Please comment on possible new system

[skace]

Could really use any input before I start purchasing....

Case: Lian-Li PC-68+ ________________________________$176.00
Case Fans: 3 VANTEC's STEALTH SF8025L ________________$36.00
IDE Cables: Rounded Silver (I'm a sucker) ________________$40.00
MotherBoard: Asus VIA A7V333 ________________________$134.00
Processor: AMD ATHLON XP 2000+ _____________________$205.00
Power: ENERMAX EG465AX-VE (W)FCA. 431W _____________$117.00
Memory: 3 MUSHKIN DDR 512MB PC-2700 ________________$594.00
Floppy: SONY 1.44MB ________________________________$9.00
Hard Drive: Western Digital WD1200JB __________________$211.00
Video Card: GAINWARD/CARDEXPERT GeForce 4 Ti 4400 _____$299.00
NIC: LINKSYS LNE100TX ______________________________$15.00
OS: Windows 2000 Professional _______________________$141.00
HSF: ALPHA PAL8045U _______________________________$47.00
DVDRW: I don't know, I'm about ready to give up on DVDRW, nobody has any decent reviews, none of the drives seem to be all that great. Sounds like I'm going to have to buy another CDRW and 3-4 stacks of CDs instead.

Not concerned about price, concerned about component quality.

 

[TheBDB]

$600 for 1.5 GB of memory?? What are you doing that requires that much? Just out of curiosity.

 

[flood]

I'd go with a netgear fa311 nic

 

[skace]

"$600 for 1.5 GB of memory?? What are you doing that requires that much? Just out of curiosity."

Play everquest and counter-strike at the exact same times, I'm curious if it is possible.

 

[jcmkk]

I say you should drop a stick of ram. If you can play CS and everquest at the same time with 3 sticks, then you can do it with 2 also. Use the money you save and buy another WD 120GB special edition hard drive and put them in a raid 0 array. You'll actually see some performance difference there. With all that money, you should buy a nicer PSU. Enermax is fine, but if you are gonna go all out, then you might as well do it right. Get a PC Power and Cooling PSU. Everything else looks good. I wish I had that kind of money to blow on a system.

 

[Dreadogg]

<< Play everquest and counter-strike at the exact same times, I'm curious if it is possible. >>

That is really silly guy! I love the cable's I will be buying the same ones soon! Im kinda curious why you want Win 2000! Also I am wondering about your monitor and keyboard selection?

 

[RaynorWolfcastle]

<< Not concerned about price, concerned about component quality. >>



I'd get the Corsair 512MB PC2700 XMS sticks if price is no concern

I also agree you shouldn't need more than 1 GB of RAM. Spend the extra money elsewhere.

-Ice

 

[CubicZirconia]

If hes not concerned about price, why not get 1.5 gig of ram? If he wants another hard drive, get one of those too. Even if the ram is of little to no practical use, I'd stilll get it if money was no concern.

 

[skace]

"That is really silly guy! I love the cable's I will be buying the same ones soon! Im kinda curious why you want Win 2000! Also I am wondering about your monitor and keyboard selection?"

I want Win2000 because I like the OS. It is nice and stripped down, less you have to remove/configure after install and safer at default.

I will be using the monitor that I already own: Hitachi Superscan 812 21". The only time I will buy a new monitor is when I think LCDs have finally replaced high-end CRT monitors.

My keyboard is a mechanical IBM keyboard. The old 10 pound ones that last forever. Although I'm thinking of buying this for the PC:IBM USB 106 key keyboard (black). Although I plan to wait for the white ones to come back into stock.

The mouse will be the same one I already have, logitech dual-optical mouse.

 

[Epsil0n00]

I think that if quality is your top concern your shouldn't risk using rouded IDE cables. Many places swear that rouded IDE cables cause data corruption.

Furthermore, why are you not considering SCSI and AthlonMP?

 

[WarCon]

I was curious, do you have to buy registered memory to run 3 sticks of DDR? Something to research.

 

[cholley]

i read the same thing about round cables=bad data
western digital = PURE ASS

 

[skace]

Hrm, you guys just brought up something I didn't even realize . I've been having lots of problems with my current PC and it has rounded cables.

I think I will get some of these cables then: linky

"western digital = PURE ASS"

Cholley,
I used to agree, but I like their more recent hard drives.

"Furthermore, why are you not considering SCSI and AthlonMP?"

At one point in the past I seriously considered SCSI, but I have a lot of data (hence the DVDRW) and SCSI just doesn't work out when you want 120-220 GB of storage. Although money is no concern, I do have my limits and paying for 200GB of SCSI would hurt...

I don't know why I didn't go AthlonMP, any reason to?

"I was curious, do you have to buy registered memory to run 3 sticks of DDR?"

From the Anandtech FAQs: "Registered memory is definitely intended for servers/workstations or systems with a lot of RAM (>2GB)." and "The main advantage is that you can put more than 4 DIMMs on a memory controller - up to 8, IIRC."

 

[lizardboy]

i had the linksys lne100tx - didn't like it, had problems with both win98 & win2k

as for dvd, i've had the pioneer drv-rw A03 for a few months - very happy with it...you'll read reviews saying that dvd+rw is the future, but the simple fact is that the -r/rw is the most compatible format now, blank dvd's are down to $2 - $3 and they will play in 90% of today's stand-alone dvd players...if you're only using it for data i would go dvd+rw, but if you want to burn your own dvd's to watch in a stand-along player dvd-rw is the way to go

 

[skace]

"i had the linksys lne100tx - didn't like it, had problems with both win98 & win2k"

What didn't you like about it? I have one in my machine and had innitial problems getting drivers for it, but once I had 2k drivers for it I was fine. Do you have intermitten connectivity problems or those sort?

"as for dvd, i've had the pioneer drv-rw A03 for a few months"

Yea, I ordered the A04 last night. I needed something no matter what.