Please Advise ("New" system)

[Taughnter]

I'm currently planning on building a new system sometime in the next month or so using the following parts from my current system:

Pioneer DVR-108 DVD Burner
Radeon 9800 Pro
WD 80GB HDD

As well as an older Teac CD-burner.

For my new system I've been looking at the Athlon 64 3000+ and 3200+ processors, though I'm leaning towards the 3000+ for a few reasons. First off, price is a major factor and without a huge performance increase it would be hard to justify. Second, while I have built systems before I don't have any experience with overclocking (nor do I intend to start now) and from what I've read on the boards here it seems like the main advantages for the 3200+ over the 3000+ would be for overclockers. If you guys have any advice on this end, I'll gladly listen but as far as the CPU I'm really just going to go with the best deal I find when I'm ordering the rest of my parts.

As far as memory I'm looking at the Corsair Value Select that's been advertised around $80 all over the place (2X512).

My real questions are regarding PSU and motherboard.

First off, as far as the motherboard goes I've been looking mostly at the MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum as it has consistently been reviewed as one of the best Athlon 64/AGP motherboards out there. I understand that there are a number of people who feel that the ASUS A8V Deluxe is the better choice, though I'm unclear whether the different chipsets will have a major impact. Again, I don't plan on overclocking, and most of the reviews and advice on the boards here seem to be aimed at those who do so I'm really not familiar with any of the boards which might be a better choice for someone like me. Would it simply be best to go with one of these two boards or am I going to be wasting my money on features I'll never use?

Regarding the PSU, up until today I thought the consensus was to get around a 430 or more watt Antec True Power. After reading some posts in the general hardware forum, however, I've seen some people recomending Seasonic and Sparkle. Is there any major difference here?

While I generally have no problem spending for increased performance I am on a pretty tight budget, so if you have the appropriate advice please feel free to recommend more than one solution. Also, if it helps, I mainly will be using this system for general internet, word processing, etc.. and some gaming but I know that I'm going to be at least somewhat limited by the AGP card. (My older card burned out about 6 months ago and I wasn't planning a rebuild any time soon, obviously a mistake on my part.)

Any advice is appreciated and sorry for the long-windedness.

 

[theMan]

3000+ venice
msi k8n neo2 platty
seasonic s12-430

that will be a very solid computer.

 

[The Pentium Guy]

If you're not overclocking the ASUS A8V is a good board: nice, solid and stable. MSI Neo2's got a LOT of problems (hopefully most have been resolved, but my friend's still experiencing random lockups, BSODs, etc).

If you're not overclocking, the Antec is good enough, it'll supply stable volts. However, if you're into super-quietness, Seasonic is the way to go (Coupled with an Antec P180 case for extra crispy quietness). If you're also into quietness, Neo2's northbridge fan i sreally annoying. The ASUS A8V is passively cooled.

To be honest with you, your "long-windedness" is what helps us decide what's best for you. The more detail the better (Although you might want to provide cliffnotes for people that don't want to read all that).

 

[Promethply]

Since you're not into overclocking, I'd suggest the Venice cored 3200+ for the CPU, Asus A8V Deluxe for the mainboard, and the Antec Truepower2 430W for the PSU.

 

[The Pentium Guy]

200 mhz really makes no difference unless you really wanna splurge the extra $50.

 

[Operandi]

Originally posted by: theman
3000+ venice
msi k8n neo2 platty
seasonic s12-430

that will be a very solid computer.

Agreed.

I've build several machines around the Neo2, no problems at all. Seasonic PSU over Antec.

Edit, the difference between Seasonic and Sparkle/Forton is Seasonic and Forton are PSU manufactures. Antec is a marketing company, they outsource for their PSUs, they used to use ChannelWell which is pretty good but no Forton or Seasonic.

As for wattage, 300+ is plenty for your system.