Despite being a 30 year old gamer and geek, I've only ever taken an existing PC down to its basic components and reassembled it into a new case. I thought it was about time I replaced my current rig and do it by building it myself. Ooooo!
Current Rig:
AMD Athlon XP 1700+
Asus A7N266-E nForce MoBo
2 x 512MB PC 2100
MSI GeForce FX600 TD-256
2 x 80GB Hitachi Deskstar 7k250 in RAID 0 on PCI EIDE Controller
Plextor CD-RW 40/12/40A
Generic DVD-Rom
Obviously, I need an upgrade and I am focusing on "bang per buck" with a max budget of £1000 (£300 or so of which I am spending on a Super LANBoy with a custom paint job, colour matched keyboard and 480W TAGAN or ANTEC PSU).
In case you are wondering, I am a gamer who also dabbles in web/image design and that is the reason for going AMD 64:
Proposed Rig:
AMD Athlon 64 3500+ (or 3800+ or FX-53 if they drop significantly or I can afford at the time!)
Asus A8V Deluxe WiFi (revision 2)
2 x 512MB PC3200 Crucial CT6464Z40B
XFX GeForce 6800 GT 256Mb
2 x 160Gb Hitachi Deskstar 7K250 SATA (For RAID 0)
He's got me by the opticals!
I am very tempted to get an Asus DRW-0804P to replace my DVD-ROM as I don't really plan on copying DVD's but burning them, sure! If I do that I will either keep my Plextor or sell it on E-Bay and get a DVD-ROM/CD-RW combo drive - thoughts on this would be appreciated as that equates to an extra £150 atleast out of my budget.
Drive a Hard bargain (ouch)
I am also planning on also moving across my 2 x 80GB 7K250's and running them in RAID 1 for my user data section. I will probably get 2 SATA to EIDE cables to keep things tidy, although I can only find a "converter" on Maplin's and these are £25 a piece. OUCH! Would it be cheaper in the long run to sell these (they are only 4 months old!) and buy SATA equivilents? Any thoughts on this would (again) be appreciated.
In Conclusion....
Does anyone have any thoughts on whether this is a decent spec? Also, I assume that I will need a decent CPU heatsink & fan. Does the Akasa AK-855 fit on S939?