Upgrading my wifes PC for Christmas (slight change of plan)

[SadisticOne]

My intial plan was to put together a nice quick system (new Mobo/Proc, set of RAID-1 Seagates,) where the GFX card (a GF4 Ti4200) didn't need to be touched.. but... plans change.

Now... a graphics card is necessary, and the budget has to creep up.

I like buying from Newegg... they are pretty trusted and I picked out some components, which I believe make sense from a Price/performance and stability (which is important,) view point.

2x Seagate 200GB 7200RPM SATA Hard Drive, Model ST3200822AS, OEM Drive Only @ $132 per
DFI "LANPARTY UT nF3 250Gb" NVIDIA nForce3 RETAIL @ $105
AMD Athlon 64 3400+, 512k L2 Cache (.13 micron, 754 socket) @ $223
ASUS nVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT Video Card, 128MB DDR, 256-Bit, DVI/TV-Out, 8X AGP, Model "V9999GT/TD/128" -RETAIL @ $319

Shipped I'm looking at about $950

I'm upgrading from
AthlonXP 1800+
512MB Crucial XMS 3200 (can and probably will put in another stick of this at a later date... doesn't NEED to be now tho)
Gainward Geforce4 Ti4200


So... comments? Other suggestions? Anything you'd do different if it was your $900 ish bucks (and I don't want to hear about Vegas/hookers) ?

 

[ponyo]

1. Drop the raid.
2. Drop the videocard. (terrible videocard. fake GT)
3. I would probably go with s939 3000+ Winchester/Epox motherboard combo from Mwave but that 754 cpu/motherboard combo is fine too.

 

[erikistired]

yeah raid is kinda pointless. get one drive (unless you need 400gb) and use the money to get a real 6800 GT.

 

[SadisticOne]

1. Dropping the RAID-1 is not an option... because as much redundancy for data as possible is important to her.

2. Which video card would you go with that was available within $50 or so? My first choice (BFG6800OC from outpost @ $250) is unavailable.

3. I'm not really big on overclocking, because I don't want the hassle of my wife complaining about crashing, etc.. and I've heard that the 754's basically make price/performance sense at stock (even tho the 939's are 10% faster.) Am I correct in this assumption?

 

[SadisticOne]

Is the XFX 6800GT a worthwhile card? Thats in stock too...

XFX nVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT Video Card, 256MB GDDR3, 256-Bit, TV-Out/DVI, 8X AGP, Model "PVT40AUA" -RETAIL $400 ish

If not.. I'm looking at ~$440 for a BFG 6800 from Safeharbor... and thats almost BFG 6800 Ultra (from Outpost) money...

 

[SadisticOne]

BTW.. I didn't say RAID0.. which would be a stripe set... I said RAID1... which is a mirror set... so data doesn't go "poof" if the drive fails.

 

[bockchow]

what ram are you getting on the new system?

Edit-
o and a real 6800gt goes for right around 400. in the $300 range i'd go for Radeon X800

 

[SadisticOne]

Using the stick of Corsair (not Crucial) XMS 3200 for now. Will pass that down and get some more at a later date... but that so easy to upgrade.