Little help with picking new comp stuff please

[Mikeyt]

I am getting ready to upgrade my comp as I have been in Basic training and tech school for the air force. For the last 6months I have between 1000-1200 to spend. On that stuff because I have the rest of the stuff I need. I am mainly looking at new egg because I ordered from them before and had great success

I know I want AMD but am not sure whether to go 64 or not so am open to either Idea and a motherboard to go with whatever u recommend . For Hard Drive I think I will get the 36 gig raptor. No Idea on what the latest is for video cards so have no clue really. For Ram I was looking at the Corsair XMS Extreme Memory Speed Series, (Twin Pack) 184 Pin 1GB(512MBx2) DDR PC-3200 - Retail for $224 but I'm not sure. Any Help is much appreciated thanks.

It is mainly for gaming but I will also being doing some programming on it as I will be taking college classes and that is my job for the air force.

 

[ts3433]

Don't get a Raptor, especially not the 36 gig. Very marginal speed increase (over a larger 8MB buffer 7200RPM) and you cannot really afford that on a $1,200 budget.
I suggest an Athlon 64, probably a S754. Don't waste money on CL2 RAM here--latencies mean damn near nothing on a K8. For a video card, a 9800 Pro is good on a budget, or possibly a 6800 vanilla, or a 6600GT once it's out for AGP, if you can wait till then.

 

[Fern]

If I were you I'd go the AMD 64 bit route

The skt 754 are less expensive, but won't allow for much of a cpu upgrade path. The skt 939 will allow for more cpu upgradeability if that's important for you. The skt 939 also offer Dual Channel capability, which the skt754 doesn't.

As for the vid card, I'd really try to fit an nVidia 6800GT into the budget.

I'd also forgo the raptor.

Get a good psu (enermax or fortron).

Fern