general purpose pc combinations

[alsyed]

i'm on a budget... its very limited... now i'm in nz so its all $NZ. (at moment, NZ$1 = US$0.65)

my general purpose will be compiling vb.net programs, and a bit of web design - paintshop pro/photoshop, firefox browsing, msn messenger and office programs.

on the other side, i'm using sony vegas and avisynth for video editing nothing startling, and dvdlab pro, as well as CCE for mpeg2 encoding.

at the moment no games, but i wouldnt' mind being able to play doom3 and a few other nice fps.

i want to base my pc around the athlon64 3200+ venice core, 2x512MB ddr400 geil value ram (2.5-3-3-6), enermax 420W psu, and 1x160GB sata and 1x120pata (as in sig), in this case

saturn cetus


i just need to decide on a mobo and graphics.

the first one is based on the C51 chipset and is this one:

Gigabyte GA-K8N51GMF-9

it has all the features that i need, 4 sata2 ports, firewire, 8usb, 7.1 sound, and is silent, and i dont' need to buy a graphics card immediately, i can save up and get the 6600GT that i want (budget restraints can't go higher than 6600GT)

bad things are, that is got terrible reviews on newegg for being totally unreliable (at least 2 batches were anyhow), so i definitely don't want to have problems with it.

i mean, i still have to buy the os, (oem as its cheapest) so i dont' want to install on this mobo and find out its rubbish, and then M$ tells me i can't install it on another mobo.

OR

Asus A8N-SLI mobo. Now the link i did have was for the deluxe version, i'm looking at just the standard one. But i will need a graphics card for this, i'm looking at the cheapest graphics card possible for this so that i can be up and running, then later on down the track get a much better one.


what do you reckon?

cheers

 

[Mr. Switch]

DO NOT GET A GIGABYTE MOTHERBOARD!!! I had one and it went kaputt on me. It was an absolute nightmare of a motherboad.

Get this:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813136157

I've used it and its utterly amazing. Its rediculously easy and reliable. My DFI board has had absolutly no problems ever, and my next mobo will be a DFI one.

I can't stress it enough, DO NOT GET A GIGABYTE MOTHERBOARD, it will be the worst computer purchase you'll ever make.

 

[shdwsclan]

Depends what you need.....cheap speed or good reliability.....
Basically stay away from weak brands like pcchips, or gigabyte..in the mobo class

Stay away from maxtor and wd in the HD class....get a seagate...

and make sure you get a stable, and heavy PSU, like an antec or even a turbocool....

ooh yea....and stay away from cheap ram....like gigaram.....

If you really want to do yourself a favor.....get a multiprocessor motherboard.....with one cpu....so you can always add cores as you need them as prices of cores drop....etc...

Since you do photoshop.....check benchmarks for photoshop on amd vs intel procs....
VB.net is an easy process for a proc....

i myself have to program a lot in a wide variety of languages.....
and do dabble in photoshop and dreamweaver/frontpage....and do video editing as a hobby....
So i can see that you wnat a multipurpose machine......a step us would to opteron class....and a step above that would be itanium class....

 

[alsyed]

i'm really leaning towards that asus a8n-sli board, with a cheapish video card for the meantime. The mobo comes with a lot of accessories too, and has quite good reviews on newegg.

the prices for the dfi boards seem to be heading up in our part of the world. i did have a dfi ultra-d board - but the box and everything inside has been mysteriously lost.