Your help would be much appreciated, guys

[Vertigo]

Ok, I am in the (nearly finalized) process of deciding what components to buy for my new PC I'm planning to build, here is the tentative layout:


Case:

Kingwin KT-424-S-WM - $96, eXcaliberPC.com

PSU:

Enermax EG465P-VE(FC) 460W - $85.67, monarchcomputer.com

CPU:

AMD Athlon 64 3000+ Socket 754 Retail (Fan and Heatsink, 3 year warranty w/ free 10 pack CD-R) - $205, zipzoomfly.com

Motherboard:

MSI K8N Neo Platinum nForce3-250 Socket 754 - $125, zipzoomfly.com

Memory:

Corsair TWINX1024-3200C2 1GB DDR400 XMS3200, $230 zipzoomfly.com

Videocard:

ATi Radeon X800 XT 256mb (?)



See, the problem is with my videocard - I would very much prefer to get an ATI X800XT, or one from a top-tier manufacturer (Visiontek, etc) but it has been sold out EVERYWHERE for the past two weeks - I cannot find it in stock anywhere on pricewatch.com, heck even at retail localities (Best Buy, CompUSA, etc). However, I did find one vendor, provantage.com, which says it'll have Celestica models of the X800 XT in stock tommorow, the 23rd - so I need to find out right away, would that be a good buy? It will be $525, $25 more than if I waited for CompUSA or Best Buy to get the cards in stock from ATI (and have to wait till the 15th of next month, which I cannot do, I am headed off to college on the 18th) but I could order it soon.

So do you all think it would be worth it? Celestica is a smaller vendor; their 9800XT has received good reviews, but I cannot find any reviews of their version of the X800XT, and I do not want to buy if it'll turn out to be a crappier version of the ATI reference design...


...thanks if you all can be of help.


oh and this is just one other question unrelated to the videocard, I know the 3400+ is of the Clawhammer design w/ 1mb L2 cache; would it be worth the extra $185 to buy it for the 512kb of L2 cache it has over the Newcastle 3000+? I've also heard that the Clawhammer's memory controller is better than that of the Newcastle, is that true?

 

[Ned_Flanders]

OK, I didn't reall all your post, but I saw the AMD64 3000+ Chip, if you are o/c I am pretty sure that most of those chips are rejected 3200+ - So your o/c will be very limited.

<font color=blue><font color=red>Milk</font color=red> my <font color=red>ass</font color=red>, and call me <font color=red>Nancy</font color=red>!</font color=blue>

 

[lhgpoobaa]

The actual memory controller is the same on all chips.
The things that differ are the cache sizes and available memory bandwidth.

Ive seen the benchmarks and for most PC orientated tasks the difference between 1Mb and 512mb cache is limited.

You relly need big rendering or server side stuff to use all that cache effectivly.

<b>My Computer is so powerful Sauron Desires
it and mortal men covet it, My Precioussssssss!

Regards,
Mr no integrity coward.</b>

 

[ltj311]

I would be weary of provantage.com.

I had purchased a 6800gt from them(backordered of course) and for over two weeks the listed price was $335 or thereabouts. Well I got an e-mail from them today...

"Dear Provantage Customer,


Occasionally, the price may change on an out-of-stock item due to an
unexpected cost increase from the manufacturer. Unfortunately, an
unexpected cost increase has occurred on an item you ordered, Provantage
part# PNYV03P. As a result of this increase, our new price is $448.20.

Please advise if we should proceed with your order at the new price.


Sincerely,

Julie Brown
JBrown@provantage.com

PROVANTAGE Computer Products
http://www.provantage.com"

Now your XT might be legit, but all I'm sayin' is be weary.

As for the rest of your system, looks pretty solid. I just ordered a gig of the corsair xms pc3200 myself. Can't wait to put those babies in.


--
MSI K8N Neo Platinum
Athlon 64 3200+ Newcastle
512mb Apacer pc3200
ATI 9800np 256-bit 128mb
3dMark01: 20,371 3dMark03: 6334 Aquamark3: 46,310