Opinions wanted

Ok ladies and gents, Looking for your input here. Looking to build a new computer in about a month and want your opinions on hardware from motherboard to cpu,ram,video...everything for a smooth running box. Lets ehre what you have to say.

What do you plan to use this for? What is your budget? Are you planning to overclock or run at stock?

Gaming of course. Hope not to spend more than 1400 so im sure amd fx is out of the question. i have seen the prices of those baby's

Overclocking is always an option, so i guess if my setup is prepared for it, im sure ill try it regardless

Do you have a preference for CPU / motherboard brands and what kind of features do you want?

WEll, i currently have amd 64 300+ winnie and asus a8v(junk in my opinion cuz i cant run in 8x due to lock ups and reboots) Im really looking for well rounded opinions on anything. p4? amd? im just trying to get some ideas to build off of is all.i know 2gb ram is a must with mist games im playing now (bf2,cs:s and such) Just let me have it all. Also curious if 2x1gb ram timings are decent at 3.3.3.8? seems slacked but im not a real big builder to really know the difference. I will use these posts to study and get whats right for my situation

That's about the time the Pressler's will be released, i would say snag one of those for your cpu. Should be an awesome processor and 4MB of L2 Cache!!!!!!!

noone wants to add their 2 cents worth? come on people..lets talk computers here.

Well it kind of hard right now for a p4 system. With 65nm (Cedermill, presler) days/weeks away its hard to give ouy a setup idea right now.

You said gaming, so i'd say avoid the pressler, 4mb of l2 cache still doesn't make up for the higher latency in accessing memory [compared with an on die controller] if you are a gamer. If you must buy now, try and find an opteron 165 or 170, the better stepped ones on a dfi nf4 ultra d will run pretty much as fast as an FX 57 on air and they are dual core!

I would get the dfi nf4 ultra d as a mobo as it is still excellent, if you want a bit more get the dfi nf4 sli expert as it is quite simply the best pc motherboard in exisistence.

Grab 2gb of reasonable overclocking CAS2 PC3200 (some cheap end OCZ maybe), as everybody keeps saying PC5000 on an AMD system is expensive, hot and for the most part pointless, you may as well spend the extra $$$ on other things.

You can probably afford one of the recent seasonic psus, if not I recommend the enermax liberty series.

The X1800 XT overclocks like a complete beast, but the 7800GTX is faster at stock (ignore the 512MB GTX it's a waste), the 7800GT and X1800XL are both pretty solid though.

However I would suggest that you hold on till probably march when the next AMD socket should be out. 939 stuff is likely to become quite a bit cheaper, and the new socket supports DDR2 and probably there will be a new improved AMD chipset from via by then (it looks quite promising).

I have been looking at the dfi boards on newegg but cant seem to decide on one as of yet. Little confused about the setups on their site. Some will say pcie x1 = 1 and pciex16=2. Does pciex16=2 mean its sli compatable even if it mentions nothing about sli? also...im a little in the dark on ram timings...is 2gb pc3200 (2x1gb) at timings like 3,8,8,10 a good ram. i notice alot of the 512 sticks and such getting 2.5.5.7 and such. clearing some of this up will help me make my decisions. is the 3,8,8,10 because the memory sticks are alot higher (1gb compared to 512)? and will that slow down the access time to the memory? or is that all controlled by the on die controller? am definatly thinking amd since thats what i have gone with for so many years. also was looking at the 7800gt you mentioned. is the gtx worth spending 100-150 more on for a little more bandwidth? Lots of questions i know but want to spend my money wisley and get a well built computer and where else to come but the people that use the harware day in and out

Thanks in advance

yes and no, the dfi nforce 4 ultra-d and nf4-d come with 2 pci-e slots for 16x graphics cards (obviously they are each 8x if you use both like in sli) out of the box they can't run sli, it just allows for big multiple monitor setups. However it is possible to mod both motherboards (very easily) to support sli, sata 2 can be enabled on the standard nf-4 as well. some suppliers (www.overclockers.co.uk, not sure for us) now ship the dfi ultra-d with an sli bridge, and if you can get this there is no point in buying the sli-d, as after 5 mins work they are the same board.

slower ram does run slower, but as has been pointed out in the past with an athlon 64 fast ram isn't really important, becaus pretty much everybody overclocks by running the ram asychronously anyway. I tried running my system with 2 sticks of corsair twinx cas 2 at 3500 (from a freind) and it made barely any difference in gaming, but would have cost a lot more. spend the extra money on a better graphics card.

Thanks hyper, you haev been a big help. Not going to run sli atm for obvious reasons.(money) THe ram timings is what was throwing me for a loop. Ill post what i plan on getting closer to time and maybe you can throw your 2 cents at what is right and wrong and what is a better choice. Been lookin around and reading reviews on equipment now so i can get better involved with growing technology.

i'm just saying what other more experienced people told me when I build my latest rig