Recommendations on proposed new rig? :)

[Seeruk]

OK - right now I have a decent system but its beginning to feel the strain... and by feeling the strain I mean doesnt gimme ridiculously high numbers when playing the latest games

At present (Ignoring irrelevant stuff)

AMD XP2800+
2 x 512mb DDR 2700 RAM (Generic)
ASUS A7N8X Deluxe Rev 1.0
ATI Radeon 9800 Pro
120GB ATA100 IBM H/D 2MB Cache
400W PSU

Now my proposal is......

AMD 64bit 3500 (s939)
MSI NEO2 Platinum Motherboard (With the 1ghz thingymyjig)
2 x 512mb DDR 3200 RAM (Probably Geil with alu spreaders as they on offer at my local place)
ATI X800XT (Not sure on brand depends on what is in stock)
2 x 36gb SATA 10krpm Raptors in a stripe (Keeping my old 120gb on an IDE channel for storage with OS/Apps/Games on the faster stripe)
Thermaltake 470W Silent PSU


My questions at the moment in no particular order are...

- Everything I read about the MSI board is great - anyone know anything bad about it or the nforce3 chipset in general?

- Seems to me that the X800XT and a GF 6800ultra are pretty much neck and neck but ATI are cheaper by £30 here in teh UK

- Anyone know of any probs running both the SATA and IDE channels simultaneously? I presume one wont effect the other?

- What is the stock fan on the 3500 AMD64 like? I never overclock so really just want something that will run at stock speed without excess heat in what will be probably a very hot system (I have a few case fans in there)

- How reliable are the thermaltake PSU's?

ANY suggestions and mods greatly appreciated - Im buying/building this weekend.

 

[Algere]

- Know nothing, nada bad about them

- Depending on a game by game basis

- No problems

- Can't say but if it's like the socket 754 version then it's noisy under load and quiet/bearable under idle to moderate conditions.

- They're good from what I've heard

Suggestions: Get 1 74 Gig Raptor instead of 2*36 Gig'ers and in the future when or if needed you can get a second 74 Gig Raptor and RAID 'em.

 

[Seeruk]

Yeah I would like to get some bigger raptors but they just dont have em in stock anywhere and I figure ~72GB is plenty for my OS/Games/Apps and dump all my crap on the 120gb for now. Its a thought though and one I will defo bear in mind if they come in stock this week as I only want the raid because then I wont wish I did have it hehe I know the performance gains aint that great so may not spend the extra dough if the other stuff is more expensive than expected.

Dont like the noisy part about the AMD stock fan, anyone else had the same? I really wanna quieten down my current 'hurricane' pc And what about the heat dissipation quality? Does it keep the cpu at a respectable temp under load?

 

[Seeruk]

Seriously..... the rig is THAT Great noone has criticisms??

 

[MetalMusicMan]

I wouldn't say that it is THAT great =D, but if you are making a gaming rig, know that there isn't really any advantage to 10,000 rpm hard drives. I mean, they help, but it's so little ( in games ) that you will never notice. Now, if you are going to be doing other high-end things that do not involve games, i.e. mass file transfer, converting, mixing, editing, video, sound, etc., then the 10,000 will help. Otherwise, I'd save money and spend it somewhere else where it will help you.

 

[Seeruk]

Haha Like I say if anything you know of is better without being twice the price (i.e. a 3800 amd64) then please let me know.

I know what ya saying on the Hard drives - and they will be the last to be bought if the cash is left over... but I do sometimes move GIGS around my system and every seconds waiting at my pc unable to use it is like 1 hour to me It should help in performance terms slightly if the system is dipping into the pagefile for strength but other than loading slighlty quicker its gonna be mucho the same