Ok, I'm thinking of buying a new computer. I'll select the components from a local dealer and they will assemble it for me.

I thought I'd share the set of components I intend to buy and see if any of the more knowledgeable PC-experts can spot any problems with it.

I have three goals with this computer: reasonable pricing (not the most expensive stuff in each category), pretty high performance (as good as one can get with reasonable prices) and silent operation (I'm tired of my current computer, it makes a huge sound).

Ok, here is the list, followed by some reasoning about the selections.

a) ATX Miditower Nexus Breeze, 350W ATX 2x3.5 4x5.25, in 3x3.5
b) Asus A8V Deluxe WiFi, VIA K8T800 Pro, A64/FX ATX PCI 5, AGP 1, Dimm 3 DualCh.DDR400, dma133, SATA, Audio8, GbLAN, WLAN, FW
c) AMD Athlon 64 3500+ 2.2G/1.0GHz s939, 512KB (with a fan)
d) 2 x Mushkin, 512MB 400MHz Basic Green PC3200 DDR-RAM DIMM 64 bit
e) 2 x Hitachi Deskstar 7K250 SerialATA 120.0GB 8MB 8.9ms, 7200rpm, 8MB, SATA150
f) Maxtor OneTouch External Store 160.0GB USB/FW 9.3ms, 7200rpm, 8MB, External, USB1.1/2.0 /FireWire
g) Sony 3,5 Black 1.44Mb
h) Plextor DVD+/-R/RW KiT PX-712A, black 16x/48x read/2-48x write DVD-/CD-ROM, 8M, IDE/ATAPI
i) Asus AX800 PRO/ATI Radeon X800Pro 256M tv A 256MB GDDR3-RAM, Radeon, S/Video/DVI-out, AGP

Ok, then some reasoning for the components:
a) The box plays a big role in silent operation, I think and Nexus Breeze-models should be silent with their extra-silent power fans and internal noise damping. But is 350w enough for this box or should I go for the 400w model?

b) ASUS motherboards were recommended in anohter thread and why not, this particular model seems to have all the bells and whistles and potentially (judging by the specs on the manufacturers pages) a good enough Realtek-audio chip that I won't need any additional audio hardware. And furthermore, it has the Socket 939 required by the CPU of my choise. Looks good, right?

c) This seems to be the choise for performance gaming these days and I think it will be plenty for my other (simple) needs besides gaming. I'm a bit undecided about whether I should downgrade this to 3000+ model and save about $200 or is there a noticeable speed difference in order to justify the $200 price tag for the 3500+ when compared to 3000+?

d) Before collecting this setup, I've never heard of Mushkin memory brand before. They are advertised as "worlds finest quality" in the local computer shops web pages but are they? I looked at their web pages and Mushkin seems to be a US company, right? Anybody have any experiences with them or know anything about their reputation? My other choise would be Kingston Valueram-brand, but they are a little bit more expensive so I wouldn't change to them if Mushkin gets a good word from someone here. Anyway, I intend to get 1G of DDR RAM to the machine.

e) This brand of HD got a good review in storagereviews.com and seems have quite good performance. There is some historical burden from a bad rep from the time before IBM sold the HD business to Hitachi. This model should have ok reliability, though. I intend to get 2 drives and set up a RAID0-configuration in order to increase performance. I know that this potentially adds unreliability but that's the reason for the next item.

f) I don't want to fool around with DAT-backups anymore, so I will get an external HD for doing back-ups. This is evermore important due to the RAID0-configuration.

g) Ok, I guess I'll never have a desktop without one of these. I guess I will need this at least for feeding the RAID-driver to WinXP when installing it...

h) A typical, modern CD/DVD-reader/writed. Won't do DL DVD's but I don't see myself needing to burn any of them. I chose Plextor over comparable LG-model because a video editing softare (Pinnacle Studio SE) is included with this one.

i) And finally, the graphics. IMO, Radeon X800 Pro gives the best price/performance ratio at the moment. I also believe (or so I've read many times) that ATI has better 2D-clarify than nVidia, so I think that I will go with this instead of Geforce. Any experiences with this particular brand/model of graphics cards?

Ok, there you go. Any comments? Would you change something and why would you do it? I would be especially interested in hearing comments about the 350w power of the box, is it enough...

I have a feeling that this machine should be a lean mean gaming machine... ;)

I'm out of the loop with most of this gear, but I always brush up prior to doing upgrades. I recently bought the Nec 3500 16X dvd burner. It does DL, which you said you don't need, but this burner is incredible. Anandtech recently rated it the best burner on the market. Price? $68 or so from newegg, for the OEM. Definitely consider it :)

In regards to your PS, I am sure that 350W is more than adequate, if that's a quality PS. When I did my last upgrade in March, I followed the same thing I'd done for the previous decade: bought the cheapest PS I could find. I got a 400 W for $20. People had always said a good PS is worth having, but for me I'd never needed one. About two weeks later I heard a pop sound, and smelled burning. I thought "Uh, there goes my CPU from overclocking". Well, I'll be damned, it was the PS! I returned that P[o]S, and got a nice name brand 350W powersource for about $60 and stuck it in my old case. Took me years, but I'm finally sold on the merit of a good powersource. It can easily handle a couple of harddrives, two dvd/cd drives, vid card, extra case lights, etc.

