mcrockett said:Thanks for your suggestion about newegg. I have modified my system a little. DFI was not recommended by AMD's website, so I decided to stick with Gigabyte. There were nothing but positive reviews about the board at newegg. ASUS (my second choice) was supported, but there were several negative posts with systems that resemble mine. After a ton of research, here is my updated configuration:
Thermaltake Tsunami VA3000BWA Black Aluminum ATX Mid Tower Computer Case - Retail
OCZ OCZ520ADJ ATX 520W Power Supply - Retail
GIGABYTE GA-K8NXP-SLI Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce4 SLI ATX AMD Motherboard - Retail
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4800+ Toledo 1GHz FSB Socket 939 Dual Core Processor Model ADA4800CDBOX - Retail
OCZ 2GB (2 x 1GB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM DDR 400 (PC 3200) Unbuffered Dual Channel Platinum System Memory Model OCZ4002048ELDCPE-K - Retail
Western Digital Raptor WD740GD 74GB 10,000 RPM Serial ATA150 Hard Drive - OEM **X2**
LITE-ON Black IDE Combo Drive Model SOHC-5236V BK RTL - Retail
BFG Tech BFGR78256GTXOC Geforce 7800GTX 256MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16 Video Card - Retail
Creative Sound Blaster Audigy2 ZS Platinum Pro 70SB036000000 8 (7.1) Channels PCI Interface Sound Card - Retail
Saitek PZ18AU Black USB Wired Zero-Slope design Executive Keyboard - Retail
NEC LCD1970GX-BK Black 19" 8ms LCD Monitor - Retail
Razer Plasma Diamondback RZD-1600P Black 7 Buttons 1x Wheel USB Mouse - Retail
Microsoft Windows XP Professional With Service Pack 2 - OEM
Final thoughts, or do you think I am good to go? My only remaining concerns are regarding 1) the power supply (too much power/too little power), 2) the evolving BTX form factor (for upgrades), and 3) I am considering a Maxtor 73GB 15k SCSI HD in place of the two Raptors. Also, I don't want to spend big $ on memory and have it not be fully supported. Gigabyte recommended OCZ Platinum, but I really wanted Gold for the enhanced latency. Also, can I buy PC4000 memory for a motherboard that only goes up to PC3200, or does the motherboard already have to support the memory type? <---still very confused about memory.
Thanks again!
Alright, That system looks a lot better than in the beginning, DFI is probably the best board out there even if your not going to overclock, but Gigabyte will suit you fine. Something you should also consider is getting another hard drive because 75GB just aint enough, look into the Western Digital 250gb 16mb cache one. You are not overclocking, right? So you don't need anything but value ram. Oh, and Make sure that LCD has a DVI connection.
edit: oh your getting 2 raptors, hmm i wonder if 150gb enough?
