View Single Post
  #2  
Old April 21st, 2006, 04:34 AM
Rockhound Rockhound is offline
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Illinois
Posts: 109
Well, here's my two cents and you can take that for what it's worth! hahah

Ok, seriously....

power supply: fantastic supply, cant go wrong there!

MOBO: cant comment on the board itself but the nforce4 sli chipset specifically is really bad news! Actually anything nforce 3 and up is going to give you a few headaches but you'll be ok if you heed the following...DO NOT install the firewall or NAM.

processor: save yourself MUCH coin and stick with a single core processor. tests seem to indicate that with the exception of a couple of isolated pieces of software most systems little if any noticable difference in performance.

memory: with xp it seems like a gig is the sweet spot. much over that is pretty much a waste of resources. I highly recomend kingston valueram....price sure is right and its as good as any emory out there unless you plan on overclocking in which case I cant offer any suggestions with regard to brand.

Hard drive: complete overkill! these are really only necessary for video or audio editing where you need the lowest latency you can get out of your storage drive. Go with a 7200rpm serial ata wd or seagate drive and you can get twice the drive space for half the money without any noticable performance penalty.

Thermal paste: you dont need it! amd processors ship with a coating of thermal compound already applied to the heatsink. that's the little white square covered with the plastic shield. DO NOT take the shield off until you're ready to install the heatsink. DO NOT touch or scratch the compound.

THose recommendations should knock the price down quite a bit and Im sure somebody else will pipe in with a few more comments or suggestions.
Reply With Quote