Mushkin is a well known brand for memory, so no problems there.

I am too far out of the loop with video cards to opine much on that, but I will say not to put too much weight in 2d quality. Maybe my eyes are bad, but I've always found that similarly priced vid cards will all do pretty much the same. Perhaps if you stare at pretty pictures on a huge monitor all day there is a difference, but for my dollar I'd put price and brute 3d performance as the only real considerations.

Looks good. That is one fast PC.

AMD, pssshhh ::laughs::

intel all the way

Everything looks like itll be great IMO... and yes a 350W power supply should be plenty.

AMD, pssshhh ::laughs::

intel all the way + to the curb

The system looks like a nice system, couple of things though:

1) try to get seagate drives instead, the 5 year warrenty is reason enough
2) Who uses floppy drives on home systems still? :P

1) try to get seagate drives instead, the 5 year warrenty is reason enough
2) Who uses floppy drives on home systems still? :P

Well, I was a bit undecided between Hitachi and Seagate Barracuda 7200.7, but check out this link:http://storagereview.com/php/tiki/tiki-index.php?page=LeaderBoard

Look at the "Desktop" list of best-of-the-best. See any Seagates there?

Then checkout this review: http://www.storagereview.com/articles/200407/20040729revisit_1.html See especially the single-user performance results.

That review changed my mind from Seagate to Hitachi. 5 years warranty is definitely good, but my current machine is 2,5 years old so I doubt that I will keep the next computer for 5 years anyway... ;)

However, Seagate 7200.7 should incorporate NCQ which just might add a little edge over Hitachi in performance wise. I'm definitely more confident with Seagate as a HD-brand than Hitachi but I'm just trying to maximise the performance potential here... ;) Although it might be, that considering the performance increase from RAID-configuration, there might be no noticeable difference between the different HD-brands anyway...

I think that I will need to have the floppy just for one purpose: to be able to give the RAID-driver for WinXP when installing it. The RAID-driver comes in a separate CD included with the ASUS-mobo and the instructions inform that one should prepare a floppy with the RAID-driver before installing WinXP. Other than that, I should have no need for it. Hmm... Perhaps it could be useful also for backup recovery, if e.g. Norton Ghost (should I decide to buy it) could restore a HD-image from the external Maxtor drive using a floppy. Don't know if that's possible, but it sounds like reasonable possibility.

Even though I know you're not going to be running eight fans, a water pump, and a million lights like I do, I'm in the fan club that there is no such thing as too much power. I use a 600W power supply. 350W should be plenty for what you have listed, but if it was me, I'd go for a 400W. Just my $0.02.

Even though I know you're not going to be running eight fans, a water pump, and a million lights like I do, I'm in the fan club that there is no such thing as too much power. I use a 600W power supply. 350W should be plenty for what you have listed, but if it was me, I'd go for a 400W. Just my $0.02.Whaddayaknow, I actually decided to upgrade the power from 350 to 400 the last minute... ;) My current setup has 350W and it seems to work fine with more HW than the new one but I thought that why not have some extra umph if I for example decide to add some stuff into it later. And I have a feeling that this might be the first computer that I actually keep for longer and upgrade new components into it instead getting a whole new box after couple of years so who knows what power-eating stuff I will add into it.

I should be getting the new PC next tuesday or wednesday... :drool:

My final setup ended up being almost exactly as I described in my first posting on this thread, except that the shop had just run out of 512MB Mushkin GreenLine memories (they had the HiPerf-ones, but too much money for my budget) so I took Kingston Valueram 512M DDR-DIMMs instead, they were just a few euros more expensive and should work just fine.

I checked out the Nec 3500 DVD-burner (as adviced in one posting) but unfortunately the shop where I get the PC only has it as bulk-model (without any software) and I usually want to get a full retail box with all the bells and whistles, including any software. By the way, that was a major criteria on choosing the X800 Pro-brand of card among several possibilities. ASUS seemed to have the best stuff in the box, like web-cam and couple of games. And for DVD-burners, Plextor has Pinnacle Studio SE-video editing software in addition to the normal Nero burning sw, while LG models have only the Nero sw included. So, for roughly the same amount of money, why not take the box with most stuff in it, if everything else is equal in terms of the product itself... :D

:tu: Sounds good. Now all you gotta do is put it together. Hope all the hardware plays well together. ;)

:tu: Sounds good. Now all you gotta do is put it together. Hope all the hardware plays well together. ;)Nah, I won't put it together myself... ;)

I bought an assembly service from the shop as well (about $25) and that means that they will also test it and so I get a bit more reassurance that it works together. I mean, they probably wouldn't sell the box to me if they found out that it doesn't work... ;) But if I put it together myself and something doesn't work together with something else, I'd be screwed... All parts of course have guarantees but if nothing is broken and just doesn't work together with something else, then that would be my stupidity...