New Machine Build Advice Needed

[psuc41]

Right I am going to buy a new machine in the next week or so.

So far I have come up with the following. Anyone got any comments or suggestions?

Intel Pentium 4 "Northwood" 3.2GHz (800FSB) with HT Technology - Retail (CP-030-IN)
£199

Asus P4C800-E Deluxe "Canterwood" (Socket 478) Motherboard (MB-029-AS)
£132.78

Kingston HyperX 512MB DDR PC4000 (KHX4000/512) CAS3.0 (MY-009-KS)
£131

LiteOn SHOW-832S 8x4x/8x4x + 40x24x40x DVD-Dual Drive - Retail (CD-026-LO)
£88

Sapphire Radeon 9800XT 256MB DDR DVI TV-Out Retail Box With Half-Life 2 Voucher
£320

Western Digital Caviar 200GB Special Edition 8MB Cache Serial ATA - OEM (HD-013-WD) X2 = 400GB
£180

Vantec Spectrum Fan Card (FG-004-VA)
£10

Thermaltake Xaser V V5000A Damier - Black Window
£99

Hyundai ImageQuest Q995 19'' Perfectly Flat CRT Monitor - Black/Silver (MO-004-HY)
£161

Zalman ZM400B-APS 400W PSU (CA-001-ZA)
£73

Logitech Cordless Desktop Optical Mx- Optical Mouse With Slimline Keyboard USB Black Finish
£72

OcUK Value Floppy Drive - Black (HD-001-OK)
£7

Extra cables = £30

Comes in at just over £1500.

Looks like I will be working loads over summer to pay it off.

 

[Davegod]

Sapphire Radeon 9800XT 256MB DDR DVI TV-Out Retail Box With Half-Life 2 Voucher
£320
- suggest going for a 9800pro 128mb for significantly less than half that price. Komplett.co.uk has sapphire 9800p for £140, and even the 9800XT is £30 less there. if you're willign to spend that sort of money I'd see what happens when Nvidia's 6800Ultra's arrive, they might not be that much more expensive, and certainly are a LOT faster than anything out atm (and price of 9800XT should drop).

Vantec Spectrum Fan Card
- sure thats necessary? personally I doubt it, especially with the ridiculous amount of fannage available in the TT Xasier cases. Personally if looking for better cooling for the vid card I'd look at one of those Arctic Cooling VGA Silencer jobs, though Im not at all sure if they fix the 9800XT's (btw you can buy 9800pro's with it fitted as stock, card is by Hightec).

Thermaltake Xaser V V5000A Damie
- personally I'd choose a Antec SLK3700BQE (£66 @ overclockers.co.uk, including quality 350w PSU which would probably be fine, so you could drop the £73 400w Vantec also - £100 saved), but go with your preference. I prefer the antec for it's relatively conservative aesphetics, but specifically for supporting 120mm fans for both intake and exhaust (one 120mm fan supplied), plus iirc the BQE (not the AMB? not sure) has rubber mounts for hard drives and stuff. the drive bay door might give you trouble if you wanted to fit one of those drive bay fan speed adjustment thingys though.

Western Digital Caviar 200GB Special Edition 8MB Cache Serial ATA - OEM (HD-013-WD) X2 = 400GB
- personally I'd get one HDD now, and later get another if needed, unless you know you'll need that HUGE amount of capacity soon. Also I thought Seagate were meant to have the fastest SATA drives, excluding the Raptor's, but could well be wrong.

If you're gaming, consider 1gb of RAM, or anyway get a single 512mb stick so you can easily complement it with another one to get your 1gb later

Also suggest you shop around, loads of places cheaper and at least as good as overclockers.co.uk. send a PM and I'll try to see about sending you the Shopping folder in my favourites. Looks like quite a damn nice PC though