Just ordered my new rig.

First new pc I've built for myself in more than 2 years. Only had a max of $4K to spend. Comments? Thanks.

ASUS P4C800-E Deluxe Motherboard
Thermalright NB-1 Northbridge Cooler
3 Pin to 4 Pin Adapter
Microcool Chipsink Southbridge Heat Sink
Intel 3.4 Ghz 800 Mhz Bus Northwood CPU
Thermalright SP-94 Copper Heat Sink
Vantec Tornado 92x38mm Fan Kit
92mm Fan Filter
Blizzard Rheostat Fan Controller
Arctic Silver 5
1 Gb Corsair Twinx Dual Channel PC4000 DDR Ram
ASUS ATI Radeon 9600XT Video Card
Creative SB Audigy2 ZS Sound Card
CoolerMaster Black Praetorian Case (comes with 4 80mm fans)
80mm Fan Filters
4-Pin Y Extension Wires
Enermax 550W EG651-VE FMA Power Supply
2 x Western Digital 74 Gb SATA Raptor HDD’s
2 x Red SATA Round Cables
2 x SATA Power Adaptor Cables
2 x Vantec Vortex Black HDD Coolers
Plextor PX712 Black Internal DVD-RW
Red ATA133 Round IDE Cable
Mitsumi Black Floppy Disk Drive
Red Round Floppy Drive Cable
Adjustable Cable Clamps
US Robotics 56K V92 Performance Pro PCI Modem
ViewSonic G220FB 21” Perfect Flat Black Monitor
Logitech Cordless Elite Duo Black Keyboard/Mouse
Logitech Z560 Black Sound System
Microsoft Windows XP/PRO SP1 Upgrade Edition

Ordered parts from 3 vendors: Spartantech, Tigerdirect, and Frozencpu.
Total (includes UPS 2nd day air) = $3,757.75

After I get all the parts and get the thing up and running, I'll post some Sandra scores.

Looks good and Expensive...lol

wow, a lot of cooling. Looks like your gonna overclock it! A Lot!!

Pretty cool. Only thing I don't like is the video card. $4k and you got a 9600XT

yeah thats what i was thinkin as well. i would have went a x800 with that kinda money. also i noticed a 56k modem, no high speed?

wdeep4 said:

2 x Red SATA Round Cables
2 x SATA Power Adaptor Cables

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You jsut ordered those for nothing. The board already comes with 4 of them. Nice setup too.

Shuzzy said:

yeah thats what i was thinkin as well. i would have went a x800 with that kinda money. also i noticed a 56k modem, no high speed?

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I'm on Road Runner. The modem's just for backup. I wasn't too sure myself about the video card. Just have to wait now and see if I like it. Unless Spartan Tech would do an unopened exchange deal. I'll have to find out...

Anyway, I'm new here. Thanks for all of your input!

how do you plan on using your machine? that would help us evaluate the individual parts adding up to the whole.

For that much dough you could make a socket 939 system...much better IMO. And why didn't you get any of it from Newegg, they have excellent prices and free shipping for 99% of their items?

Just to tell you, tigerdirect rips you off on ALOT of their prices.

Very nice

Tatuya said:

For that much dough you could make a socket 939 system...much better IMO. And why didn't you get any of it from Newegg, they have excellent prices and free shipping for 99% of their items?

Just to tell you, tigerdirect rips you off on ALOT of their prices.

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Please don't throw rotten eggs or tomatoes at me for saying this, but I much prefer Intel processors and Intel chipsets over the current AMD solutions...

I only ordered 2 items from Tigerdirect, and it was only because Spartantech doesn't carry them. I got all the cooling and case stuff from Frozencpu and the remainder of the parts from Spartantech. I've ordered from all 3 places in the past and haven't had any problems with them. The only reason I didn't consider Newegg (who I've also ordered from in the past) is because Newegg doesn't accept Paypal, and I wanted to use my Paypal account to pay for all of the stuff.

Shuzzy said:

yeah thats what i was thinkin as well. i would have went a x800 with that kinda money....

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I went back and looked at the specs for the X800 versus the 9600XT. It seems to me that the biggest difference is that the X800 has twice the ram, twice the ram bandwidth, and appr twice the ram speed. Not that that doesn't make a considerable performance difference, because I'm sure it does. But, I'm also not really big time into gaming, so I don't know that spending the extra $275 on an X800 would have been worth it for me. I'd probably be better off using that extra money later for another gig of Corsair ram. What do you think?

wdeep4 said:

I went back and looked at the specs for the X800 versus the 9600XT. It seems to me that the biggest difference is that the X800 has twice the ram, twice the ram bandwidth, and appr twice the ram speed. Not that that doesn't make a considerable performance difference, because I'm sure it does. But, I'm also not really big time into gaming, so I don't know that spending the extra $275 on an X800 would have been worth it for me. I'd probably be better off using that extra money later for another gig of Corsair ram. What do you think?

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Yes, all that you said, but you forgot to mention THREE TIMES THE PERFORMANCE

Anyway, if you're not gaming, I don't think you need more than a 9600XT anyway. But if you do start gaming, you'd need to upgrade.