Building a new system ... asking for opinions

Hi all, I am building a new computer system ... the first in 6 years. I
currently have a p3 600Mhz with slow ram, and it's just too slow for today's
applications and games. I've gathered together a few bucks and am going into
modern technology. Because I have been out of the loop for so long, I am
asking for opinions on the hardware I have chosen so far and the brand
names. I'd like to know if any component is bad/unreliable etc. Here is my
proposed system so far:

AMD Athlon 64 3500+
### The new 64bit architecture, I decided on AMD over Intel.

MSI K8T Neo2-FSR VIA K8T800 chipset mainboard w/SATA
## My current system uses an MSI motherboard and it was very solid.

1Gb Samsung PC3200 DDR-RAM
## The brands such as Corsair and Kingston seemed expensive. I do not intend
on overclocking. Has anyone had good experiences with Samsung ram? Bad
experiences?

ATI Radeon X800 Pro AGP video w/256Mb DDR-RAM
## I've been told this video card is powerful. Has the ATI team finally put
effort into their drivers? I don't want my games crashing like crazy.

Western Digital WD740 74Gb 10,000RPM SATA hard drive
## I've seen benchmarks on this new high speed drive, it's very close to
SCSI performance without paying for SCSI prices.

Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 120Gb 7200RPM 8Mb cache
## A secondary drive for backup's, storage, and ghosting of my C: drive.

LG 12X dual layer black DVD-RW drive
## I want a good and reliable DVD/CD writer. I have no experiences with LG
drives. Is this a good drive?

Creative Soundblaster Audigy 2 Dolby Digital surround soundcard
## Creative sound cards have always done good by me. I hope this card will
be good too.

Logitech Elite Wireless keyboard/mouse combo
## I've been told even though the mouse is wireless, response time is 95%
that of a corded mouse, so it should be good for games.

NEC FE2111SB 22' CRT
## A large CRT for graphics and gaming. I have no idea if it is a good
monitor or not.

Enermax ATX tower w/Thermaltake 420w power supply
## A pretty nice looking tower with a powerful power supply.

---------------------------

Another Reason I went with the hardware I did was so when the 64bit OS's
come out I'm ready ... at least I think I am. It's a 64bit CPU and a 64bit
MB. I don't know if ram makes a difference. I will be running WinXP on this
system for now. So that's about it ... I would value any opinions you all
might have on this system. I don't want to cut corners, I will pay for the
best within reason. TIA!!!

Robert

"Robert TV" wrote in message
news:OM0Sc.67480$M95.37499@pd7tw1no...
Hi all, I am building a new computer system ... the first in 6 years. I
currently have a p3 600Mhz with slow ram, and it's just too slow for
today's
applications and games. I've gathered together a few bucks and am going
into
modern technology. Because I have been out of the loop for so long, I am
asking for opinions on the hardware I have chosen so far and the brand
names. I'd like to know if any component is bad/unreliable etc. Here is my
proposed system so far:

AMD Athlon 64 3500+
### The new 64bit architecture, I decided on AMD over Intel.

Good choice, the 64 bit stuff really shines in gaming, it is doing really
well in work performance as well. Are you using the retail heatsink or an
aftermarket?

MSI K8T Neo2-FSR VIA K8T800 chipset mainboard w/SATA
## My current system uses an MSI motherboard and it was very solid.


1Gb Samsung PC3200 DDR-RAM
## The brands such as Corsair and Kingston seemed expensive. I do not
intend
on overclocking. Has anyone had good experiences with Samsung ram? Bad
experiences?

I have samsung ram running in some of my machines right now, never had a
problem with any of them. Samsung is actually rated very highly in
reliability for RAM right now.

ATI Radeon X800 Pro AGP video w/256Mb DDR-RAM
## I've been told this video card is powerful. Has the ATI team finally
put
effort into their drivers? I don't want my games crashing like crazy.

Just bought myself one of these. It is an Sapphire Vivo edition tho, and I
LOVE mine. I have always been an NVidia fan myself but my friend lured me
to the dark side and I haven't had a single problem yet. Although I did
replace the retail heatsink on mine, something that I VERY much recommend.
The heatsink does work but it just isn't really up to the task they intended
it for.

Western Digital WD740 74Gb 10,000RPM SATA hard drive
## I've seen benchmarks on this new high speed drive, it's very close to
SCSI performance without paying for SCSI prices.

Again a good choice, I would recommend if you don't have it already getting
something to dampen the vibration on the drive. I don't know if it was just
my case but mine vibrated like HELL when I got it. I finally bought a HDD
cooler/vibration dampener for it since I didn't have much room for drives
anyway the two drives I had stacked in ther was causing the 10k RPM drive to
get fairly hot.

Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 120Gb 7200RPM 8Mb cache
## A secondary drive for backup's, storage, and ghosting of my C: drive.

LG 12X dual layer black DVD-RW drive
## I want a good and reliable DVD/CD writer. I have no experiences with LG
drives. Is this a good drive?

Dunno never owned any LG stuff. Although I am considering buying one
myself, they are sooo cheap now! I mean I remember when a DVD-R/RW drive
cost $300.

Creative Soundblaster Audigy 2 Dolby Digital surround soundcard
## Creative sound cards have always done good by me. I hope this card will
be good too.

What speakers are you pairing this with? I mean it is a good card I have
loved all my creative stuff but I only have ever had one complaint. Where
in the **** is the digital coax or optical out in the rear of the card? I
use a set of Logitech Z680 speakers (go listen to them, you'll love them)
and I want to use a digital connection. So I have to run the cord out of
the front mount bay on my machine and that annoys me.

Logitech Elite Wireless keyboard/mouse combo
## I've been told even though the mouse is wireless, response time is 95%
that of a corded mouse, so it should be good for games.

Response time on wireless is decent, however there was enough lag in it to
annoy me back into a corded keyboard/mouse.

NEC FE2111SB 22' CRT
## A large CRT for graphics and gaming. I have no idea if it is a good
monitor or not.

Just curious, why CRT? I don't have anything against them but a 22" sounds
expensive.

Enermax ATX tower w/Thermaltake 420w power supply
## A pretty nice looking tower with a powerful power supply.

---------------------------

Another Reason I went with the hardware I did was so when the 64bit OS's
come out I'm ready ... at least I think I am. It's a 64bit CPU and a 64bit
MB. I don't know if ram makes a difference. I will be running WinXP on
this
system for now. So that's about it ... I would value any opinions you all
might have on this system. I don't want to cut corners, I will pay for the
best within reason. TIA!!!

Robert

"yak" wrote:
In article , cstolworthy12
@*remove*cableone.net says...
Just curious, why CRT? I don't have anything against them but a 22"
sounds
expensive.

Try pricing a 22" LCD...

The Visual quality of a CRT is still so much better than LCT and produce.
Granted it's going to be a large piece of hardware, but for gameing and
graphics, and if you don't mind the size, a CRT is the way to go ... thats
my thought.

R