i havent really upgraded my pc for almost 2 years now so i think its due a nice upgrade. basically i want to know how much of a step up in performance the spec below would be compared to my current spec. also any suggestions you want to make would be gratefully appreciated, will the below system be stable.
DESCRIPTION QUANTITY PRICE COST
AMD Athlon "Barton" XP3200+ 400FSB (Socket A) CPU - OEM (CP-058-AM) 1
£254.95 £254.95
Asus A7N8X Deluxe nForce2 (Socket A) Motherboard (MB-019-AS) 1
£74.95 £74.95
OCZ 1GB (2x512MB) PC4000 Dual Channel Series EL-DDR (MY-012-OC) 1
£276.00 £276.00
Seagate Barracuda Serial ATA V 120GB - OEM (HD-004-SE) 1
£77.00 £77.00
PowerColor Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB - Retail (GX-006-PC) 1
£222.90 £222.90
Asus DRW-0402P/D DVD±R/RW Drive - Retail (CD-005-AS) 1
£127.50 £127.50
Asus DVD-E616 16X DVD-ROM / 48X CD-ROM - Retail (CD-002-AS) 1
£21.50 £21.50
Teac 3.5" Floppy Disk Drive - OEM (RD-000-TE) 1
£8.40 £8.40
ThermalRight SLK-947U (Socket 478 & Socket A) Cooler (HS-009-TR) 1
£37.25 £37.25
YS-TECH FD8125 SILENT 80mm fan - 4 Pin (FG-008-YS) 1
£4.80 £4.80
Chieftec Dragon DA-01BLD Full Tower - Blue (CA-036-CT) 1
£89.00 £89.00
Arctic Silver III Thermal Compound (3g) (OA-002-AC) 1
£3.95 £3.95
Globalwin Super Silent 22dBA 520W ATX Power Supply (CA-002-GW) 1
£109.95 £109.95
Subtotal £1,308.15
VAT £228.94
Total £1,537.09
current.
asus a7v333 raid board
xp 2000
512mg pc2100 ram
60 maxtor drive
120 wd drive (to be put in new system)
radeon 8500
audigy platinum sound card
teac 32x writer
cheap dvd rom
21 inch hitachi monitor (to be used new system)
cheers


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Which doesnt help when i dont know what ive written here! DOH!
XP2000+ is still a mighty fine CPU and with a good gfx card will smoke a faster CPU with mid-range gfx card, in gaming of course. Even so it really makes no sense to get a £300+ XP3200+ when practically ALL Barton are capable of this and easily so. Get an XP2500+ for £70, even if you only get to 2.1ghz 400FSB that's still roughly an XP3100+ and saves you an amazing £200-250. Seriosuly there's no secret to this, as is usual a company produces a range of components based on the same design inherently capable in the lower end of much faster speeds but clocked lower to supply demand.
A7N8X Deluxe is a mighty fine mobo, Abit NF7-S is top notch too. 1GB RAM is a bit overkill, esp as more RAM is easily added later (slightly less so with Dual Channel), if you have the cash though why not? I doubt you'll see any benefit over 512MB for a good while, does depend on what you do though (I'm assuming you're an average user). PC3200 is easily all you need for SktA, I much prefer Crucial, TwinMOS or Adata to OCZ but they are all well repsected brands. PC4000 is a total waste on SktA.
Seagate's SATA is nothing mroe than a std PATA drive in SATA form with no perf gains. Much better idea to look to Maxtor's SATA which is streets ahead ... or simply look to PATA drives now as SATA really isn't needed (by the time it is 120GB is likely to be considered small).
9800PRO is awesome and the best of the current cards. 9800XT is a little better and should sell for about the same price, that's due out any time now. Do consider a Rad9800 (nonPRO) as they o/c to 9800PRO speeds, in fact most 9700 can too even nonPRO) but if you aren't overly limited (budget-wise) it makes sense to get at least 9800 (nonPRO) now.
Any reason for Asus pref in optical drives, most people much prefer other brands. Dual (+ & -) Writing is very wise, but 8x burners are just coming to the market and may well be worth investing in (or waiting for 4x to drop in price). Why 2 DVD drives? Copying from optical to optical is NOT recommended, much better to burn an image to the HD.
