Please Help. Buying High Performance PC. Any Thoughts?

[mike2010]

I'm putting together a high performance PC. I have some question about what MOBO/Processor/Ram and general system to buy.

I am considering this:

P4 2.4 (533mhz bus)
Asus or Gigabyte Dual Channel PC2100 DDR MOBO
1.5 gigs of DDR PC2100 ram (This is going to be for Photoshop/Illustrator/Quark projects)
NVida GForce4 ti 4200 video card
2 scssi 18.2 IBM 10k rpm drives
1 Western Digital 80 gig 8mb cace IDE drive
Windows xp
$400 monitor (Have'nt decide on what make yet)
Misc. components (CDRW, Floppy, etc.)

Does anyone have any thoughts on the advantage of going with a dual channel DDR board or going with a single channel board? Is the performance worth it? It seems so technically, but will it be for my purpose (Desktop publishing). How about an AMD dual channel DDR board? If you can go dual channel 333mhz or 400mhz it seems that it would be better? But is the price to high for an AMD solution. I can get the P4 2.4, the p4 dual channel mobo, and the ram for around $800.
Also, any thoughts on the combination of components overall. I have about $2500 to spend and I need to put together a fast, stable system. Maybe someone has some thoughts on a better performing system for that price?

Thanks

 

[Super6]

Asus
ATI 9500 Pro
WIN XP Pro
aperture grill monitor with Sony or Mitsubishi tube

Super6

 

[Kowan]

I'm going to get the Gigabyte GA-8INXP for my new system, (I like it's two extra IDE channels over the Asus's two).
The DC DDR compares to RDRAM and since I need a new motherboard anyway, I think it's worth for me.
I agree with Super6 about getting the 9500 Pro as video in your setup.
My Sony G420 is still going strong, but I'll treat myself to a G520 when I get more mad cash.

 

[CraigRT]

I'd cancel the extra 512MB stick (for one reason, sometimes running 3 sticks causes problems) and save the cash. put that extra cash towards another CPU and go duallie.
duallies RULE for image editing/photoshopping and stuff like that.
get an AMD MPX chipet and a couple MP2000+'s and you'd probably end up around the same price range as the P4 system (no joke!) and it would be alot better for what you wanna do.

the MPX chipset is extremely stable, and a couple MP2000+s would be fast.
that would be a killer fast STABLE system!

 

[OulOat]

Why don't you get a Radeon instead for better 2D, since it will be used for work instead of play? Should save you some money too

 

[Blain]

"P4 2.4 (533mhz bus)"

I thought you wanted to build a "High Performance" PC

 

[Viper96720]

Yeah go for the 3.06ghz P4 you'll get hyperthreading and a $800+ hole in your wallet.