Opinions on this system?

[Janus67]

This is the system I am looking at putting together this summer. I was shooting for about 2 grand, and this is what I came up with (at about $2100-2200 with shipping). Tell me your opinions and if I should get anything different.

Goals: high performance gaming, good OC ability, and good benchmarking.

Here is the link to my wishlist

To copy and paste:

1 THERMALTAKE Tsunami VA3000BWA Black Aluminum ATX Mid Tower Computer Case - Retail
Model #: VA3000BWA
$106.00


1 DFI LANPARTY nF4 SLI-DR Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce4 SLI ATX AMD Motherboard - Retail
Model #: LANPARTY nF4 SLI-DR
$196.00


2 eVGA 256-P2-N376-AX Geforce 6800GT 256MB GDDR3 PCI-Express x16 Video Card - Retail
Model #: 256-P2-N376-AX
$369.00 $738.00


1 AeroCool Turbine Power ATX 550W Power Supply - Retail
Model #: Turbine Power 550w
$106.00


1 AMD Athlon 64 3500+ Venice Integrated into Chip FSB Socket 939 Processor Model ADA3500DAA4BP - OEM
Model #: ADA3500DAA4BP
$272.00


2 TwinMOS 512MB 184-Pin DDR SDRAM DDR 400 (PC 3200) Unbuffered System Memory Model TMSP400/512 - Retail
Model #: TMSP400/512
$51.95 $103.90


1 SONY MPF920 Black 1.44MB 3.5" Internal Floppy Drive - OEM
Model #: MPF920 Black
$9.50


1 Seagate Barracuda 7200.8 ST3250823AS 250GB 7200 RPM Serial ATA150 Hard Drive - OEM
Model #: ST3250823AS
$139.00


1 SAMSUNG 915N-BK Black 19" 8ms LCD Monitor - Retail
Model #: 915N
$349.99


1 LITE-ON SOHW-1673S Black IDE DVD Burner - OEM
Model #: SOHW-1673S BLK OEM
$54.00


1 Arctic Silver "ARCTIC SILVER 5" Thermal Compound - OEM
Model #: ARCTIC SILVER 5
$7.99


1 ZALMAN CNPS7700-CU 120mm 2 Ball Cooling Fan - Retail
Model #: CNPS7700-CU
$52.99


Subtotal: $2,135.37


One thing I second guess myself with is the power supply. I am thinking between the one I have listed and this one:

Sky Hawk/Eagle Tech ATX-GM620SC ATX 12V, EPS 12V, AMD ATX-GES 620W Power Supply - Retail

The difference is being $15 cheaper and having more watts, but I understand that AeroCool has a better reputation.

 

[shellshock]

well, everything looks good to me except the psu. Id go with a more reputable brand like Antec, ocz, or forton

Welcome to the forums man!!

 

[fabulouscoops]

Welcome to the forums.
I am not familiar with Aerocool power supplies. The dual 12 volt rails is a must have. If you look through the cases and power supplies forum though you might get a better idea of other monster units that will work for SLI and OCing ability. You need both watts and stability.
I would go with the mitsumi FDD/card reader you were looking at instead of the plain floppy if you have a digital camera/MP3 player/PDA that uses flash media.

 

[Feydd]

Aerocool, i've never heard of them. Get a Fortron or Antec PSU.

 

[qwertyuiop]

I would get better RAM to help with OC'ing. Also if it was me I would not go the route of SLI because the performance increases are not worth it in my opinion. That would free up more budget to get a reliable PSU (a must) and maybe a more attractive case

 

[honhon]

yeah, i vote no SLI, and better PSU.
if you want good graphics performance personally i would go with an Nvidia 6800 Ultra single card, i believe you'll still save like $200 rather than 2 gt's and then you can also chose a different mobo, which without SLI i believe will bring the mobos price down also.

 

[CeeDeeJay]

My Two Cents Worth

You selected some strong components. I do have some recomendations:

1) Spend some time on the Power Supply Forum.The power supply you selected(and the alternative you mentioned) has a lot of wattage assigned to it.However I think the PS Forum will convience you that the strength and reliability of each rail is critical in overclocking.That is why certin specific PS's are so strongly recommended.Shellshock hit the nail on the head when he recommended several specific PS's that meet these guidelines.A little research on this point will save you a lot of heartburn later.
2) I recommend you do the same thing about your memory.When running at clock speeds enough memory is your primary concern however when you start overclocking you again will want to make sure the memory doesn't cause you problems. So again it would be worth your time to do a little research in the memory Forum to find the specific memory chips that are so strong with that motherboard.
3) The HD you selected is very good.I would do a little research to see if
I wanted to stay with it or move to another.The Forums are again a great
source.Here are a couple of Reviews of the drive you selected against some of the other leading drives.http://techreport.com/reviews/2005q1/seagate-7200.8/index.x?pg=1
http://www.storagereview.com/articles/200410/200410087B300S0-2_3.html
Good Luck

 

[qwertyuiop]

Yes, always remember that the best way to find out if your choices are right for you is to do plenty of research. The forums have all that wonderful information right at your fingertips! Good luck with your project.

 

[millhouse]

I wish i had the kind of money to get a setup like that! *jealous*

AMD lives on! (hehe i always wanted to do that)

Nice setup, show us when it is done!

 

[Janus67]

thank you guys for all of the help.

- I will probably stick with the motherboard for the reasoning of "just in case" to get that extra performance when the prices come down.

- I will probably stay with the 6800GT as well because of the huge differences in power consumption between it and the Ultra.

- I chose the RAM because it is supposed to overclock very well at tight timings, I was going to look at some of the OCZ Platinum EL (I believe is what it is called) that runs at 2-2-2-5 at 200mhz fsb already, and I have read from a few places that it can achieve a pretty good OC as well.

- I will defintely take a look at a new power supply, I will post my options in the ps forum though to see what everyone's opinion is, I was looking at a 550W Fortron one.

- I chose the case because it is the same one I used when I built my roommate's. It is very quiet due to its 120mm fans and runs everything fairly cool.

- The mitsumi card reader sounds good, I should have (hopefully) a bit left over to drop the extra $20 and get one.