New System advice

[imported_Duckman]

Hi all!
I am looking to build a new system since my old PC is not able to handle Video Rendering fast enough or produce a decent enough frame rate in new games. I have around 1500 to spend on the box. So here is what I was thinking to put together.

ATHLON64 3500+ 939 PN PIB L2 512KB
ASUS AMD S939 nVidia nForce4 SLI A8N-SLI Deluxe
Floppy drive - Who cares
I have PIONEER DVD-RW 108 16x drive that I am stripping from old system

I am positive that I want this MB/CPU combo. Now the rest of the stuff I am not exactly sure what would be the best bet for me.

1 GB of DDR SDRAM at 400MHz
- I don't think getting 2GB of ram would give me much if any performance boost in games or video encoding
- What brand memory should I get?

Single E-PCI NVIDIA® GeForce? 6000 family graphics card
- Since I am getting SLI board so I can have an option of cheap upgrade for games should I require it. I want 256MB card. Unless my thinking that GPU's onboard memory is very valuable now with insane texture sizes in new games. Any suggestions?

Two Hard Disks
- one boot disk and one other with all my crup. I was thinking WD Raptor 74 / Maxtor 300GB. Could use help choosing this as well.

Case/Power
- The main thing I'd like here is for my pc to be quiet!


This looks like a great place to get good advice. I appreciate any feedback. BTW I am currently residing in Canada so I cant use newegg.com. Any suggestions what's the best place to buy all this stuff? I've used frontierpc.com before since they are local retailer and I can go and pick my pc up as well as don't have the hassle of assembling the parts, but I am not happy because they don't seem to be able to give me what I want.

Cheers

 

[meltdown75]

Hi Duckman how are ya?

You HAVE to check out the System Buyer's Guide which is stickied at the top of this forum. Its super kickass IMO. It breaks it down component by component - you really can't go wrong! And its updated! With different price ranges! For each component!! WOW!!!

Besides, you would have heard "check the guide" anyway by numerous people. Do it, you won't be disappointed! Act now!

edit: oh sorry, I forgot to add that there is another thread somewhere with a number of good Canadian reseller sites listed... just do a forum search on "Canada" or "Canadian" and I think it comes up.

 

[imported_Duckman]

Hello Meltdown

Actually first thing I did was check out that guide and I agree it rocks.
However I want to get into specifics what would be best for what I am doing.

- really want to hear a sugestion of reliable WWW that ships to Canada
- want to hear feedback on my setup. I havent built a system for a while so I am a bit rust wand want to hear peoples thoughts on my setup. Thats all.

 

[DaveSimmons]

- really want to hear a sugestion of reliable WWW that ships to Canada

For that, follow meltdown75's advice and use advanced search for "canada" in archived threads. There have been a bunch this year.

You're right about only needing 1 GB of RAM, but I haven't researched specific brands for A64.

 

[meltdown75]

Hey Ducky

So far I've only used tigerdirect.ca and ebay (although that doesn't really count). I don't have anything bad to say about Tiger, but due to all the negative stigma they receive here, I'm going to try a different supplier next time, just to see how they compare.

Honestly though, I bought my power supply, HSF combo, and memory from Tiger. Everything arrived on my doorstep in 2 days flat. So no negative experiences there. The only thing that was strange was how long it took to get their catalogue!!! About 2 months!! LOL!! I'm still waiting for my rebate on the memory, which I have heard can take up to 2 months as well.... apparently OnRebate.com sucks. You'll undoubtledly try someone out and develop your own preferences - I think they are all up to a certain standard though, unless they're a new outfit.