Should I wait?

[GiMpY-wAnNaBe]

Alright.....my pretty much final list is done, here it is:

Monitor - samsung 17" LCD
Motherboard - Asus K8V Deluxe
Processor - Athlon 3400+
Videocard - Radeon 9600XT, may switch to 9800XT...depending on how much money i have when i buy it
Keyboard & Mouse - Microsoft optical wireless desktop set
Soundcard - Sound blaster Audigy 2
Hard drive - either A- 36 GB 10000 RPM or B - 160 GB 7200 RPM, they're the same price
RAM - Ultra 1 Gb Dual Chanel DDR
Powersupply - a nice big 500 W, but i don't know which brand to pick
DVD Burner - LG 8x write
Speakers - Logitec z640

i'm drooling just thinking about it already

[Seth]

Plextor just put out a 12x dvd+-r

Sharp just released a 19 inch lcd with a 16ms response time

Go with the 160 gb hard drive.

The 9800XT would be my choice, especially since the price for it has dropped a bunch.

[Null]

I'd strongly recommend AGAINST the wireless keyboard and mouse. Expecially for games. but thats up to you. (wireless have not as good of responce time and end up being a pain with batteries)

[Jonbo298]

I have the Logitech MX Duo (wireless) and I LOVE it. Batteries aren't a pain to me because it came with 2 rechargeable batteries for the mouse and the keyboard I just put 2 standard batteries in and haven't had to change them since I got it about a month or so ago. But I'd recommend staying away from the MS wireless set. I've heard they arent the best but the MX Duo is worth all $70 of it (newegg.com)

As for video card, get a 9800Pro. 9800XT's are too expensive (even after the price drops) for what it gives. Hell, why not just get an x800Pro

Also for the powersupply, PLEASE do a bit of research into one because in the powersupply market area, its quality over quantity because ive heard cases of people getting a no name brand 500w psu and it died within a month.

But other then that, everything else looking good!

[GiMpY-wAnNaBe]

thanks everyone for your help, and i actually was wondering about the powersupply brands... does anyone have any experience? price isn't that important, but the lower the better

btw, +rep to all who helped, also, whats the difference between normal and dual channel RAM?

[Hero2]

dual channel is faster....but thats all I know

[quiet mike]

I think you are rushing it a bit. You are buying a top end computer of the generation that is dying. Look just what's new now and will be standard in 6 monts:

- Fully DirectX 9 videocards: NV4X, and ATI4XX chipsets (2 times the 9800XT) and soon in PCI Express interface
- (The death of AGP) PCI Express (more bandwith, more independence from other cards on PC, and faster)
- Athlon 64 with 1000 HiperTransport bus AND Dual Channel controller on 939 motherboars which will soon be cheaper.
- P4 with 1066 FSB and who knows when 64 bit support (already implemented in Presscot, but locked like hiperthreading in the begining).
- The new Sis, nVidia, VIA chipsets for AMD, and the new VIA and Intel shipsets for Pentium.
All these will become mainstream over the next months and will be the begining of the next 5 years. I would VERY STRONGLY recomand puting the money in the jar and wait untill you can buy the PC all at once, or at least all the important things (motherboard, processor, videocard, RAM, and audio card). Not only will you be able to get better things, but also if you get something that you would get right now, it would be cheaper then. Also, since you are building a PC from scratch, it's very important to know where the industry goes, so you don't have to build a new PC in 2 years. If you buy a motherboard with PCI, AGP, ATA and 266 FSB you'll find that next year you can't stick anything new in your PC because all these will be extinct.
AMD 64 is maturing into the 939 chipset, PCI Express is coming and accesories for it will follow soon (ATI already has native support, and nVidia has a bridge adapter to use PCI Express) Gigabit Ethernet, motherboard chipsets with separate bandwith lanes between RAM, PCI Ex, USB and Ethernet and probably soon an upgrade to the SATA interface.

Again, this is the worst time in my opinnion to go all out on a PC. Go to Anandtech, TweakTown, 3D Guru, and many other hardware sites and get ready for next generation. By the time your checks add up into a PC you will know what to do.



P.S. Dual Channel RAM DD SDRAM is ram that allows two lanes of traffic between it and the CPU at the same time. old ram only alowen one lane that would go to CPU ->RAM and then RAM->CPU. This is actually a motherboard chipset problem and not RAM. but you do need 2 sticks of identical RAM to work. By identical I mean the exact same type of RAM (same manufacturer, size, S/N)