Can't Decide what to build

[casco]

Heres my situation...

I need a new decently powerful system for gaming, with decent overclocking abilite. I have around $1000 to use. and I want to stick with AMD and nVidia. I don't need a Optical drive and I have a spare 300GB WD IDE HDD, so I most likly need a motherboard with 2 IDE slots.

Don' t know if I should go with socket AM2 or stay with 939, but want it to be future proof.

Also, is it true that the AMD's with the 512kb L2 cache are the only ones with in the price cut and also will dual core cpu's work with XP Home Edition

 

[casco]

My Revised AM2 Socket system as of 6/20/06

Case: COOLER MASTER Centurion 5 CAC-T05-WW Black/Silver Aluminum Beze

PSU: ????

CPU: AMD Athlon 64 3800+ Orleans 2.4GHz (I will wait for the price drop)

Mobo: ASUS M2N-SLI Deluxe Socket AM2 NVIDIA nForce 570

Video: eVGA 256-P2-N564 Geforce 7900GT KO 256MB

Memory: (2 x 1GB) DDR2 800 of unknone type as of yet

HDD: Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD2500KS 250GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive

Is this a good system.

 

[jimytheassassin]

Don' t know if I should go with socket AM2 or stay with 939, but want it to be future proof.

stay with am2 then

Also, is it true that the AMD's with the 512kb L2 cache are the only ones with in the price cut and also will dual core cpu's work with XP Home Edition

yup, only 512's.. 1 meg as we know it will disappear, remaining in server class and higher end chips. It's hoped this won't be amd's achillies tendon in the future. 939's won't necessarily discount.. nice system choice...and yes..dual core will work with xp home

 

[casco]

Thanks, that dual core thing was really buggin me.

Do you think I will have any problems with a IDE to SATA converter, I really don't want want to by a SATA HDD for this problem, the mobo only has one IDE channel which sucks

 

[chrisbrown]

Case: Antec LifeStyle SONATA II 450 Watt PSU

I reckon you might need a bit of a more beefy power supply, Enermax, Hiper, Silverstone etc, something with about 20A on the 12volt rail. You can never get too big a power supply imo

 

[Newf]

Great system.
You can save some $ with these choices and have more to spend elsewhere:

Asus M2N-E sktAM2 nF570 $99+8 6/18/06
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813131022

Patriot 4-4-4-12 2GB DDR@ 800 2.1v $186+5 AMR($40) 6/20/06
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820220144

G. Skill 4-4-4-12 2GB DDR2 800 2-2.1v $200+5 6/20/06
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820231073

Buy a small SATA drive (cheap) and hook up the 300GB along with your optical on the single IDE port. OR Buy a PCI card with IDE to have the HDD and DVD on different channels. OR Buy an SATA DVD drive. I guess it depends on where speed is most important. I would avoid a converter though...

Don't forget a G5 mouse!

 

[sp6yd6er6]

Good upcoming setup, mang!
I can feel you on this one, about needing to buy yet another another HDD, since you already have a 300 gb, but almost any mobo nowadays, including that ASUS you have your eyes on has 2 IDEs.
Nowadays the price difference between PATA and SATA drives has already closed in and there are more SATA coming out with more-than-reasonable prices IMO. It prolly wouldn't hurt to have a SATA drive as your main drive (for faster speeds) and the 300 gb for storage... depending on what you plan to use your PC for in the future, I think that should be enough for a good while.

 

[casco]

Well i might just get this HDD
and keep the 300GB IDE in my current system

Great system.
You can save some $ with these choices and have more to spend elsewhere:

Asus M2N-E sktAM2 nF570 $99+8 6/18/06
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813131022

Patriot 4-4-4-12 2GB DDR@ 800 2.1v $186+5 AMR($40) 6/20/06
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820220144

G. Skill 4-4-4-12 2GB DDR2 800 2-2.1v $200+5 6/20/06
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820231073

I want to stick to a SLI board and good work on the ram, I like that Patriot Pair

 

[casco]

BTW how do you like your AeroCool Zero Dba 550W PSU

 

[Newf]

Well i might just get this HDD
and keep the 300GB IDE in my current system

DO IT!

 

[sp6yd6er6]

Defenitly worth it! I love the modular design, even though the 24 pin is quite Fat, and a little difficult to move around inside my smaller tower. The case looks killer when you don't see the usual red, yeallow and black wires all over the place (also the switch to using only one IDE cable and 2xSATA drives made a big difference!).