Planning an upgrade... can't decide.

[jyp]

First, I like to tell you what I do mostly on my computer. I own web based business so I'm on the web most of the time. Usually have dozen browser windows open and email, messenger, adaware or zone alarm, Excel, word, photoshop... I tend to do lot of things at the same time.
Sometimes, games like Ghost Recon.

Considering this I'm thing right now of following pc configuration.

ASUS A8V Deluxe 2.0 (939pin) $135,
AMD Athlon 64 3000+ $199 (waiting for new price on 10/15 i'm not sure it'll be any significant or not),
OCZ 2x512mb pc-3200 rev.2 EL DDR Platinum $320( which I think is waste of money now after reading some posts.) considering value rams now,
OCZ PowerStream 420W or 470W
2x WD 80G SATA for Raid 0 along with existing 2 IDE HD's as slaves $65 each already bought.
Use existing ASUS AGP-V7100 video card and
SB Live sound card.
CD-RW(existing)
Floppy(existing)
DVD-RW (possible add on)

I'm not sure it is worth going to 939pin or just get 754pin.
Is the MB good choice? Reviews seem pretty good.
Is SATA Raid 0 worth it?
I'll definitely need 1G of Ram.

Your input is greatly appreciated.

Oh.. I've been using MSI K7T Pro and it died... had AMD Duron 800mhz.

Thanks,

Jimmy

 

[masshass81]

If youre looking for more value, go with s754. Theres a combo at mwave with a A64 2800+ and chaintech mobo for ~$210. People have been getting OCs up to 2.5Ghz with the 2800+ paired up with the chaintech mobo. Since youre doing mostly office work, just go with the value RAM- I dont even think you need 1Gb. If you do end up getting 1Gb though, corsair has 1Gb of value RAM for ~$150. RAID 0 wont give you any performance gains unless youre running a server. Theres an article about RAID 0 in AT's storage section.

 

[CraigRT]

I'm gonna see if I can help you using just point form.

I personally would go with S754... no gains over S939 considering cost.
SATA RAID IMO is also not worth it, being as the gains are almost nothing for the average user.... again, cost/performance blows.
using the money you would save going S754 you could upgrade your old V7100 video card to something more useful.

other than that, the rest seems fine, I wouldn't use the SB-Live card, as you can do a lot better for very cheap, but if you already have it, cheers.

 

[Bateluer]

Its true that s754 is cheaper right now, but its going to relegated to the bargain segment. S939 offers much more longevity, as well as better performance. Dual channel memory being the biggest right now. Nforce 4 will debut here shortly, which will be PCIe to the A64 platform as well. If it was me, I'd go for the s939 platform, it'll be accepting performance A64 chips for years.

I'd drop the SATA RAID as well, its just not worth the cost for the performance it gives. Unless you want to go RAID 1 for the redundancy, but thats a performance decrease.

The mobo looks solid though, Asus boards are rock solid and excellent performers.

Might want to take a look at the Plextor 712 drive and upgrade the video card as well.

 

[jyp]

Ok. Raid 0 is out of the question now. I guess I'll use it for another storage or another os(different language) or storage for movies. Or should I just get one faster HD like 10k rpm. I don't know why I'm getting so obsessed with faster HD...

How about the Power Supply?

Also, Do I really need to upgrade the Video card? Will that make that much difference?
Looks like video card may be the most expensive part.

OHHH I forget to ask about network hardware.

I want to use Dell latitude with wireless card. Is the Linksys like the best out there?
ASUS A8V Deluxe can have Wi/Fi card added to it and so I'm considering that, but if you have better suggestion... thanks.