Purchasing AMD Athlon 64 Setup

[s0ccermike4]

What do you all think?

AMD Athlon 64 Setup - Newegg Wishlist

Budget: ~$2000.00

CPU: AMD Athlon 64 3200+ Venice
CPU Cooling: Zalman CNPS7700-CU

Motherboard: ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe

System Memory: OCZ Performance 2GB (2 x 1GB) DDR400 Dual Channel Kit

Video Card: eVGA Geforce 7800GTX 256MB DDR3 PCI Express x16

Hard Drive: Western Digital Caviar SE WD1600JS 160GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s

Optical Drive: NEC DVD Burner ND-3540A

Case: Antec Performance P180
Extra Cooling: Antec 80mm (Video Card Exhaust) and 120mm (Front Intake) Cooling Fans
PSU: Antec SmartPower 500W

Mouse: Logitech MX518
Mouse Pad: fUnc SU-BK-BK Surface 1030

Keyboard: Logitech Ultra X

Speakers: Logitech X-230 32 Watts 2.1

Display: Samsung 915N 19? 8ms LCD Monitor

 

[blascorv]

If you are going all the way you should just pay the little extra and get the 3800x2, otherwise seems like a solid build.

 

[blascorv]

cpu cooling I really like the thermaltake venus, its had some great reviews. One review had it just above water cooling.

 

[t3h l337 n3wb]

That looks pretty good, but I'd switch out the mobo for an EPoX 9nPA+ Ultra (if you want to save a bit of money but still want a good OC), MSI Neo4 Platinum (if you want a ton of awesome features), or DFI Lanparty Ultra-D (if you want a huge overclock). The SLI-Deluxe is supposed to be kinda buggy, and SLI is useless anyways.

 

[i1o0i]

Epox 9npa+ ultra & dfi lan party ultra-d will do better than asus sli deluxe n the rest are awesome! 😉

 

[KoolDrew]

The CPU choice is fine, but the 3000+ will most likely reach the same speeds so it may be best to get that to save a bit of money. Another option would be to upgrade to a 3800 X2, but this costs quite a bit extra.

The CPU cooler is fine, but the XP-90 does perform better. You could even get a TT Big Typhoon which seems to be the best right now. However, it is pretty large and heavy, which you may not be confortable with.

Don't even bother with the SLI motherboard. Two 7800GTXs is overkill for just about everybody and you should not buy an SLI motherboard for future-proofing reasons. I would suggest something like a EPoX 9nPA+ Ultra. You could also get the DFI Nf4 Ultra-D if you want to do soem serious overclocking. It may take some tweaking to get it to work properly though which is the main reason I do not reccommend it so much. If you are the type of person that wants to push his systems to itsa limits it is the perfect board though.

Don't waste your money on 'performance' RAM. Real-world performance is minimal between that and value RAM. While using a divider it will not limit your max CPU clock either. Just get some Crucial Value and save some money. It actually overclocks well for a reasonable price.

Do you really need a 7800GTX? If you do not game at least at 1600x1200, I wouldn't even bother.

For the PSU, get a Fortron AX500-A. It is a much better supply. Also do you really need to buy a mouse pad? It seems like a waste of money to me.