first homebuild, advice?

It looks good for the most part. The only things I would change is the video card and the RAM. The 6800 XT gets pretty lousy performance for the amount of money it costs. Get a 7600 GT instead, a few dollars more but it's much more powerful. And you can find better RAM for less. 2 x 1 GB kits are generally cheaper because you only pay for one package - and that's a lot to spend on DDR-400 memory.

Would you consider AM2 versus 939? There won't be any more CPUs made for 939, so if you want him to have an upgrade path I would suggest an AM2 system.

You only need a wireless card if there's wireless networking where the computer will be. If it's through wired networking, there is an ethernet port on the motherboard.

Yes, it's pretty easy to do a dual-boot with Windows/Linux. While you're installing Linux, just don't format the entire disk - only what Windoze won't use. Then, there'll be unpartitioned space for Windoze format and place itself.

Overall good system, just take a look at AM2 and see if you can get a 7600GT and different RAM (especially if you decide to get him an AM2 system (AM2 requires DDR2), which I recommend).

I agree with most of the first reply.

One question I have to ask is are you planning to run SLI? If not, then it might make sense to go for a non-sli board.

Now if you're planing to run SLI, the 6800 gt isn't a great card. From what I'm seeing on 2 different THG pages, a single 7600gt outperforms TWO 6800GTs.

I don't want to mislead, so here are the relevant links:

7600gt fear benchmark

6800gt fear benchmark

I'm looking at the 1600x1200 with everything on benchmarks.


If you're really planning to do SLI, it might be worth investing a bit more in your Video card. If you're not buying a pair of high end cards, SLI, IMO, isn't that great. And it'll eat up power.

If there's a similar Asus board (or another brand if you like) without SLI, that'd probably save you enough to pay for the difference betweent he 6800 and a 7600.

Definitely get 2gb of ram. games run better under XP with it, and if you go to Vista, 2gb is the new 1gb (more than likely).

Finally, if you can put this upgrade off until the end of July, there are SIGNIFICANT price cuts on the way for both 939 and AM2 CPUS. X2 3800s will go for well under 200. If you can wait a month, IMO, it's worth it.

Oh, and if you're not going to overclock, don't spend alot on expensive ram. 2gb of value ram and 2gb of the most expensive ram you can find will perform almost identically if you don't OC.

Well there ya go....probably got ya confused now ;P[/quote]