new system advice

[invictius]

Just want some advice of which of the following components I'd like have the best price-to-performance (value for money) ratio. Touch wood, I'll never need a system for a long time, but I'd like to see how cheap things have gotten in the last 5 years.

I currently have:

p4 3ghz
geforce 6800 (has vga out, which is important, also has svideo out, which is VERY important)
4x512mb ddr400 ram (you know, ddr1)
motherboard with spdif-in! (having this is very important)
some generic but good tv capture card
sound blaster audigy - no idea if its a 1 or 2, but it has coax out. Can't believe that in almost a decade, they STILL make you buy an add-on board for spdif! (looked at some new sound cards and can't find ANY with spdif in)
antec sonata case (hate this, since you need brackets, but it's thick steel, which I imagine is good for cooling, as there is no place to put it other than 10ft from a heater)
raid card (not using it for anything except having a 3rd IDE port, can't believe new boards don't even have 2!)
1x160gb IDE, 1x300gb IDE, 2x750gb SATA
2 IDE burners
380w psu with an AT 250w running some stuff to take the load off the main one

Parts I want (since I would be using some from the old system):

Please note I'm not in the north america region therefore quotes from newegg etc aren't of much use to me, just best brands and stuff thats universally best value for money will do

P4 quad core
Geforce 9-series at least (though I'm not a gamer, these seem amazingly cheap - remember, must have tv-out, would REALLY like component out! Had bad experiences with ATI in the past)
Board that supports ddr-3 ram, with 4 ram slots, would be great if it had the standard 2 ide ports! At least 4 pci slots (no idea if pci-e ones are compatible with pci devices)
At LEAST 4gb ddr-3, would really like 8, but will start off with 4 if price means that I have to
Half-decent brand power supply, guessing it would be at least 550w?
A case that isn't cramped as all hell!

I already have:
hard drives and burners as mentioned before, not really interested in blu-ray as I'll probably get a ps3 soon, but would like a blu-ray burner when they become affordable
sound card (though sadly no spdif-in)

Here's what I've come up with, all prices are AUD and online - I've had a retailer match online prices in the past, but if this can't be done, I'll just shop around until I find one that will:

CPU
Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550 (2.83Ghz/12MB/1333FSB/EMT64/XD/Quad Core) $429.00

MOBO
ASUS P5E3 QuadCore, X38, FSB1333, DDR3, 2xPCIEx16, RAID, GbLAN, 1394a, ATX $249.00

PSU
Antec EarthWatts 650W ATX Power Supply, 80 PLUS certified , 120mm low noise cooling fan, Dual 12V outputs, 2 x PCI-Express, 4 x SATA, 6 x IDE $135.00

CASE
Thermaltake VD6000BNS Black Soprano VX, ATX, 120mm Fan, Front I/O, NO PSU $115.00

VIDEO CARD
Asus EN9800GTHB-HTDI-512 Geforce 9800GT 512MB, DDR3, PCIE2.0, 2xDVI, HDTV, HDCP, HDMI $249.00

RAM (x2)
OCZ OCZ3G13334GK 4GB Kit PC3-10666 2GX2 GOLD XTC C9 $560 (for all 4 2gb modules)

Comes to just a bit under $2k AUD, these parts (apart from the RAM and CPU) are the best value for money/compromise parts I can find.

This is going to be in a fairly warm environment, so if there's any reason I shouldn't go with intel, please do let me know. My p4 3ghz prescott gets to 70 at full load, and this is with correct airflow and a gigantic Zalmain fan. I'd really like something that I can just bring home and not have to fuss about it overheating.

One last thing, will quad-core support XP? Vista needs a lot of stuff ironing out IMO, and a couple of users on here have said it's better to stick with XP anyway, as its had 7 years and 3 service packs to get stable enough.

 

[GameSinewPCs]

if your'e looking for price/performance consider these brands (those prices aren't the same as ours so its hard to give direct comparisons).

Case- antec/coolermaster mid tower should be fine 300, 900 or 534 cent, 590, 690
motherboard- just look for an inexpensive board with the chipset and features you want, asus, gigabyte, abit, etc.
Ram- DDR2 if you're looking for price ,800-1200 doesn't matter just look for low latency. Corsair, G.Skill, Geil, OCZ etc.
PSU- For this rig you'll probably be fine with a quad certified 650. That antec is fine, but consider Corsair and Thermaltake
Video card is fine, consider ATI/AMD 4850
CPU- If you're willing to oc, just go with a lower end model where you can easily hit upwords of 3GHz. Also, go with an aftermarket cooler if you're looking to keep temps down. Keep in mind that P4's run hot.

 

[blazed]

9800GT for $250, ouch. You might be suprised to hear that the majority of all nvidia's 9000 series cards are just rebranded, rehashed 8000 series cards. 9800 GT = 8800 GT, 9800GTX = slightly overclocked 8800GTS 512mb, 9800GX2 is kind of different but still just 2 8800GTS 512mb stuck together. The 9600GT is the only real new card in that lineup. They do have newer cards now though the GTX 260 and 280 are the high end nvidia cards right now.

The ATI cards are actually the most interesting right now, 4850 and 4870 for as cheap as $150 or $250 amazing performance all round, and no driver issues or anything like that, not sure what you've heard or experienced in the past but ATI GPUs are top notch.

 

[radium]

No love for ATI, so they made about 4 years of ****ty cards... Who was counting

That RAM is ludicrously expensive, you're overpaying by about 200$

And yeah, I would buy a crossfire capable board and plop down 150 for a 4850 maybe upgrade it to 2 in the future. As the drivers come out, these cards (notice plural) are consistently outperforming much more expensive GeForce cards.