i been asking a few questions here and there lately, but i want you guy's opinions for the whole system. whats the best performance setup(perferably a64 939) for gaming that i can get for 2000 US dollars. keep in mind that i won't be accually buying until maybe july, so if the prices go over a lil (i.e. 2100) it wouldn't matter too much. and also, if you think a component will drop it's price in the period of time, please say so, i'll be on the look out. also, i was thinking about getting a water cooling system, so keep that in mind when posting... all in all, thank you guys for helping me out, here's the system that i'm thinkg about

athlon64 3500+ winnie

Black Ice Pro III
Danger Den DD12V-D4 pump
PolarFlo 1/2" Blue TT Series CPU Water Block
PolarFLO TT Series 1/2" Universal VGA water block(not sure)
Tundra Dual 3.5" Bay Reservoir
PrimoFlex 1/2" ID PVC UV Blue Tubing

CORSAIR XMS, Xtra-Low Latency

MSI K8N NEO2 PLATINUM
Antec SX1000II ATX Full Tower Case

BFG nVIDIA GeForce 6800 Ultra Video Card
or
SAPPHIRE ATI RADEON X800 XT PLATINUM EDITION

(x2) Hitachi 80GB 7200RPM SATA Hard Drive (in RAID 0)

Antec 550W Power Supply

Inspire T7700

thx for ur time again

Good setup all in all. Between 6800GT and X800 XT PE, I'd go X800 XT PE, and instead of the 2 7200RPM SATA drives, why not one 74GB 10000RPM Raptor drive (or maybe 2)... course that would be teetering on the edge 'lots of f'n cash', but by the time July hits you should be able to fit all that into a $2k budget.

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In just two days, tomorrow will be yesterday.

but they are in RAID 0... if prices go down, i'll consider the raptor

very similar to what I'm also doing in july. nice setup. Can you install windows on a raid 0 configuartion or does it need to be installed on a separate drive, instead of being striped on the raid setup? understand my question?

i am not 100% sure, but my guess is that once you have setup ur RAID 0, it should work as "one" hardrive, so i would expect the installation of windows on a RAID 0 setup to be jsut fine.

That's correct !
If you use hardware RAID 0 then Windows won't be even aware that two drives exist.

If gaming is your primary use, you won't notice any appreciable gain from RAID 0. Working with large files (video editing, etc.) is where RAID 0 shines.

<font color=red> If you design software that is fool-proof, only a fool will want to use it. </font color=red>

I'd personally go for the X850XT if isn't that much expensive than the X800XTPE.

That's a Black Ice ExtremeIII not Pro right?

Is Corsair 3200XL the best you can get? Tried looking for others like PDP Patriot 3200XBLK or GeIL 3200 UltraX or even G.SKILL 4400/3200LE?

<font color=red><b>Life just gets better and better, first there was 9800SE->Pro, second 475Mhz on stock VGPU, third there's XT BIOS and now I've vVPU modded it! w00tz!</b></font color=red> <A HREF="http://www.maccrazy.net/9800" target="_new">http://www.maccrazy.net/9800</A>

Basically, what I was saying is get one Raptor drive now and save up for another later.



<font color=red> If you design software that is fool-proof, only a fool will want to use it. </font color=red>

which one will provide the best performance? i'm not a memory guru =P

They're all Samsung TCCD chip based modules.
You want the one that's the cheapest. (According to some PDP 3200XBLK is on NewEgg)

Out of all the TCCD modules, G.SKILL yeilds the highest OC in most reviews.

<font color=red><b>Life just gets better and better, first there was 9800SE->Pro, second 475Mhz on stock VGPU, third there's XT BIOS and now I've vVPU modded it! w00tz!</b></font color=red> <A HREF="http://www.maccrazy.net/9800" target="_new">http://www.maccrazy.net/9800</A>

will the pc4400 g.skill work well with an AMD system? or should i just get a 3200 patriot, also, what about the latest ocz sticks?

yes g.skill pc4400 should work properly with amd

i hear that OCZ is even faster OC

<font color=green> Woohoo!! I am officially a <b> Journeyman </b>!! </font color=green>

Modules with Smasung TCCD chips are <b>designed</b> to work with Socket939.

I would not have a freakin clue which OCZ modules uses TCCD. (It could be 3200EL Rev 2.x)
One thing I do know tho is OCZ VX series which uses Winbond UTT chips, that requires a DFI mobo with the option of 5V rail on vdimm to bring the best out.

<font color=red><b>Life just gets better and better, first there was 9800SE->Pro, second 475Mhz on stock VGPU, third there's XT BIOS and now I've vVPU modded it! w00tz!</b></font color=red> <A HREF="http://www.maccrazy.net/9800" target="_new">http://www.maccrazy.net/9800</A>

I hear mixed things about this, I am reserching the two now. I think that Gskill has the edge in DDR. Im looking at DDR2

READ THE STICKY AND WIN A PRIZE! ALL PRIZES CAN BE CLAIMED IN THE SECTION TITLED "THE OTHER"

<A HREF="http://www.procooling.com/html/pro_testing.php" target="_new">http://www.procooling.com/html/pro_testing.php</A>

Personally, I wouldn't allow different metals in my water loop. Well maybe a bit of brass or chrome? but definitely not aluminum. I find it very strange that PolarFlo mentions nowhere on their site the dangers of <A HREF="http://www.overclockers.com/tips1153/index03.asp" target="_new">battery effect.</A>.

Ever go to <A HREF="http://www.dangerden.com/" target="_new">http://www.dangerden.com/</A>

Dichromatic for your viewing plesure...

technically TCCD based ram should OC the same, slight difference would appear as a result of the external factors added

And if you want to get technical <A HREF="http://www.madshrimps.be/?action=getarticle&number=3&artpage=1112&articID=277" target="_new">here</A> it talks about the difference between versions of Brainpower PCB

<font color=red><b>Life just gets better and better, first there was 9800SE->Pro, second 475Mhz on stock VGPU, third there's XT BIOS and now I've vVPU modded it! w00tz!</b></font color=red> <A HREF="http://www.maccrazy.net/9800" target="_new">http://www.maccrazy.net/9800</A>