Fastest PC for 800, Please help

[PVJZEN]

Hi guys,

I'm building my first PC and I have the following requirements for it:

1. I plan on burning a lot of DVD's, so I'll need a DVD burner and I a DVD/CDRW drive.

2. I watch movies on my comp, have a 21' monitor and I'd like a good video card for that.

3. I occasionally play games, HL2, Doom 3 etc but something like like a $500 XT is overkill for me. I've seen the games run on Radeon 9600 Pro's and thats good enough performance for me.

4. I want it to be fast with plenty of memory as I use quite a few business/science apps and I know I'll need a gig ram, I already use a gig on my laptop.

5. I have a firewire 160GB external HD and I'm wondering if firewire is going to be fast enough to run media files off and I can get away with a 80 or so gig internal HD.

I'm pretty new to all this so after some reading and such, this is the kind of config I have in mind:

1. Athlon 64 3000 for about 160.
2. Abit AV8 (939) for about 100
3. 1GB Corsair 3200 RAM for about 150
4. WD 120GB SATA for about 90
5. ATI Radeon 9600 Pro for about 100
6. 16x DVDRW for about 60
7. CDRW/DVD combo drive for about 40
8. CoolerMaster case, 400W PSU for 120

The system comes to about: 760.

How does it look? What changes would you recommend? What should I be aware of in terms of future upgradability?


thanks, and I'll appreciate detailed answers, everything will be very helpful.

PVJ

 

[4W4K3]

i'd look into a 6600GT card, there less than $200 are great. 9600PRO seems a little underpowered for Doom3 style games and more.

 

[Demalii]

Yea would really be a waste of money, the card is nearly outdated now, any hardcore graphics games that come out next year will eat your card up, unless of course you don't mind the graphics being turned down quite a bit.

 

[Leonidas]

as a proud owner of a 5200 ultra at the moment, i must say that while bearable, playing with crap graphics can depress you from time to time, so be careful when buying graphics, better to buy a mid-range new card, than a high-end old card...

 

[Jonesie]

I would go with the specs that you have. You can always upgrade, and you have a good computer right there.

 

[PVJZEN]

Thanks for the replies guys:

1. I'll put down another 100 on the computer, so given 200, whats the best I can do for the videocard?

2. With the RAM and MB that I have, will I be able to successfully overclock?

thanks

PVJ

 

[bunnymanboy]

What he said, the 9600 pro is a piece of !@#$ compared to the 6600 gt, i was going to do the same, untill i realized how outdated the 9600 was. I switched to nVidia, you should too.