New computer expertise needed - HELP

[jbowman101]

Hey guys, I’m from Perth, Western Australia, Australia, and I was just about to buy a new computer. I'm mainly looking to use it for gaming, and video editing (general editing for fun –nothing to serious) and just general stuff like listening to music on my Logitech Z-5500's and watching movies and stuff. I know a reasonable amount about computer and how they work; I haven’t really had the time to research all the new things like pci-e and hyperthreading because I’m in year 12 this year. Anyway I’ve done a bit of research and I’ve budgeted around 2900AUD$ for the basic components of the computer, things like the disk drive and monitor and stuff I’ll bother with later.
Anyway so far IÂ’ve come up with these components:
-Antec P180, Performance One, ATX MidiTower Case - NO PSU
-Enermax 480watt ATX EG485P-VHB Coolergiant
-AMD Athlon64 3800+ Retail - Socket 939 - Venice Core
-ASUS A8N-SLI-DELUXE, nForce4, S939, DDR400, 2x PCI-Ex16, SATA, 2x GigLAN, ATX
-Western Digital 160GB 7200rpm Serial ATA-II-300 HDD w. 8MB Cache
-Hitachi 120GB 7200rpm ATA-150 Serial ATA Hard Disk Drive - 8MB -Cache
-Corsair 1024MB (2 x 512MB) TWINX-3200 (400MHz) ECC Registered DDR RAM - Low Latency
-Gigabyte R80P256D Radeon X800-Pro 256MB, DVI/TV, AGP8X
-Hercules Fortissimo IV Sound Card PCI

This came to a total of 2763.30AUD$ which is the type of price IÂ’m looking for.

- NOTE: i was told to change the harddrives to seagate barracuda HDD's and to change the RAM to RAM without ECC because its unecessary. Is this a good idea?

Will i need to increase the number of fans, if so how many, what type ? Are the cheap water cooling solutions considerable ?

So could the computer pro's please have a look and this and give me some advice on the components and if you guys believe this is a decent system.
P.S is there any new breakthrough in PC technology that is about to come which I should wait for?

Thanks heaps,
James

 

[dhw200]

the new video cards are worth waiting for, especially the X900. It hits on July 26th. Change the mobo to a DFI Lanparty nForce4 Ultra_d, and maybe even the CPU to a 3700 San Diego.

It might also be worth it to get a larger PSU, such as an OCZ Power Stream

 

[AZNRockThis]

There is a bunch of new technology ready to come out, Nvidia's GTX series and Radeons 512 MB graphics cards, and also their new SLI system called crossfire. In the processors AMD is coming out with new X2 technology using two cores for its processors. They should be coming out relatively soon. I would wait on the graphics card but if you're going to buy now i would try and get a 6800 GT. The motherboard i would switch to DFI, asus has been pretty bad when it comes to the 939 socket boards. The rest of your computer looks good. I would wait, a lot of cool stuff is coming out!

 

[diabloII]

get a dfi lanparty instead of that crappy asus board

and why are you getting ECC ram? ecc ram are only for server boards and isn't even COMPATIBLE with your mobo...or any amd64 mobo's

 

[HAVOC]

A few things:

First of all you listed the ASUS SLI MOBO - which is PCI Express
But, the Radeon X800 Pro you listed is AGP - not compatible

Also - the X800 Pro - isn't very good... ATI's highest-end cards are the way too go if you want ATI... They are also very expensive.
If you are interested in a card that isn't as expensive and will give you better performance then the x800 Pro - Consider the nVIDIA 6800GT and get PCI express is you are getting that ASUS MOBO.
Which you should also reconsider, and go with DFI like others have recommended.

Don't get that ECC Registered Ram... It will slow down performance. That ram is much better for servers. Get some unbuffered OCZ, Corsair XMS or PQI Turbos.

What the hell is that sound card? Grab the Audigy 2 ZS gamer or search online for the Audigy 2 ZS - OEM

I wouldn't get the 3800+ venice either... I'd throw in a new more bucks and grab a 4000+ San Diego. (You could save a few bucks by not getting that SLI board and getting an AGP board... Also scrap the idea of getting a 160g HDD & 120g HDD - Just buy (1) 250 gig HDD. Or... Just buy a WD raptor 74g 10,000 now and then later you can add an additional HDD as storage...

Oh... I could go on and on and on....