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So, with any luck, I should be able to upgrade/replace my computer. I figure I have about a $1000 budget.

Parts:
Processor: AMD Phenom 9750 2.4GHZ
Motherboard: ASUS Crosshair II
Processor Heatsink: ZALMAN CNPS9700 LED (I already have this)
Power Supply: OCZ600SXS StealthXStream 600W (I already have this)
Ram: CORSAIR DOMINATOR 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 1066 (PC2 8500) Dual-Channel kit
Harddisk: 3 X Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM ST3500320AS 500GB SATA (In a Raid-5 configuration)
Video Card: Nvidia 8800GTX (From eBAY)
Case: APEVIA X-Superalien Aluminum Case-Blue (I have this already - Got it for $15, missing the front door, and the front slot-covers.
Sound card: Creative Audigy ZS2(With front panel) (PCI) (I already have this)
TV Card: ATI TV Wonder Pro (PCI) (I already have this)
Fans: Various. I already have these, may need to get a couple more though.

Newegg wishlist (Not entirely complete): Link

Note that I am using my Audigy 2ZS sound card, so there is no getting out of that, and the fact that it requires a PCI slot was a factor in choosing my motherboard.

Edit: I plan to be dual booting Windows XP(32 bit) and Debian Linux(X64 probably)

Comments and suggestions?


-RobbieThe1st

very nice. Quad core 4 GB of ram beast. Now I am going to say what i said to my friend...DO YOU NEED THE HARD DRIVES!? lol my friend runs 860 GB on 5-6 HDDs. His Hard drives overheat so make sure you have ample cooling...my friend rerouted all his AC into his computers to make sure the hard drives didnt overheat...so make sure overheating is not a problem with 3 hard drives being so close together. and just so you know...at www.microcenter.com you can get a 1TB WD hard drive for 129 a drive.

4gb? But that's... Oh no!

VISTA!?

*heartattack*

[I recommend you either get XP or wait for the new OS, which I hear should be a lot better than Vista - for any purpose]

Not too shabby at all, Rob! Though I'm a bit hesitant to ask why you bought your video card of freakin' eBay... I don't trust that website any more than I can throw it. But hey, rock on if it all works.

I *might* consider upping your power supply though. Not a definite thing, since you're only running a 2.4GHz processor and a 512 video card, but I figure it may be an investment for you to look into a 750-watt source if you ever go any higher than that.

Question though, what kind of case are you looking at? I haven't the time to open the wish-list - I'm halfway out the door as it is - but I wanna know what the beast is gonna look like, :3


@Demus: If you haven't actually used Vista, you've got very little for an argument. The main reason Vista gave so many people problems in the first place was because it was such a high-resource operating system and half the morons who installed it had one gig of memory or more.

I have Windows Vista 64-bit Ultimate, it hasn't frozen, slowed, errored, or done anything other than what I want it to do since I bought it in early June. It's all dependent on whether or not the user can pay attention to the product requirements, and adhere to them. And in most cases, its best to exceed them.

Vista > XP

I will agree with Fast here ont he power supply portion, My rig is quite outdated and no where near the specs you are putting out and i have burned up 3 550's all in 2 months.

Right now I am running a 750 and it is seems to hold up ok.

Well I did not go to Vista till after SP1 came out, and i have had very little problems with it, even though I am not running enough RAM for it. And I have seen the blue screen of death one time, and that was at school, and that system was built for Vista to run on it well. The teacher in the class has gotten the Blue screen of death a few times, but then again we where pushing the system. Though at home I have not gotten the BSOD yet. But I also do not push these computers like i would the school ones. I have had my laptop lock up a few times, but I think that is cause I have way to little RAM (only 512 meg) on it running Vista, and yes it will run with that little RAM and better than I thought it would have as well.

Likewise, I have had very few problems with Vista. The occasional freeze or quirk has popped up, but at much less frequent rate than I've had either with XP or Mac OSX. *shrug*

The computer looks good Robbie; I used to be an AMD guy as well, but lately I've been less than impressed with their products. Are their Phenom units better than Intel's equivalents?

You took my comment a bit too seriously there, but anyway. I've used a Vista before, but maybe half the reason it wasn't so good was the fact that it was on a market pre-assembled PC..

Besides, Vista taking so much memory can sometimes be quite a problem. I know most of today's computers run on too low resources, although gamers don't usually have the problem. And I can't quite get used to the new look, so I'd wait for the new one anyway (which I hope to be as good as the rumors tell, even though unlikely).

Never gotten any problems with XP so far, and I expect it to run for another two years smoothly.

I have a question, are you going to be running RAID on the computer since you have 3 HD in the system, and if at all possible try to have an empty slot between the drives, and be better if the case has a fan where the HD are to blow air onto them. The drives will run cooler and last longer by being cooler.

Wow, you guys sure make assumptions fast - I actually plan to dual-boot XP(32-bit) and Debian(64 bit probably). Windows XP 32-bit *should* be able to use all 4GB of ram, but only just, and only 3GB for programs, but I should be able to do it. And, previous feedback on another forum suggests that it is better to do a 2GBX2 dual kit than use a single 2GB, a 2GB + 1GB, or 3 X 1GB, so I am thinking this is the best option.

PSU wise, its going to depend on the quality of PSU I think - I ran my current setup(~120W P4, 2gb of ram, 2 harddisks, DVD, bunch of fans, high-end(for the time) video card) on a 450W high-quality PSU... so I don't think I should have any trouble.. Think being the operative word. So, we will see.


-RobbieThe1st

I was going under the assumption that XP is limited to 2gb (for a reason yet unclear to me). Otherwise I'd have more than two, too.

Oh, and forgot the main reason why I don't like Vista so much from my last post: it doesn't run the good ol' games I still enjoy playing and that are long enough to catch my attention!

Well, apparently Windows can only use about 3.0-3.5GB total, depending on how much ram your video card takes.
And some of that is needed for the system itself.
Good reference: http://www.dansdata.com/askdan00015.htm

Edit:
A couple things I forgot to add. First off, the video card. I haven't gotten it yet, but plan to get it off eBAY so I can get a good price for it. I am hesitant, because there is a certain risk involved, but I don't want to spend more than about $250 for it.

Harddisk wise, I am going for a Raid-5 configuration, so I get some protection from data loss(One drive can fail and can be replaced with no data loss). I currently run 2 250GB drives in a RAID-1 configuration, which works well.

Heat is a problem, and I am not quite sure what I am going to do about it. I will be monitoring temp closely, and may install a couple fans and perhaps a heatsink on each drive.

Case wise, I have one of These I got for $15. It is missing the door, and the slot-covers. But hey, $15 is $15.


-RobbieThe1st

What games would those be? So far I haven't found a game on my system that I can't run, even if I only go as far back as Guild Wars or Half-Life 2 with my collection.

Fork out a good $150 and you can buy yourself a quality 2x 2gigs of RAM from NewEgg. Next to buying fans, memory is probably the least expensive part of a computer.

I'm going as far back as A+M+O+K :grin:

Almost impossible to find anything about that game these days.
This text is incredibly small just for the lulz. And I just made you read it! Ha!

OMG DEBIAN! I congratulate you. lulz i dont know anyone other then me that ran Debian. I have been running it in my Pen 2 server and Pen 3 backup for ages. Very nice setup :D