New system - first build in 3 years comments please!

[sluzbenik]

I have been running a PIV 2.4b for a while now...Finally time to upgrade, and I hope getting the second best will be cost effective.

I have concerns now about this video card - I am thinking of getting a Radeon 1800XT until I hear they have fixed the 7900GT problems. It seems they are pushing some part past its limits even on non-OCed boards.

Asus A8n-SLI Premium
PC Power & Cooling SLI-PFC 510w
Athlon X2 4200
Western Digital Raptor WD1500ADFD 150GB 10,000 RPM Serial ATA150 Hard Drive
eVGA 256-P2-N563-AX Geforce 7900GT CO 256MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16 Video Card - Retail

Viewsonic VX922 monitor
cheap DVD-RW

I have a pair of OCZ Gold Series (2x512mb). I hope it works!

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820227211

Any advice, any guides out there for new installs?

Thanks a lot!

[wind_comm]

its pretty nice. try reposting in the K8 forum if you want more advice lol.

[Ytsejamer1]

it sucks...

Just kidding. Looks like a solid build to me. I picked up LiteOn's Lightscribe DVD+-RW for about $43.00 OEM. Came with software and discs anyway! Does DVD-RAM5x too (not that many people use it, but hey...it does it).

[sluzbenik]

Yeah that was the DVD writer I will get.

Now I am just waiting for Conroe to come out and for AMD to cut prices...This system should be $200 cheaper by then. And to see if they can fix the 7900GT problems...Otherwise, it's ATI for me, and I might even change the MOBO. My 9500Pro has been totally reliable and I've been overclocking it for years.

[GottaLoveAMD]

By 7900GT problems, are you referring to the overheating/death? I've heard a bit about that, but not much.

[sluzbenik]

Yeah there is a whole thread and artilce at HardOCP about it - http://www.hardforum.com/forumdisplay.php?f=88

Could be quality control, could be a bad chip. Even stock clocked cards are showing the problems. Anyway, I will wait and see, I am so sick of companies putting out bleeding edge stuff and cutting corners.

Heck the Nvidia boards have the SATA problems and the hardware firewall problems too...I really wonder why Nvidia has the reputation it has.

[bigdroo]

Well, if you don't go with a 7900GT, which I think is a damn good card, I think the best power for the dollar now is the X1800XT 256mb. If you keep watching Newegg, you might see one sneak down close to $200. At that price, it's hard not to get one.

I doubt, however, that you'll get as much overclocking with it as your 9500 Pro. That was a great card for it's price/time.

Ohh as far as nVidia's reputation, I've frequently gone with them and have been satisfied ALMOST everytime. I've had less luck with my Jetway ATI board and my ASRock SATA2 board, both in my sig.

My old MSI ATI motherboard (no longer in the sig)had to be replaced because it couldn't run all 3 of my SATA drives. It had 4 SATA ports but had incompatablity problems with the newer drives.

It was replaced with the ECS board listed. It's done fairly well after ironing out some Cool'n'Quiet issues. Oh yeah, it loves my SATA drives.

I think you have excellent choices for your build.

[billcat432]

I went with the lower cost Sapphire 1900 ati based card. I can clock it up to the top of the line model with no problems if I want to but so far running my games at 1600x1200 with a AM2 4600 I have no problems and haven't had to overclock it to the more expensive video model yet. I think it's worth the extra money from the 1800 and look at it this way, they are only going to be more and more demanding on video performance with new games in the future so going cheap now will just make you buy again in the not so distant future. That's my outlook on video cards anyway. I like to buy as little of them as I can and use for the longest period of time. I did buy a better heat sink for it though, It's one of those heatpipe round ones that is quieter and run's the vid card a little cooler.Its one of those new Zalman coolers, got one for my cpu also, computers very quiet now and runs cooler overall which is a nice combo.. Pretty LED fan
I've always perfered ATI to Nvidia. I know, a personal thing but I like their video quality better.
Great choice on your power supply, I got the same model, absolutly no voltage drops, one of the most rock solid (but expensive) power supplies you can get. I've always place this part as very high priority on quality over cost because it's the most crictical component in the whole computer. I've ran other computers a few years ago with cheaper brands and had nightmare glitch problems that took a long time to find out it was the power supply and have bought PC Power and Cooling ever sence and never had any problems and wonder to this day that because it's so voltage stable it's a reason I've not had other components go bad for the life of those systems. Who knows. Though my first 510W model failed... hehehe..I know, I know, build them up and then this but they were good about getting me a new one and it's running great. And the voltages stay at their levels even under heavy loads. I was worried that something in the new setup caused the problem so I did a bit of monitoring when I got the replacement. It just had a bad component in it they said. I talked to them a bit as everything was new and was worried something else was bad that might keep killing every power supply they would send back to me. That and or more new stuff would blow up and cost me a lot. They said no to that and they were right at least on that.