Help building a new Computer

[imported_JamesN]

Hello,
It's time for me to upgrade my computer. I currently have a 700Mhz computer :-(

My budget is about $2000.00 CAD ($1600 USD). I mainly use my computer to play Strategy games (C&C series, Rome, etc) and RPG (Diablo II, Everquest II, etc), and internet, word proccessing, and programming. I won't use it to do any video editing whatsoever. As you can tell, I rarely upgrade my computer. When it gets too old, I just buy a new one. This is what I have so far:

Processor: AMD Athlon 64 3500+ 512K 2.4 GHz (939) 90nm Retail.
Should I get a faster one?

Motherboard: MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum or ASUS A8V DELUXE
Which one is better?

Memory: CORSAIR VALUE SELECT DUAL CHANNEL 1024MB KIT PC3200 DDR CAS2.5 2X512MB.
Good for slight OC?

Video Card: GeForce 6800 GT 256MB or ATI X800 PRO 256MB.
Which one is better in term of image QUALITY?

Hard Drive: SEAGATE 7200.7 200GB SATA or WD CAVIAR SE 200GB

Optical Drive: NEC DVD+/-RW Drive Model 3500A

Case & PS: ANTEC SONATA with 380W PS

Sound Card: On board
Speakers: Use old 2.1 speaker, maybe upgrade later
KB & Mouse: Use old
Monitor: Use old Sony 19 CRT

I know the parts listed above cost below $2000, but I am not sure which part I should spend more (and need your advice!). I want a system that is kind of "future proof" (I probably won't buy a new one until the CPU gets to like 12000+ or 12GHz!). Regarding the Video Card, I am willing to trade off FPS for better image quality.

Thank you in advance!
James.
P.S. I really like to play FPS like Doom 3. But after playing for few minutes, I always get a headache (don't know why!!!)

 

[Chosonman]

Minor Suggestions:
CPU: I recommend the AMD 3200+ Winchester Socket 939. Better Value @ about $150 less and easily overclockable to 3500+ speeds

Graphics Card: 6800GT or X800 Pro either is good. Some say the 6800GT is a better value. If you play Half Life 2 ATI cards are optimized for that game.

Hard Drive: Get which ever one has a better warranty.

Monitor: I love CRT's Nice!

Everything else looks great. You should have a kick butt system!

 

[blackinches]

blackinches has heard good things about the msi board. as for the video card blackinches would suggest the 6800gt. and for the optical drive maybe consider getting the nec nd 3520. it only costs a few dollars more. but everything else looks good.

 

[kevinthegenius]

I would recommend the Seagate Hard Drives because they now come with a 5 year warranty. After some research, I'm not aware of any other significant performance differences amongst drives with compareable specifications (i.e. disk size, seek time, RPM, buffer size).

As for Graphics, I'm gonna go with an ATI X800 Pro because I like their one slot design and I like the Catalyst driver support that I've seen reviewed. I'm sure that any of the reviews can give you numbers showing which card does better for certain types of programs (i.e. OpenGL vs. DirectX), but something about ATI just looks better to me.

Hope this helps. Kevin

 

[blackinches]

the 6800gt is a single slot design as well. the 6800gt's seem to get better with driver revisions, while the x800 really don't seem to other than in half life 2.

 

[Pr0d1gy]

What about that Corsair ValueSelect? If you go with the 3200+ Winny you could upgrade to a good OCing RAM and PSU so you could get the PC running like a 3800+.