2Gb EL DDR PC3200 PLATINUM SERIES DC KIT (CL 2-3-2-5 ) OR

Motherboard:
------------
ASUS A8R32-MVP Deluxe

Video Card:
-----------
SAPPHIRE ATI Radeon X1900XT PCI-E 512MB DDR3

Hard Drive:
-----------
2 X WESTERN DIGITAL 250GB 7200 RPM Drive, 16MB Cache, SATA II

Power Supply:
-------------
ANTEC NEO HE550 550W

DVD Drive:
----------
NEC DVD+-RW ND-3550A 16x Dual layer Black

Monitor:
--------
DELL - UltraSharp 2005FPW 20.1-inch Wide Aspect Flat Panel LCD

Did I forget something? Any comments, opinions, suggestions?

Thanks for your advices,

Ben

 

[maxxum]

Looks good (or don’t have experience with some of the products) except for one thing. Those hard drives are not very fast. If you don’t care about speed or if you are just going to RAID them then those are perfect.

Oh, AM2 and Conroe are not going to have a significant impact on the market until at least Christmas season starts up. Prices will probably go down from 2-5% in the summer, but that’s it.

 

[foxz88]

I'm going to use them in RAID 0. I was also looking at the Raptor 74GB. but it's too expensive for my budget.

Do you know any drive faster then the seagates but in the same price range?

 

[maxxum]

Nope, sorry I don’t. What I’ve been doing is just shopping around for deals. The last one I jumped on MUST have been a mistake because I bought the 200GB versions of that drive for $69 on clearance at Best Buy in my area – I picked up four for my HTPC.

 

[shadowduck]

I'm going to use them in RAID 0. I was also looking at the Raptor 74GB. but it's too expensive for my budget.

Do you know any drive faster then the seagates but in the same price range?

You can pick up Seagate drives for only a few dollars more with a 16MB cache. Maxtor also now makes drives with a 16MB cache. This will speed up the drives especially in RAID.

EDIT:
Unless you plan on using Crossfire later (or you enjoy playing FEAR/FarCry/CoD2 on the highest resolution possible) you do not need that motherbard. Ditch it and get a Asus A8N-E instead for $95.

 

[a1ien]

I haven't heard much about Scythe Ninja, but the Thermalright SI-120 looks mighty good and has really good reviews too. Google it. You'll need a panaflo fan with that, but the heatsink itself is under 50 dollars.

Good choice of Memory. That's what I'm running in my system right now. Fairly good at OCing, not as good as some of the other RAMs but those have loser timings.

 

[foxz88]

Thanks for the disk suggestion. I will go with a 16MB buffer disk because the difference in price is very small. I need this motherboard because I'm planning to add a second video card in the future.