Thoughts On my rig

Hey all, New to the forums and I've ordered the parts for my first rig. Still very new to this stuff and would like some criticisms on on it. (ex. whats bottlenecking it, where I should improve first in the future...etc.) I'd also like a suggestion for a LCD monitor since I have yet to get one (best bang for the buck, and good for decent gaming). Thanks for the help!


DFI Lanparty UT nF4 SLI-DR Expert
Athlon 64 3700+
eVGA geforce 7800 GT
OCZ 1gb (2x512mb) EL Gold
Hitatchi T7K250 250gb
soundblaster audigy2 ZS
OCZ powerstream 520 watt

Everything in that config looks great, as long as that's DDR1 RAM. As for the monitor, I would suggest this one, since I've heard nothing but good things about it, it has good specs, and it's not a bad price considering the specs. If only I had more money...

to the forums!!

Setup looks great

Maybe 2GB of ram for a little more future proofing.
Not a necessity though.

oh yea I should have added that its OCZ DDR pc3200

Thanks alot for the quick replies

Why not get the Creative X-Fi XtremeMusic for $100, that's much better then the previous generation 2 ZS, especially if your shopping for a new card, it'll be worth the extra money over the Audigy 2 ZS.

Might not recommend the Expert, a few people has had problems with it, so the DFI Ultra-D should perform just as well and moddable to SLi.

Also, why not get an Opteron 146 or 148? Same amount of cache as the 3700+, but the 146 or 148 should OC better with lower stock vcore.

And I'd say stick with 2GB for best gaming results as well, value ram will do if you are willing to sacrifice OCing, or at least use dividers.

For a monitor, it all depends on budget, there are some great Dell Widescreen 20" or 24" ones.

I actually have yet to order the mobo. What mobo would you reccomend? price range isn't an issue.

what about the: ASUS A8N32-SLI Deluxe

Asus are generally good stable motherboards. Downsides to them are slightly limited overclockability, and poor support if something goes wrong, but if you need/ want the SLI capability it's a good choice.

The DFI is a good board if you're wanting to do some serious overclocking or enjoy tweaking, but I'd rather go with this epox board.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813123236 there is an SLI version as well, here http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813123246 Not sure how good it is though.

It's stable with good OCing options