Finally! I get to buy a PC*pls help*

Finally i got round to selling my old pc to get a new one (yay!) Here is what i plan to order on Friday the 21'st

AMD Athlon 64 3000+ (939) or shall i go 754
Motherboard not yet decided looking to spend abt 75. I would prefer a good ocing mobo and is Abit AV8 a good motherboard in terms of ocing. Any cheaper alternative would be beter though :).
120 Western Digital Caviier (are they good?)
NEC3500 black
512 crosair value ram (will use dividers to overclock).
Generic ATi 9250 128MB
all in a antec sonata.

Does that all look right. I probably won't be running dual channel, so do you think
.: I should buy a 754 3000 as it is cheaper and i can buy the chaintech vnf3-250 which is also a lot cheaper.
.: Is the system balanced, any bottlenecks or something else ?
.: Are there same chances to hit 240-250 FSB on both 754 and 939.
Any comments welcomed. I will be using this pc to do general office work rare games and some photoshop/dreamwebaver work.

EDIT I am thinking of buying Corsair CAS2 ram (CMX512-3200C2PT) do you recon i will be able to hit 240FSB with chaintech+amd 3000 and this or shall i just use a divider and buy a better board like neo plat

If you're on a really tight budget go Socket 754 and get a better gfx card, possibly a 2nd hand 9800. Second best upgrade on your spec is getting 1Gb RAM.

U see i rarely play games so i will see if i could go through the pain of buying a second hand card
I was also looking for a 1Gb ram

Whats your budget?

My budget is £580 including everything (15"tft monitor wireless kb& mouse)

15" TFT? I think you can buy a fast 17" TFT for not much more than a standard 15", but it should be a lot better.

Try that one over at Aria, something like ~£140.

Ya i have seen that but i am satisfied with 15 as it is ony £110

any suggestions on mobo, i am looking at Chaintech VNF3-250 for 58.10 delivered

Totally worth the extra £20, 15" @ 1024 is ok, but if you want to do office, photoshop and web then you of all people should be looking to go as big as you can

Hey

Id go 939 mate, to be honest the 754s are meant to be being pahsed out in the next year or so. If you get 939 and get yourself a dual channel kit you will definitely see the benefits! If your getting a 9800 Pro get yourself the 256bit version (more expensive) but it has higher clock speeds and youll really notice the difference! As for as the motherboard you mentioned, the ABIT AV8 looks like a great board but ive heard some horror stories. If like me you have to sell everything in order to buy new stuff then it might be worth diverting away from this as there has been some problems with the BIOS not booting with the Winchester chip. In some cases it wont boot due to the heatsink being too tight (i know that sounds absurd) and warping the board around the memory slots so effectively the board wont read the memory properly.

All in all stick with 939 for definite, the chips are pretty much the same prices.. the mobos are a bit more but at least u know it will last you a bit longer!

Good luck, let us know what you choose

Cheers

Chris

A good mobo for you would be the ASUS AV8 DELUX abt £70ish It also comes with an 802.11g WiFi pci card which could be a money saving inclusion if you are running a wireless network.

What are you going to use the system for?

If you're on a tight budget but want good performance (apart from good graphics by the looks of it) how about 1) dropping the wireless keyb / mouse and 2) just getting a CRT instead of a TFT? Just to add to what everyone else has said though - really really think about going for a 17" TFT instead of a 15" one - even if it still only runs at 1024 x 768... Your eyes will thank you for it one day.

er ur eyes will thank u for using a tft more than a crt at higher res, so will the environment and the space on ur desk saved

Quote:

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Originally Posted by nvening

er ur eyes will thank u for using a tft more than a crt at higher res, so will the environment and the space on ur desk saved

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Yes... Two separate points:

1) If saving cash is the priority then how about a CRT

2) If TFT then go for the 17" (especially considering the small price difference)