New System Specs

[Ned]

Does this stuff look compatible? Student system, person is not into gaming. Also, what were the complaints about XP home and networking? The PC may go to a dorm later. Not too familiar with PCIe or SATA, so I hope I picked correctly:

NewEgg #s:

ASUS A8N-E Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce4 Ultra ATX AMD Motherboard - Retail
Model #: A8N-E
Item #: N82E16813131530

AMD Athlon 64 3700+ San Diego 1GHz FSB Socket 939 Processor Model ADA3700BNBOX - Retail
Model #: ADA3700BNBOX
Item #: N82E16819103539

Western Digital Caviar SE WD2500JS 250GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM
Model #: WD2500JS
Item #: N82E16822144417

eVGA 256-P2-N386 Geforce 6800GS 256MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16 Video Card - Retail
Model #: 256-P2-N386
Item #: N82E16814130258

CORSAIR ValueSelect 1GB 184-Pin DDR SDRAM DDR 400 (PC 3200) Unbuffered System Memory Model VS1GB400C3 - Retail
Model #: VS1GB400C3
Item #: N82E16820145505

NEC Black IDE DVD Burner Model ND-3550A - Retail
Model #: ND-3550A BK RT
Item #: N82E16827152055

Microsoft Windows XP HOME Edition With Service Pack 2 - OEM
Model #: N09-01152
Item #: N82E16837102151

Microsoft Office 2003 Small Business Edition With SP1 Single Pack - OEM
Model #: W87-00766
Item #: N82E16837102077

[Mobius]

1) Why buy a core using an obsolete process?
Get a "Venice" core AMD chip.

2) You don't want dual-channel memory?
You need 2 sticks of RAM for dual channel memory operation. Get 2 x 512MB sticks. If you intend overclocking at all, get DDR500, so you won't have to drop your RAM timings when overclocking.

3) Why settle for XP Home? It's crippled for networking.
Get XP Pro (OEM) instead.

4) I prefer the Gigabyte bundle for Motherboards - but that's a personal thing.

[Capm]

STFU Mobius
The chip is fine you can always upgrade it later.
Ram is cheap, get 2x1GB chips for 2 gigs of ram. (or get the 2nd later for an upgrade)
And the MB is fine, can't really go wrong with Asus Gigabyte or Abit, its all personal preference, avoid MSI

Everything else looks okay.

But, gag, Mobi is right on one thing, ditch the XP home, and Get PRO. No sense in castrating yourself.

[Vander]

You may want to consider a different brand of Hard Disk. Maxtor or Seagate maybe. I've seen more WD hard disks fail than you can shake a stick at. Every WD hard disk I've owned has failed.

[Top Gun]

For a casual user, does the whole Home/Pro thing really make that much of a difference? I mean, I'm sure it does at an advanced level, and I like to think I know a little bit about computers, but I really have no idea what the differences are between them myself. If this person's on that level, wouldn't saving a little money just make more sense?

[Krom]

1) Why buy a core using an obsolete process?
Get a "Venice" core AMD chip.

I should post a forum macro for this one, I think the "woop woop crackhead alert!" would be a good one...

Incase you are a moron and you don't know, the San Diego core is the same .90 nm generation as Venice, in fact, a lot of Venice chips are actually San Diego cores that had defective caches so one side of the cache is disabled leaving it with the Venice 512k total.

[Unix]

1) Why buy a core using an obsolete process?
Get a "Venice" core AMD chip.

I should post a forum macro for this one, I think the "woop woop crackhead alert!" would be a good one...

Incase you are a moron and you don't know, the San Diego core is the same .90 nm generation as Venice, in fact, a lot of Venice chips are actually San Diego cores that had defective caches so one side of the cache is disabled leaving it with the Venice 512k total.

You know stuff.

[will_kill]

You may want to consider a different brand of Hard Disk. Maxtor or Seagate maybe. I've seen more WD hard disks fail than you can shake a stick at. Every WD hard disk I've owned has failed.

My experience with Maxtor HD's has been shady to say the least...of course, I'm speaking as a consumer, not a builder.

