Mid-range system

[nolookingca]

I'm currently building a mid-range system. Any ideas as to what I should get?

P.S.

Here are the components I've picked so far.

Kingston 1GB PC4200 DDR2 533MHz 240-pin Unbuffered DIMM

$119.99

Antec Sonata II Piano Black Quiet Mid Tower ATX Black 450 Watt Power Supply (ATX12V 2.01)

$124.99

Gigabyte GA-8I945P Pro Socket 775 Intel 945P Dual-Core Ready Dual-Ch DDRII 667/533/400 1x PCI-Express x16 2x IEEE 1394b GB Lan

$153.00

Intel Pentium D 805, 2.66GHz, EM64T XD Dual Core, 2X1MB, Socket LGA775 (Retail Box)

$166.00

Sapphire ATI Radeon X800GTO 256Mb DDR 256-Bit VGA/Tv-Out/DVI PCI Express Video Card

$185.00

This is my other choice for the MB Asus P5GD2-X Socket 775 Intel 915P Chipset Dual-Ch DDR2 600 1 x PCI-Express x16 Serial ATA GB Lan 8-Ch Audio

$117.99

Seagate Barracuda 7200.8 SATA NCQ 1.5Gb/s 200GB 8MB Cache (OEM)

$102.00

LiteOn SHW-1635S DVD+R/RW 16x8x DVD-R/RW 16x6x DVD+/-R DL 8x4x DVD-Writer (Black) OEM

$44.99

Sony 1.44MB Floppy Disk Drive Black (OEM)

$12.99

(Mitsumi 7-in-1 only comes in beige)

Edited March 17, 2006 by nolookingca

[ripken204]

how much money can u spend and is it for gaming, work? ....

[nmX.Memnoch]

Antec Sonata II Piano Black Quiet Mid Tower ATX Black 450 Watt Power Supply (ATX12V 2.01)

$124.99

Great case. This is what I currently have.

Gigabyte GA-8I945P Pro Socket 775 Intel 945P Dual-Core Ready Dual-Ch DDRII 667/533/400 1x PCI-Express x16 2x IEEE 1394b GB Lan

$153.00

Personally I'd be looking at something based on the 955X or 975X chipset. If you want to stay in the same price range as this Gigabyte board then check out the Asus P5WD2. If you can stand to spend a little extra then check out the Asus P5WD2-E Premium.

Intel Pentium D 805, 2.66GHz, EM64T XD Dual Core, 2X1MB, Socket LGA775 (Retail Box)

$166.00

I'd really recommend splurging a little on one of the 65nm Presler based P4's. Not only will it run cooler but it has double the L2 cache.

Sapphire ATI Radeon X800GTO 256Mb DDR 256-Bit VGA/Tv-Out/DVI PCI Express Video Card

$185.00

I'd do a little research on this. The X800 series GPUs don't have Shader Model 3.0 support. While this may not be overly important for current games it will be for upcoming games. You can get a 7600GT based card for around the same price.

This is my other choice for the MB Asus P5GD2-X Socket 775 Intel 915P Chipset Dual-Ch DDR2 600 1 x PCI-Express x16 Serial ATA GB Lan 8-Ch Audio

$117.99

Not a bad choice either, but see motherboard recommendations above.

Seagate Barracuda 7200.8 SATA NCQ 1.5Gb/s 200GB 8MB Cache (OEM)

$102.00

Not a bad drive but their 7200.9 series drives are out now...and they're SATA 3.0Gb/s drives. The motherboards you're looking at all have SATA 3.0Gb/s interfaces so you'll definitely want to get a drive that can take advantage of that.

LiteOn SHW-1635S DVD+R/RW 16x8x DVD-R/RW 16x6x DVD+/-R DL 8x4x DVD-Writer (Black) OEM

$44.99

Based on personal experience, and I believe several people here will agree with me on this, I'd recommend looking at the NEC ND-3550A. Another good choice would be the Pioneer DVR-111D.

Sony 1.44MB Floppy Disk Drive Black (OEM)

$12.99

(Mitsumi 7-in-1 only comes in beige)

The Mitsumi 7-in-1 comes in black.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?...N82E16821104104

http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetai...ductCode=110407

Edited March 18, 2006 by nmX.Memnoch

[Scubar]

you should drop the Intel rubbish and go with AMD that would be the first thing id change.

[nmX.Memnoch]

Actually...I have a hard time recommending anyone purchase at the moment unless they have an immediate need. Intel's Conroe based CPUs will be out in a few months and there's every indication they'll take the overall performance crown back.

http://www.anandtech.com/tradeshows/showdoc.aspx?i=2716

http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=219

http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=4843

[hankjrfan00]

LiteOn SHW-1635S DVD+R/RW 16x8x DVD-R/RW 16x6x DVD+/-R DL 8x4x DVD-Writer (Black) OEM

$44.99

There was a time when I really liked LiteOn but recently I as well as other people I know have had lots of problems with liteon drives. I would go with an AOpen drive.

you should drop the Intel rubbish and go with AMD biggrin.gif that would be the first thing id change.

Agreed you could get better performance for your money if you go AMD.

[Stead]

i've got pretty much the same setup

same board, P4 820 chip

gecube x800gt (kinda regreat buying this,wish i'd gone for the gto...)

1gig of ram

plays any game i've tried on full, or virtually full details.

i personally think the intel dual core are a better value than the amd dual core, however if you can wait, i'd wait for the new intel chips, everything is bound to come down in price then!

[nolookingca]

Sorry for bumping this old thread, I still can't believe how I could have possibly forgotten about it for a month.

Anyways, thanks for the info. It's not that urgent, so I'll wait for a few months (and by then any recommendations posted here won't be useful anymore, sorry).

Edited April 14, 2006 by nolookingca