Need some advice on new parts......

[jdwest]

Greetings all!

Been a while since I last posted (6 months or so) but I'm back and looking for any advice, opinions, thoughts or otherwise on my current purchase. Ok, without further ado, here's what's on the way, should be here Wed. or Thurs.:

AMD Athlon XP 1800+
GlobalWin WBK38
Corsair PC2400 DDRAM 512MB (2x256mb) CAS2
PNY GF3 TI500 64MB DDR TV/DVI
MSI K7T266Pro2-RU VIA KT266A

There's the new stuff, getting it all for $600 so I think it's a good deal. Here's what will go with it:

SB Live! 5.1
2 x IBM 75GXP 30gb ATA100 in RAID 0
Kenwood True52x CD
HP CD-RW
3COM 3c905b-TX NIC
Microsoft Optical Wheelmouse USB
Microsoft Intellikybd Pro
Full Tower ATX w/300watt PS(AMD approved)
Viewsonic A90 19inc .23H/.27D
FPS2000 Speaker Sys

Where there you have it!
I'm open to anything really. I've thought about grabbing and Audigy too, maybe a new DVD-ROM, a 400watt+ PS, maybe even some Klipsch ProMedia 5.1's. Also would like to know any recommended tweaks/settings/etc. I should do/try. I'll be running Windows XP Pro btw, I love it ;-) . Obviously I'm gonna overclock this bad boy some too, so any thoughts on what my goal should be? I've heard 1.7ghz is doable in some cases, but most folks seem to be able to do 1.65ghz or so without too much trouble. Well, thanks ahead of time for all your help, look forward to hearing what you folks think. Oh, I will post benchmarks as well when I get it up and running ;-) .

Thanks,
Josh

 

[FooDog]

I have no idea how prone you are to budget constraints, but the fact is that that the SiS735 borads have been pretty much at par with the new via 266a boards. However notorious companies like ECS are for putting out low end sh|t, their K7S5A have beat he 266a benchmark mobo in a considerable amount of tests I've seen. There is no doubt that established mobo manufacturers like abit and such will outdo the reference board, but for less than half the price and almost the same performance it is hard not to go for the K7S5A.