Guess its my turn to get my future system critiqued

[minofifa]

hi everybody. WEll i'm about to get my new computer for back to school / DAW work (audio production), i have built this computer and am planning on having it made at a local store as they said they could get pretty close to the prices i have. Before i put the order in, i was hoping you guys could skim it over and offer any advice on changes.

ANTEC SX1040 PERFORMANCE II TOWER BLACK 4X5.25IN 6X3.5IN 400W ATX12V P/S = $135.70
AMD ATHLON 64 3200+ PROCESSOR S754 RETAIL BOX = $313.50
ARCTIC COOLING SUPER SILENT 4 PRO L S478 2000-3000RPM 25-38.5CFM = $ 25.88
ASUS K8V DELUXE = $186.16
CORSAIR VALUE SELECT DUAL CHANNEL 1024MB KIT PC3200 DDR CAS2.5 2X512MB = $243.56
SEAGATE BARRACUDA 7200.7 SERIAL ATA 120GB EIDE 7200RPM = $129.96
SEAGATE BARRACUDA 7200.7 SERIAL ATA 120GB EIDE 7200RPM = $129.96
SEAGATE BARRACUDA 7200.7 SERIAL ATA 80GB EIDE 7200RPM = $ 92.50
SAPPHIRE RADEON 9800 ATLANTIS 128BIT 128MB DDR AGP VGA DVI-I TV OUT OEM = $237.00
SONY CRX230E 52X/32X/52X E-IDE INT CD-RW W/ SW OEM = $ 39.22
MICROSOFT WINDOWS XP HOME EDITION OEM = $122.54

Total = $1655.98


One major concern i am having is the motherboard. I lke all of the features of the k8v but i have heard bad things about the VIA chipset, i was originally leaning towards an Nforce. Any opinions? Oh yeah, i have my own DVD drive and Soundcard.

thanks for the help

 

[minofifa]

oh yeah, forgot to mention, these are Canadian prices.

 

[Corporate Thug]

Chaintech ZNF3-250 or the MSI nforce 250 are both great boards. the VIA chipset is fine but the nforce has PCI/AGP lock

 

[FiberoN]

I personally love the MSI K8N Neo Platinum. ITs been running perfectly in the sy stem below for about 3 months now.

 

[blckgrffn]

Shouldn't you be able to get a 9800 Pro at near that price? And if you aren't gaming, get something nice without a fan, like a 9550 or 9600.

 

[Manzelle]

Why 3 seperate hard drives?

 

[minofifa]

ok, thanks for the help guys. I'm gonna check out those motherboards right now.

i'm gettin the 3 harddrives:
1 (80 gig partitioned in half) for applications and two instances of windows installed.
1. 120 gig for music project files and other storage
1. 120 gig for sampleed material (drums, orchestra)

The reason i chose the 9800 graphics card is i eventually want to use 2 monitors for my audio workflow. i guess i figured that the 9600 was too far behind the times.

 

[minofifa]

checked out the MSI Neo platinume and i think i'm gonna get that one, thanks for the info.

one thing i'm wondering, though, is are CD and DVD drives IDE connected? The motherboard specs say that there are 4 IDE spots, but i was hoping to get 3 IDE hard drives, a CDRW drive and a DVD drive... hmmm i don't really want SATA as they are really expensive....