New PC spec...waddya reckon???

[Fanum]

CPU AMD® ATHLON® 64BIT 3800 (Venice) 512kb L2 Cache (939 pin)
Memory 2048 MB DDR400 PC3200 WITH LIFETIME WARRANTY!
Motherboard ASUS® A8N-SLI: DUAL DDR, S-ATA, 2 x x16 VGA, 3 PCI
USB Options SIX USB 2.0 PORTS (4 REAR + 2 FRONT)
Hard Drive SATA 250 GB HARD DISK @ 7200rpm 16mb cache
Second Hard Drive SATA 250 GB HARD DISK @ 7200rpm 16mb cache
RAID Stripe (£6)
DVD ROM/Combi Drive 16X DVD ROM WITH 48X CD ROM
CD/DVD Writer 4x +R DUAL LYR DVD WRITER (16x +/-R) (& RW) + 40x CD-RW (£27)
Graphics Card 256MB GEFORCE 6800GT PCI Express (SPECIAL OFFER)
(SLI) Graphics Card 2 256MB GEFORCE 6800GT PCI Express (SPECIAL OFFER)
Sound Card HIGH END ONBOARD 8 CHANNEL SOUND (RECOMMENDED)
Modem 56K MODEM
Network Facilities 10/100/1000 NETWORK CARD FOR BROADBAND
Floppy Drive/Card Reader INTERNAL 12 IN 1 CARD READER (READS XD FORMAT) (NO FLOPPY)
Case Stylish Black X-Plode Case + 2 Front USB
Power Supply & Cooling Silent 550W PSU + 120mm Fan (£18)
Operating System required MICROSOFT® WINDOWS® XP PRO 64 BIT (inc. CD & licence) (£97)
Firewire & Video Editing 1 x FIREWIRE PORT ONBOARD



Should fly like a bleedin rocket.......what do you reckon??
Have I missed anything???

Not prepared to pay the early adopter premium to go for the 4ghz cpu, but with those GPU's in place, a nice raid 1 hard drive set up and 2gb memory, I reckon it'll see me through a good few years

Comments welcome

 

[Aidan1150]

Should be almost as fast as my Black GS

Have you burned out the motor in your Dremel yet Bill?

 

[(RIP) Kaister]

Not too bad for a home machine.

This is what i just spec-ed and bought for 3D Cad work and sitting at for 10 hours a day.


CPU:
1 x AMD Athlon64 3500+ 2.2GHz 32/64bit Retail Box & Fan Socket 939
Motherboard:
ASUS A8V-E Deluxe 939 PCI-16X DDR400/AUDIO/GBLAN/SATA/RAID/USB2/FIRE
Case:
Thermaltake 7000+ with 400w adjustable fan speed control
Hard disk
1 x Western Digital 74GB 10000rpm SATA IDE 8MB RAPTOR WD740GD
Operating System:
Microsoft Windows XP Professional OEM
Optical Drive :
LG 52x internal IDE LG DVD Black
RAM:
2 x Kingston 1GB 400MHZ PC3200 ECC CAS 3 DDR
Video Card:
Leadtek nVidia Quadro FX3400 256MB 128bit PCI-Express 16X
Monitor
Benq FP 2091 20.1" LCD Black/Silver 800:1 8ms response time DVI
Keyboard:
MS black keyboard & optical mouse
Warranty:
3 year on site warranty (next business day)

That one graphics card alone is worth more than the rest of the machine - also i needed the super stable RAM - your twin 6800GT's are good game cards though.

 

[Greg Masters]

Bill

Unless you already have one, I'd try to find the dosh for a 17 or 19" flat screen to go with it.

Let's face it, you're no spring chicken, and the old peepers'll start to go soon!



Greg

 

[nadeem]

the only thing missing Bill is...

and ...

Seriously looks like a pretty high spec pc....is there decent software available now to take advantage of a 64 bit processor for pc's...? 2GB RAM should be plenty as well...I have 1GB at the moment and manage fine in Photoshop, etc...

 

[Deleted account 220427002]

the question is for how much and what are you using it for?...NASA?

why two graphic cards?

is this being built for you or DIY?


oh, better PSU..like an enermax or if your really flash 550W Yesico Fanless aPFC (NO NOISE) 0Db PSU

keep that background noise down!

 

[Repoman]

Does it come with a tape recorder and Manic Miner?

 

[Fanum]

£1530 in vat, but being built for me......(I can't buy the componants cheaper)

Video editing, Games and general stuff really- but I want to be as future proof as I can...my current MEsh machine has done me for over two years which is a first for me- this next one should do the same easily.

Apart from the 64bit version of Windoze, there is hardly any 64 bit stuff about yet, but it'll come, and it's backwards compatable.

Greg....would like to get twin 19" flatties but that'll have to wait a bit

As for Mac.....no thanks.....I want to be able to pick up any bit of software and know it works.

Plus Macs are have actually been superceded by the PC stuff out now for graphics.......this baby with the SLi cards will beat any G5 in handling large photoshop renderings or whatever else

 

[nadeem]

That's fighting talk sir... Dawn tomorrow at the Bluewater Car Park...your choice of weapon - GS or C90....?

 

[Deleted account 220427002]

i have a friend who among a lot of other things does a lot of capturing and converting to divx or other formats..he runs a separate machine just for capture and that sort of thing..takes a lot of processor power

 

[Wraithwrider]

Sounds the business Bill.

I would still go for a quality CRT, bigger but better IMO.

Oh and I'd get a top sound card too.

But a great spec and price.

Jealous!!

Peter - who's home built Athlon 3200 is still going strong.

 

[Fanum]

I Haven't ordered it yet......I want to , but I know i really ought to spend the money on a shed to put the bikes in.....standingh out in the rain isn't doing them any good at all

Ahhhhhhhh bum!!!

 

[Tobers]

Looks stonking. I've got an AMD 64 3500+ with an ATI 9800 graphics card. Superbly quick and excellent for playing detailed graphics games like Half Life and Counter Strike.

Cost me £720 from eBay brand new

 

[mikeh501]

Looking good, but have a think about this

* Why are they charging £6 for RAID stripe? Its a setup thing and takes no longer to do.
* Are you sure you want RAID striping, bad idea IMHO. You double the chances of volume failure as data is spread between two disks and if either fail your fecked.
* I would definately go for a higher end case by coolermaster or similar, made from aluminium not steel. That thing is gonna produce huge amounts of heat.
* Instead of going for a DVD combi and DVDRW, get a DVDRW and a CDRW/DVD rom. Dedicated CDRW units are better at burning CD's than the combo DVD ones. Pioneer are favourite for DVDRW's.
* Potentially I would go for a brand name PSU - Outright wattage isnt important. A cheap and nasty PSU will get trounced by a brand name of less wattage every time.

Thats all i can think of, off the top of my head, but the processor and mobo combo is a good one. I would probably still plum for a dual intel xeon combination though. Better performance outside of gaming.

 

[trotsky]

What mikeh501 said - don't stripe the RAID, mirror it if you need some resilience and buy two more 250GB disks if you need the space.

Oh yeah, and get losts of case fans and some earplugs - I've got a Athlon 3400+ with 1.5GB of HyperX memeory and 4 disks and I have two 80mm fans sucking air in the front and two more blowing it out the back significantly warmer. Keeps the tootsies comfortable though...