Need some quick help before a major purchase

[JoshC]

I am going to be replacing my Dell laptop ASAP (ordering parts tonight hopefully) and need some opinions to sooth my nerves before spending this much money. Here is what I have come up with:

AMD Athlon 3500+ Venice
Abit KN8 Ultra
eVGA 6800GS 256MB
OCZ EL Platinum Revision 2 1GB (2 x 512MB)
Western Digital Caviar SE WD800JD 80GB
LITE-ON IDE DVD Burner
Sony Floppy Drive
ANTEC SP400 SMART POWER 2.0 400W
Thermaltake VB1000SNS Silver Steel/Plastic ATX Mid Tower
Acer AL1914smd-8 Silver/Black 19" 8ms LCD Monitor
Logitech X-530 5.1 Speakers

Total cost: $1248.61 (I'd like to stay VERY close to this price)

The biggest programs I will be running are AutoCAD and Photoshop. While running these I would still like to be able to use Internet Explorer and a couple of messenger programs without a problem. My laptop can run the Photoshop and AutoCAD but lags a lot (around a minute to switch between any windows).

I'm sure there are a lot of people asking for help like this on here, but I'm really nervous about spending this much money and want to make sure everything seems ok.

 

[JCash21]

Are those the heaviest programs you'll be running?? If so, you can downgrade to a system with much lower specs and save yourself some $cash...

 

[Ste]

I reccomend Going 2 GB of RAM and getting this Power supply while the one you choose is good, I think you will want a more powerful one for the programs ull want to use and future upgrades.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817103931

you may aslo want to get a bigger harddrive, going to a 120 GB is very good because it doesn't cost that much more then an 80 Gb one.

 

[JoshC]

I'm not worried about storage space too much. My laptop has a 10GB HD and I've managed so far, but I will be adding many more programs now that I've got the room. It also has a 700mhz P3 Mobile, and 128MB Ram.

Also at school we are running 2.8 P4's with 512 Ram, and 80GB hard-drives and they do pretty good. Have some lag with more than a couple of programs running.

 

[FghtinIrshNvrDi]

You don't need 2 gigs of ram. 1.5 at the most. Autocad isn't as heavy as you all think.

Good system. I really like it, and am jealous of your video card.

If I suggested anything, I would save a few dollars and downgrade the processor to a 3200+ and easily overclock it to 3500+ speeds. I have my 3000+ just over 3500+ speeds and it's barely breaking a sweat. Stock cooling...

Ryan

 

[JoshC]

My main concern is having a computer that I won't have to upgrade much anytime soon. I'm a senior in HS now and will being studying engineering or maybe some other computer science in college and want something that will hold up. Right now this set-up would be to get a good starting point.

 

[JoshC]

Does anybody else have any other opinions before I go ordering this stuff?

 

[vaderpro]

Yeah. Get 2 hard drives if you can. It'll increase performance. Get like a 20gb and a 60 or 80 or whatever. Put the O/S on one and all your data on the other. Just another option. Or you can just partition one drive.

As well, I always recommend having a dvd rom as well as a burner. I know I hate taking discs in and out and if your doing any burning whatsoever its a lot easier with 2.

Cheers.

 

[JoshC]

Thanks for everybody for their input. I just ordered all my parts. Should be a week before the parts get here and then I'm stuck waiting until Christmas morning before I can actually have some fun.