Seems like to be a very good rig but look at the price... 😁

PS - I remember the first CD rewriter I used was a SCSI Plextor. Very good and reliable brand. I have heard they also produce good IDE drives.

PS2 - I would go AMD always. Pretty mighty microprocessors and not as expensive as Intel. Still don't know why people prefer Intels (at least here, at Spain, there is some sort of urban legend that said AMD was not 100% compatible with software. Nonsense).

PS3 - 1GB RAM seems not enough to me for that kind of rig. I would go 2 or 3GB. I have recently played (and finished) Vampire (the Masquerade):Bloodlines and, believe me, sometimes choked with 1GB RAM.

Best regards...

Since I actually burn dvd-r's when i have lots of shit on my hdd, i would never get that many 400gb when I could have eight! raptors for the same price. I'd said a raid 0 of those seagates would be nice, but a raid 0 of raptors would still be imminently faster, not to mention more reliable. Raptors MTBF is 136 years (1.2 million hours)

The most ram he could stick in that would be 2gb unless you get shitty high latency stuff, and the whole point of not getting a socket 940 opteron is to have a low-latency socket 939 Athlon FX. Make sure your timings are 2-2-2-5 =D

Now all you need is an AseTek VapoChill Lightspeed, and a matchining lian-li case so you can overclock and run your cpu at negative temps. Next step; save $850.

Yeah, I've had 1gb of RAM for...must be at least 2+ years now. 2GB is the right amount for the high-end gamer/computer enthusiast nowadays.

hm.. and i have sold my one 256MB module cause only one 256MB module is enough for the latest Prince of Persia (Warrior Within)...

That means I could run 3 processes of it for a lan game with 1 pc and have 6gb of ram left for my 4th cpu. =D

Seriously though, why would anyone sell ram they can use? 512mb seems like a blink of the eye for gamers. Especially for people who have girlfriends who sit there ever expanding ass in front of your pc to play resource heavy games like the sims 2. I've seen it eat 1400mb of ram no problem, and that's with a heavy duty GPU to offload textures on.

The running gag at the office is that buying Western Digital drives is a great investment because you get a free upgrade every year. (Because that's how often they fail.) I would never trust a WD drive larger than 8GB. I did (80GB), and lost a crapload of stuff. Considering the number of Maxtor drives we see versus WDs, considering most of the Maxtor are healthy and most of the WD are dead, I would highly disrecommend them.

Anyway, my shit's all here, I'm playing on it right now. The RAM was bad and had to be sent back, I'm running on the 266MHz RAM I took from my old system 'till the new ones get here (BTW the latency on the Ballistix PC3200 is 2226; the PC4000 CAS sucks, and that's the only speed they make 1GB sticks in; I'll get some 1GB once they make it at PC3200 and ultra-low CAS). I've had weird little buggy glitchy things that have concerned me a little, but everything is running quite stable, if not a bit warm -- this case doesn't have enough airflow. CPU idles at 51C, Prime95 got the CPU maxed in the mid-60C range with the case on (took the case off and it dropped down to 57C, more than acceptible considering the HSF is 14dBA, and the drop after removing the side indicates that the CPU fan is not what is causing the CPU to get hot); Jarret (a guy I work with) and I are going to dremel out a 12cm fan hole on the top and stick a nice slow fan up there to provide the proper exhaust for the system. After that things should be pretty slick.

S&M will get higher temps than Prime95.

Seagate all the way.

I don't know what you're referring to by S&M, though I can think of a game that uses that acronym 😉
Now that the thermal compound has set a bit, idle temperature is lower, 47C, and I ran some not-super-intensive but 3D accelerated games without any problem. I'd still like to get a larger output on top, stick a really quiet fan on it, and hopefully kill the rear output fan. (I'd make the hole on the back larger, but I'd need to solder an 80mm plate to replace the current hole before creating a new one, not something I'm interested in doing.)

Haha, nice topic :p

Dude, you got ripped off. I always buy stuff a notch or two down from the top because with computer hardware the price goes up at least exponentially with respect to performance. I hope it's working well for you though 😀

What are your RAM timings, just out of curiosity?

I got my computer up and running (and christened it "Daedalus") - that and mandatory 20% overtime at work are the reasons I haven't been around here much lately.

I also picked up some Logitech Z-5500's, which have better decoding features than any set of Klipsch speakers that I could find.

Speaking of CPU temps, mine idles at just over 60C. I was stupid and didn't get a fan pre-installed on it (didn't realize that OEM Athlons are $70 cheaper than retail because they don't come with fans!), so I had to buy one from my local CompuCare store. Unfortunately, they only had one decent cooler that doesn't require mounting holes (my mobo doesn't have 'em). I'm thinking of replacing the thermal compound with some Arctic Silver that my roommate has laying around - will that help a lot?

I haven't had instability problem as a result of high temps. I installed a couple of case fans, but I'll probably have to do something before the weather gets hot this year (I live in an apartment in the Northwest US, so I don't have A/C).

Arctic Silver will help a couple degrees, perhaps. It's not any monumental improvement, but it does help heat transfer much more than silicon gel.
My fucking RAM was defective and I had to send it back. The timings on it are 2-2-2-6. Newegg finally sent out replacement at the end of last week. They'll probably get here on Tuesday, of course, the day that I have off and so I won't be at work to receive them! Bah.

How did you manage that price?! Newegg.com, my friend, Newegg.com.

The 6800 is only $320 for PCI-E.
CPU isn't too far off...Newegg has it retail for $280.
Mobo is only $199
Those HDDs are $359 from Newegg...so that's about $120 less there
Newegg has Plextor's 16x SATA DVD Burner for ten dollars less than your IDE DVD Burner. Why go with a Plextor for your secondary drive? You can get a Lite-On of the same quality for $40.
Are you planning on overclocking your ram? If not, why get the HyperX/Ballistix/XMS ram? It won't do you any good if you are not going to OC. Mushkin has good timings (there's a matched pair on Newegg of regular stuff with 2.5-3-3-8 timings), they're a good pick, and two 512 sticks of unexcessive PC3200 is only about $140, from most any brand. Or you could go with much faster ram for that same $230 price. OCZ has a !1GB matched pair of PC3700, with 2.5-3-3-8 on the timings, for $237 on Newegg!
Soundcard price is good...Newegg's costs $221. But hey, with the money saved off of the other reduced prices, you could get an Audigy 4 ($299)!!

Do you plan on buying another 6800 at a later date? If not, why get the SLI board? You should get Asus' AV8-E Deluxe instead, featuring Via's spiffy new PCI-Express compatible K8T890 chipset. Of course, Abit's AX8-3rd Eye has a better array of internal slots (4x SATAs...3 PCI-Es, 2x IDE...), but it is really hard to find one of those. Either board only costs $150-160. With all that, you could dish out the cash for an X850 XT (Sapphire's is $499 at Newegg.com), and oc it to be an X850 XT PE.

You didn't already buy and receive all these parts, did you? You could save yourself a lot of cash (that, or use it to get some upgraded parts). 😁

I did a lot of window shopping on places like pricewatch.com and then read reviews on anything that looked good (including the places I was thinking of buying from). You can really get some good deals if you are willing to shop around and compromise a little.

Good job, Derag, for finding the prices on Newegg. AFTER I found them. ON NEWEGG. You see, there is this thing called 'Market fluctuation'. It means parts increase and decrease in price over time. I suggest you learn about it. 😀

Sorry, I missed the date on your post. 😒