Buying New Computer Advice

[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
-Spire CoolWave III Socket 775 Intel CPU cooler, copper base, ClearBlue UV reactive fan

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

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.

 

[Harper]

Why WD hard drives? I get too many RMA returns on those guys.
Why not Seagate. 5 year manufacturer's warranty.

As for Hitachi, I would trust that brand even less that the WD. The only reason why I would consider Hitachi is that I am getting extremely good TER1 pricing on them.

Corsair 1024MB (2 x 512MB) TWINX-3200 (400MHz) ECC Registered DDR RAM..... why ECC Registered? If this was for a server, then i could under stand this. But if it's just for a games box, then I find that it's a waste of money. I find that the OEM ram with Hynix Chipset works just as well as the Corsair stuff.

Why are you getting a LGA775 fan for a AMD Socket 939 system?

 

[jbowman101]

Hey Harper,
-ok IÂ’ll change the hard drives to Seagate barracuda hard drives? Are there any differences in performance (advantages/disadvantages) of two 120 GB Seagate hard drives VS one 200 GB Seagate hard rive or 300 GB harddrive. Are there any other companies that produce hard drives that are reliable? Like Maxtor calypso or laCie HDD's.
-I wasn't sure what ECC registered meant and didn't have time to look it up, it was recommended to me by a friend. What would be a suggestion for RAM at a price range around 400-500 AUD$?
- Anyway in light of these comments, are there any other suggestions to the other components of the computer?
Are most of the components up to date?
What can I improve, are there any faults with the system, do you guys think it will be able to handle all programs of today and future applications/programs/games?

 

[Hacp]

Two 100 GB drives with striping perform better than one 200 GB hard drive.

 

[jbowman101]

not 100% with these terms, what exactly is "stripping hard drives" ?