New machine...finally!

[Genghis]

I'm currently running a 3 year old Pentium (no HT) at 2.2 GHz and a GeForce 4600. Let's see if I can do any better:

Pentium D 930 (3.0 GHz)
Asus P5WD2-E Premium
Antec P180 case
Silverstone Zeus ST56ZF PSU
Scythe Ninja w/ 120mm fan
2x1GB Crucial Ballistix DDR2-800 (4-4-4-12)
WD2500KS SATA-II HD
Saphire Radeon X1900 XT
Creative X-Fi Xtreme Music
Plextor PX-716A


The Preslers overclock real well; I'm expecting at least 4 GHz on air. The PSU is single rail and tests at >80% efficiency. The Plextor I don't mind splurging on, mostly for the software bundle. Everything else should be pretty self explanatory.

The idea is to get a decent machine for both work and gaming, without going to excess (I'm a bit over $2K, but I could have easily spent double that). I really agonized over choosing Intel over AMD because AMD has Intel beat nearly everywhere. However, I'm heavily into virutal machines, and Intel has VT whereas AMD's Pacifica support is at least 3 months away.

My only sore point is the memory. There seems to be a bit of a shortage of PC-6400 1GB sticks, and they're expensive as hell. I may consider dropping down to PC-5400, but even that stuff is fairly costy. Right now my video card and memory together are almost 50% of my total cost!

Anyway, any comments before I buy? I'm ready to pull the trigger in the next couple of days.

[WarAdvocat]

Might want to read up more on memory...at least if you plan to overclock. Probably others can elaborate more when they post I have yet to overclock anything more exciting than my video card. For now I'll leave you with a quote from someone more adventuresome than I:

2 GB memory kits that overclock well are only now starting to show up, anandtech has some information here: http://www.anandtech.com/memory/showdoc.aspx?i=2676

[Immortal Lobster]

I havnt been keeping too up to date with it all, but I believe AMD recently finalized Pacifica, and was intending to implement it rather soon. another option would be to buy an AMD based system, 939, with a cheap filler CPU, say an A64 3000 or so, then buy one with Pacifical upon its release and ebay the old CPU.

Im not familiar with DDR2 yet, but those timings look aweful compared to DDR1 lol

[Krom]

Might want to read up more on memory...at least if you plan to overclock. Probably others can elaborate more when they post I have yet to overclock anything more exciting than my video card. For now I'll leave you with a quote from someone more adventuresome than I:

2 GB memory kits that overclock well are only now starting to show up, anandtech has some information here: http://www.anandtech.com/memory/showdoc.aspx?i=2676

^^^^ Article does not apply to DDR2.

[WarAdvocat]

Which quite nicely puts the kibosh on my attempt to help whilst simultaneously showing me the error of my ways and edumacating me. I thought those timings looked off. I just missed that little '2' after the DDR.

[Matrix]

Everything looks good to me Gen, tho good burners the plextor are crazy exspensive. For less then half the cost you can get an NEC 3500A.

Put the money from that towards the RAM

[Genghis]

Thanks for the responses, guys. I went ahead and ordered tonight. The only thing I changed was the memory; I got:

Mushkin 2X1GB XP2-5300 3-3-3-10

Here's a review of the stuff:

http://www.legitreviews.com/article/294/1/

This stuff was a little cheaper and has good latencies for DDR2, and overclocks to PC-6400 levels at 3-3-3-16, which is plenty fast. Heck, I doubt I'll be running at 400 FSB anyway!