New System - Part Check/Opinions

I posted a few days ago in the SFF Forum to say i was going to give Shuttle a seccond chance, but i had a first hand experience of a SN95G5 today and it wasnt all THAT impressive! So i have came up with the following spec, could you give me comments and if you have this piece of kit and find it bad/good could you let me know please, as its quite a bit of money!

Case: Coolermaster Wavemaster (Black)
Motherboard: MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum (NForce 3 Ultra chipset)
Processor: AMD Athlon 64 3500 (Socket 939)
PSU: Tagan 480W Silent PSU
Ram: Crucial Ballistix PC-3200 512mb (Two sticks for dual channel)
Soundcard: Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS 7.1 THX
Hard Drive 1: Western Digital Raptor 36.7GB 10,000RPM SATA 8MB Cache (For OS and Programs)
Hard Drive 2: Western Digital Caviar Special Edition 160GB 1600JD SATA 8MB Cache (For storage, downloads and My Documents)
Heatsink: ThermalRight XP-90
Heatsink Fan: YS-Tech 92mm (If you can reccomend any other ones, preferably quieter then please do so, how are the Vantec 92mm Stealth fans?)
Case Fans: Coolermaster Neon LED 80mm Fan (Want the nice blue glow from the front of the Wavemaster, but if anyone has the Vantec Stealth 80mm fans and say they are good, i can swap ;))
CD/DVD Drive: NEC ND3500 16x DVD±RW Dual Layer ReWriter

And.. the bit i already have.. (took delivery of it today!) an XFX GeForce 6800GT 256mb :)

Opinions ahoy! :)

Cheers,

Craig

CPU - Socket 939 Athlon 64, good for gaming, and its Socket 939 so will allow you to upgrade in the future (unlike Socket 754 which is going to become the budget socket)

RAM - From all the reviews I've seen, its an excellent choice if you want to spend that much money.

The ram isnt THAT expensive, i was wanting Kingston HyperX ;) The other stuff i was looking at was the OCZ Enhanced Bandwidth ram, anyone had any first hand experience with that?

Nice spec, but low on memory, and dont buy creative sound cards.

If you upgrade your pc all the time then go for the S939 as it will allow future upgrade of CPU. But if you tend to buy a pc and keep it for a year then upgrade go for S754 and i would go for a 3200+ and try to find a clawhammer 1mb cache cpu as its better value for money and how much differance can 300mhz make for the price differance of about £100 :shocked2: . It all depends on how you use your pc really and how much money u have to spend on it :rockon: .

Although i don't know how these things clock if your into overclocking that is!

I do think that 1gig of ram is a must these days for games although more is currently not needed. Unless you mean two sticks of 512mb chips in which case i have misread it, sorry :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Craig

The other stuff i was looking at was the OCZ Enhanced Bandwidth ram, anyone had any first hand experience with that?

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Yes & very nice it is too :) Unfortunately 3700EB is out of production, I don't know about 3500EB.

Nice looking spec :)

Sorry, i should have put it down more clearly, i do mean two sticks of 512mb :)

What is wrong with Creative Soundcards, and what are the alternatives? (Ive always had creative, and they have been fine for me!)

EDIT: Also, would the 92mm Vantec Stealth cool the 3500 sufficiently? it pushes 28CFM

Creative soundcards are ok, but they seem to have a new model each year that does little to update them, have bad support, horrible drivers, and worse software.

Dunno what the alternatives are, I just use soundstorm(onboard) after creative refused to replace my ZS, and dont notice the lack.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Craig

EDIT: Also, would the 92mm Vantec Stealth cool the 3500 sufficiently? it pushes 28CFM

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28Cfm isn't a lot

Well, i have now orderd my new beast, the spec when it comes is..

Case: Coolermaster Wavemaster (Black)
Motherboard: MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum (NForce 3 Ultra chipset)
Processor: AMD Athlon 64 3500 (Socket 939)
PSU: Tagan 480W Silent PSU
Ram: Crucial Ballistix PC-3200 512mb (Two sticks for dual channel)
Graphics Card: XFX GeForce 6800 GT 256mb
Soundcard: Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS 7.1 THX
Hard Drive 1: Western Digital Raptor 74GB 10,000RPM SATA 8MB Cache (For OS and Programs)
Hard Drive 2: Western Digital Caviar Special Edition 160GB 1600JD SATA 8MB Cache (For storage, downloads and My Documents)
Heatsink: ThermalRight XP-90
Heatsink Fan: YS-Tech 92mm
Case Fans: Vantec Stealth 80mm (want a bit of quietness!)
CD/DVD Drive: NEC ND3500 16x DVD±RW Dual Layer ReWriter
Floppy Drive: Standard :D