Please could you have a look at this spec before I order...

Ok, for a month i will be using my IDE HDD and IDE Optical drives as i plan to do a 2 stage upgrade. What do you think of my sellection bellow?

AMD Athlon 64 3700 32/64Bit CPU S939 "San Diego" Retail inc Heat Sink Fan & 3 Years Warranty

Abit AN8 Ultra PCI-E S939 NF4 DDR400 SATA RAID Gbit Lan 1394 USB2 7.1Ch Audio

128MB XFX PCI-E GForce 6600GT Tv-out Dual DVI

1Gb (2 x 512 Mb) Corsair Value Select Kit, DDR, PC3200, non ECC, Lifetime Warranty

Question 1) Is the 3700 San Diego all that much better than a 3500 Venice? Is it worth the extra £37?

Qusetion 2) Is that board ok? I see a simular Abit one for £10 more but can't see any difference apart from the CPU support and the cheaper one has 7.1 sound rather than 5.1

Question 3) Is it worth an extra £40 for a 256mb board? (I'm going to get a 7800gtx around christmas)

Question 4) Is that memory any cop? Or is there any other member thats better for that money?

Question 5) Do Athlon 64 boards support DDR2? I can't see any on scans website that do. But it's only worth getting DDR2 if you are overclocking, right?

I am not a major overclocker, but may do a bit with a decent HSF. I just don't have the time to mess around so much these days. Do plan to get water cooling in the future, but it's only for a quiet life ;)

Cheers :)

DDR2 is not supported by AMD platforms at the moment. TBH - this is probably the memory I would go for myself.

2) yes
5) no

1) Yes, the extra 512kb L2 is something to shout about :)

1) yes and no... major differences at stock? not really... extra smoothness and Ocbility? YES... and a BIG BIG YES!! the extra 512kb kills the coughs during loading..
2) yes
3) no... 128MB variant is fine.. 6600GT wont get any better even with a 256MB buffer
4) Memory looks fine.. U might as well go for a high end memory for ur rig.. TwinX 3200XL would be good.. 2-2-2-5 timings would be sweet..
5) no.. but it does support DDR500 on a bios fix (note its DDR500 not DDR2 500)

If you don't do much overclocking.. the standard HSF would be fine..

But don't listen to me, go get an xp-90c and go WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

One other question, should i get some thermal paste? will that CPU come with crapy hard to remove thermal pad with the HSF?

If you get the retail CPU the stock hsf uses Shinetsu which is excellent TIM.

Well.. TBH, I'll always go for Arctic Silver 5... Never liked that paddish green stuff on the stock fan... If you're going for anything else other than the stock HSF... get arctic silver..

it's not a pad on AMD64 coolers.
& Shinetsu rocks! :rockon:

Thanks again Buff. You still frequent the KustomPC forums?

Right, can anyone help me decide between these to motherboard's;

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Produ...oductID=230491

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Produ...oductID=176393

Basically i can't see any real difference, apart from the sound and the CPU support. So which is better and why? Is it just me, or is the cheaper one actually the best one?

the cheaper one is better, it is based on the Nforce 4 ultra chipset, the other one is isnt. Plus the cheaper motherboard has silent chipset (nforce) cooling instead of a horrid fan. The cheaper one is better, quieter and cheaper

Get 1gb stick of ram instead of two 512mb sticks - when you need to upgrade in the future you wont be limited to running at 2T.

I think this is what my 2nd pc has, http://www.crucial.com/uk/store/part...LE=CT12864Z40B
I think ebuyer has it cheaper.

I much preffer Corsair myself :)

Dont buy just 1 stick of ram as that would mean you wouldn't be able to use the 'duel channel' feature that this board supports

If buying memory purchase either 2x 512 or 2x 1gig sticks or even 4x 512/4x 1gig

Corsair VS is a good memory choice but if you can stretch to it i would advise the Twin-X 3200XL memory because of the lower latencies

Thanks