Building a new system - any suggestions??

Okay, here are my thoughts:

1) If you're primarily using the system for gaming, and if none of your other tasks are CPU intensive, then you're probably better off getting a top-end graphics card and a middle-end CPU than the other way around.

2) I'm not sure if I'd trust Foxconn. A more reputable mobo manufacturer might save some future frustrations.

3) Your PSU requirements would probably best be served by looking at the suggestion for your graphics card made by the GPU manufacturer. (Note that I didn't necessarily say the graphics card manufacturer.) And if you go with a top-end CPU, you may want to bump up a little higher for that.

4) If you're going to go with value RAM (IE. be on the low-end of the performance scale) then you might as well look at the memory compatability list for your mobo and try to choose something that matches. It should still be about as cheap.

<pre><font color=orange><i>Jesters do oft prove prophets.</i> -Regan in
King Lear (Act V, Scene iii) by William Shakespear</font color=orange></pre><p>@ 189K -> 200,000 miles or bust!

For the mobo go with DFI, EPOX or ASUS.

I'll get a bigger HD, look for the biggest HD that has a good dollar to gigabyte ratio, and then make a small partition for the system, and a bigger one for data.

CPU at least venice, but san diego would be nice (the main difference is that san diego has twice the L2 cache that venice has)

PSU the Fortron 500W bluestorm goes for about $90 at newegg. I have it and it gives me very accurate voltages.

Nothing is as easy as it looks

Since most users (whether they admit it or not) want to play games on their PC, this is probably pretty true. Around THGC however we get a lot of enthusiasts doing weird things with their PC, so it may not be as true here. :\ It'd be interesting to do a poll or something to see what the most CPU-intensive primary-concern task folks here do.

(IE if you care more about 3D rendering than games then it's 3D rendering. But if care more about MS Word than games, but still game on occasion, then it's games because MS Word doesn't use enough CPU resources to matter.)

<pre><font color=orange><i>Jesters do oft prove prophets.</i> -Regan in
King Lear (Act V, Scene iii) by William Shakespear</font color=orange></pre><p>@ 189K -> 200,000 miles or bust!

Hey guys, thanks for all your feedback. As for the CPU, i've decided to go with the less expensive 3800+ and in turn get the more expensive video card (the x800xl).

As for the HDD, i've replaced the IDE one with HITACHI Deskstar 7K250 14R9463 160GB 7200 RPM 8MB ATA150 ($87)

reguarding the MOBO, i've decided to now get the Foxconn NF4UK8AA-8EKRS Socket 939 nForce4 ($104) - i've looked at reviews and benchmarks and it seems that it performs well.

I forgot to mention... most likelely will not be doing any overclocking of the cpu and the video card.
How does this new configuration sound?
<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by jrm5084 on 06/01/05 09:05 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

Abit's A8N is a great board at a good price. The x800xl is , price /performance wise, the best. I would stay away from any hdd named deathstar. The value ram is cas3, get some samsung TCCC ram, it's cheeper, and cas2.5

Why are you going with foxconn?
With the same or less money you can a better brand, as I said before you could get something from DFI, Epox or ASUS, with DFI and Epox being the two better choices. The people here is making suggestions based on reviews and what they've used (I have the Epox nforce4 ultra, and I had an ASUS) The DFI Lanparty nf4 ultra is as good, if not better than my board.
For the HD I personally only buy Seagate, Maxtor or Western Digital, I had always good experiences with them. I don't care if a HD is noisy my case has 6 fans + 2 PSU fans, so I buy a hard disk for it's reliability and those 3 have been good for me.

Nothing is as easy as it looks