[Vander]

Yeah, pretty much every manufacturer has it's sore users. I've personally seen every brand of HD fail. Hard disks fail, it's just a fact of life. But I tell ya, damn near every WD drive I've used has failed. And almost all have been the good ole click of death.

[Ned]

1) Why buy a core using an obsolete process?
Get a "Venice" core AMD chip.

I should post a forum macro for this one, I think the "woop woop crackhead alert!" would be a good one...

Incase you are a moron and you don't know, the San Diego core is the same .90 nm generation as Venice, in fact, a lot of Venice chips are actually San Diego cores that had defective caches so one side of the cache is disabled leaving it with the Venice 512k total.

So the one I picked is ok?

OK, Windows XP pro. I have to see what I can locate. Anyone know if the Windows 64 bit is stable?

[Matrix]

I prefer Maxtor and Seagate over WD any day.
Though most of my drives are WD because I always find them super cheap after rebate

I've deff seen more dead WD's at work then any other brand though. Also, my 120GB WD died 2 times in the first 6 months I owned it.

Also like said above you should consider going with 2 sticks of ram, dual channel give a significant performance boost.

So the one I picked is ok?

OK, Windows XP pro. I have to see what I can locate. Anyone know if the Windows 64 bit is stable?

Yeah a 3700 SD is a good chip.
San Diego > Venice

[Krom]

So the one I picked is ok?

OK, Windows XP pro. I have to see what I can locate. Anyone know if the Windows 64 bit is stable?

Yup, the one you picked is fine. As for Windows XP64, skip it for now, useless. Wait for Vista, by then there might be some real 64 bit apps on the market.

[Topher]

So the one I picked is ok?

OK, Windows XP pro. I have to see what I can locate. Anyone know if the Windows 64 bit is stable?

Yup, the one you picked is fine. As for Windows XP64, skip it for now, useless. Wait for Vista, by then there might be some real 64 bit apps on the market.

If you're not going to get a 64-bit OS, then skip getting a 64-bit processor. The one thing you should make sure is that all your hardware has 64-bit driver support, but otherwise you won't be using the 64-bit portions of the CPU. Vista will probably be a worthy upgrade, but unless XP 64bit costs more than the regular, I don't see a reason why you wouldn't want it.

[Vindicator]

LOL, guess i've been living dangerously... I have a pair of WD 160gb drives in RAID 0 that have been chugging away 24/7 for a year now

(a switch to RAID 1 is in my future, as soon as I stop being lazy)

[Ned]

Topher, I agree, but Win64 is a new product, I think. No reason roll the dice with MS beta testing.

I was planning on 2x1GB ram. Sorry my post wasn't clear on that. I didn't know using two slots was faster. Is it a schematic path thing?

Hard drives: not sure what to say. I've had several good WDs. Seen many drives fail, mainly in Macs, I forget who their supplier is/was.

So I'm looking for Seagate SATA2 or Maxtor SATA2?

[Ned]

32 vs 64 edition


Do I shlazamble:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6837102071

or shazinle
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6837102073

[Topher]

Topher, I agree, but Win64 is a new product, I think. No reason roll the dice with MS beta testing.

It's not in beta testing...that's why you can buy it.

[Matrix]

If you're not going to get a 64-bit OS, then skip getting a 64-bit processor.

People don't buy Venice and San Diego CPU's because of the 64bit support, they buy them because they are the best single core 32bit CPU's out there.

When I bought my 3200 Venice the last thing I cared about was 64bit support.

Topher, I agree, but Win64 is a new product, I think. No reason roll the dice with MS beta testing.

It's not in beta testing...that's why you can buy it.

He's saying that because many people feel that even with final versions of Microsoft products they feel like they are beta testers while using it.
Common joke.

[Ned]

Thanks guys for your help

It's now ordered!

1Gb RAM x 2
Win XP Pro



I am so bummed, it's not for ME! BTW, There is a new edition of photoshop elements and Premiere elements; it should be really good.

Adobe Photoshop Elements 4.0 and Premiere Elements 2.0 Bundle - Retail
Model #: 29180064
Item #: N82E16832105160

It's about $140