Its that time of year again, yes time i spent more money than i have!

Heres what im planning on getting, ill be adding 240gb RAID to the system also seen as HDD prices are so low. 120GB disks for £60 now if you know where to look. Ill be using a PCI card for that, not going to use the onboard SATA for now as the drives cost silly money, like SCSI drives.. unless they come down in price they will forever remain niche/server market items.

Any suggestions - alternatives etc?

Seems to getting a good machine

The only thing that comes directly in my mind is that it will be a good idea to have twice a look on the RAM you wanna buy. I want say that i have read on many websites about the compatibility problems with different RAM in 64er Athlon Boards (some problem with good quality Rams too!).

But i think when your new machine runs, it will run fast ;-)

btw.: my moneypocket is nearly by zero. So every thing that i buy is over my budget *laugh*

<update>
On zdnet.de there is today a test over IDE-RAIDcontrollers (sorry...it is in german language :/ ). They say the
Highpoint Rocket RAID 454 is very good; very fast and with many options (RAID 0,1,5,10, max 8HD).

Here is an article over the problems with different RAM on 64er Athlon. Sorry but once again in german.
The OCZ PC3700 don't run with the MSI-Board (but if your OCZ PC3200...don't know)
</update>

How much will the sound card set you back?
Im looking for a new one with faceplate

lite on came with a true 8x which means 8x on -r and +r...
I've 811s though i'm very happy about it..

tomshardware is a good friend when it comes to hardware..

Its a mean system tho

@ xtrememac, Toms has some great info and guides on his site. however i find the reviews on the site are very often plain biased towards Intel and Nvidia (i run an nvidia card tho!)

There has been rumours about brown envelopes in the past...

Storm, its £168 @ www.cclcomputers.co.uk
its not a face plate, but a seperate box that sits on your desk, like your modem. If you are going to buy that card then you will have to buy a 7.1 surround system to get the best out of it. Creative do a cheaper 7.1 system than the one im buying for around £110. the one im buying is nearly £270! (ouch)
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/cre...e_speakers.html
Bottom of page.

@Zulu, thanks i had heard about these issues. i can phone/email the store in advance and get them to check it. that way if they say its ok and i get problems i can send it back.

kingston - corsair are good rams.
I actually found tom's hardware to be more on ati's side
btw so far I bought leadtek winfast and asus graphics cards, asus gives great performance... if u wanna check they also have radeon..

btw would u like to buy me the same awesome computer you're building

@Tris

It seems you gonna have a awesome system, might follow you down the same road.
Was looking at the ASUS K8V Deluxe Mobo, but still not decided on that! Let me know how things shape up your end and will do likewise!!

-Shareef

what the heck, if NV gives better ownership benefits in the long run and is better in the market-price-range I can afford, I don't care if the bias is towards NV.

as for good hardware sites, I'd recommend www.anandtech.com - nice and clean.


@FthrJack or XtremeMaC - could you update me on the prices (in US dollars) of the liteon 8x DVD-writers please? (I don't trust the internet search rates, I don't normally get them at those rates here, I want to know the price from someone who's *actually* bought it recently).

i bought mine for $140 from newegg retail..
as i said if u're looking forward to write at 8x on dvd-r's liteon came up with another drive..

thanks for that info XtremeMaC, let's also see how much fthrjack bought his liteon 8x for.

@shareef59 - if you'd be holding off any such purchase for a week or so, let me say that an nForce3 Pro-based MoBo would be better off anyday than a VIA KT-880 based one (ASUS K8V Deluxe Mobo).

currently, prices are *exorbitant* for nF3 boards.

Thanks for the info and will most certainly hold off for awhile.
Regarding the Liteon DVD...
Lite-On Beige DVD-RW/+RW Drive, Model LDW-811S, OEM
Specifications:
Write Speed: 8X DVD+R, 4X DVD+RW, 4X DVD-R, 2X DVD-RW, 40X CD-R, 24X CD-RW
Read Speed: 40X CD-ROM, 12X DVD-ROM
Interface: EIDE/ATAPI
Buffer: 2 MB
OS Support: Windows 98/Me/2000/XP
Features: SMART-BURN avoiding Buffer Under Run error, VAS to reduce vibration & noise during recording & reading.
PRICE: $128.00 USD Free Shipping.

Did you have any particular model in mind?

what crap $128 where did u get it ****!!
also there is a new firmware in their website hs0p.

Errrr.... NewEgg actually

**** u're right
http://www.newegg.com/app/Viewproduct.asp?...srchFor=lite-on

i hate it when just a few weeks later they drop the prices (

well bit hard for me to telly ou what the market is like in usa for the liteon drive, but its around £80 from www.cclcomputers.co.uk

much of my hardware will be from there or overclockers, cooling from www.chilblast.com

CCL is only a few miles from me so i can drive there and pick it up instead of paying full price and also postage for it all i can go to the trade counter instead.

yes I'd definetly buy them from the counters if we had a decent computer shop in here , last i checked they were selling gf 2
I hate to pay for shipping.

80.00 GBP = 146.664 USD...

wow u're even going to over clock that system !! ceez!! gonna play dc with that! grrrr

no dont think ill clock it.

www.overclockers.co.uk sells a lot of hardware, they get new stuff in fast and sell high end kit generally, as well as stuff for overclocking with.

holy moly!
what a great site!!

btw I just found my fan for my amd desktop (there was a discussion on amd temp and solutions..)
Zalman Flower something with 1 flower thing and 1 huge fan with the arm.

I found it on overclockers.co.uk..
i'm not sure if it was worth it though I bough it for $40....

dont touch that zalman flower thing. not unless you have a big case with plenty of room around your cpu and also dont plan on moving your pc about much.

Its big, its heavy, its a pain in the a** to fit. and it still uses a **** fan!

i have a zalman cooler in my Pc, Zalman 5050 i think it is... dont know if thats the correct product number, long time ago since i last saw the box.

while chillblast.com and overclockers.co.uk do ship to the USA, dont forget it will probably cost you a lot. though.. you should be VAT exempt i think, so you will get cheaper prices too.

oops crap I already bought it 3 months ago, now I understand why it doesn't really work well
i've been slapped, i've been cheated ohh **** salers!

your meant to have a fan pointing at it.

the zalman cooler i have isnt a flower thing, its a normal cooler, part from its bolted onto the motherboard rather than clipped on.

very :offtopic:
nice avatar!!!

@shareef - yes, I think, that's the one.
No free shipping to where I am, though - in fact I don't even know *IF* at all they ship to India (maybe at a fun shipping price like $50 :disgusted: ).

BTW, XtremeMaC, it might be such a low price because:
did you notice the "OEM" in there?

yes I realized that but retail price just dropped $8 as well
i don't know why i bought retail can anyone give me a reason???
i very much saw the oem one

@FthrJACK You say CCL is only a drive away? Does that mean you are in Tong?
I go to CCL all the time, ive added you to ICQ
btw, i live in Dewsbury

wow mystery solved; now everyone go to FthrJACK's house.
steal his new computer

its going to be funny when u guys find out that u live in the same street same apartment

lol
It would be, i would be round there straight away after his PC

any chance of waiting 3-4 weeks? nforce3 250/sis 755 chipsets should be out in force by then. agp and pci locks, plus the nvidia will be running the full full ht bus instead of the 600/600 of now...