PC Upgrade

[lostcarpark]

Calling PC nerds!

I've got a pretty good idea of what I wand in my new upgraded PC, but if anyone has specific recmendations, I'd really appreciate hearing them.

Please feel to make recomendations like "buy a Mac". I appreciate them, and I know Macs are lovely, and I will buy one some day, but I need to run PC software, and I already have a number of PC components that have to integrate.

Please also feel free to say things like "don't buy that motherboard, it's shite". However, what I'd really like to know is why it's shite, and better still, what I should buy instead. I'd particularly like to hear if anyone knows of any incompatibilities or problems with anything I'm considering.

Here's what I'm looking at buying (with links to the website I'm currently planning to order from):

CPU: AMD Athlon 64 3200+ 2.2 GHz Socket 754, 512 KB cache, BOXED
Motherboard: MSI K8T NEO-FIS2R Mainboard socket 754 K8T800, SATA, LAN, Raid, Firewire
Memory: TwinMOS PC3200 DDR-DIMM 1024MB Dual Pack Kit w/two matched PC3200 512MB DIMMs
Graphics Card: ATI Radeon 9800XT (I already have this)
Hard Disk: Maxtor DiamondMax 10 200GB S-ATA 8MB cache 7200RPM
Optical Drive: MSI DVD recorder DR8P IDE

I'm also considering using two SATA drives with RAID mirroring. This would be purely from the point of view of not having down-time if one drive fails. Probably over-kill, given the reliability of modern disks, but peace of mind is worth a hundred Euro. Anyone have experience of on-board RAID1 mirroring? Is it worthwhile, or does it cause any problems?

Comments

[bellinghman.livejournal.com]

Weeeellll ... the 939 socket is apparently likely to be more upgradeable in a couple or so years than the 754 socket.

Apart from this, drool.

[lostcarpark.livejournal.com]

Agreed, I did think hard about going for socket 939, but the entry-level processor is a Athlon 64 3500, would mean almost doubling the processor cost and buying a more expensive motherboard (and none of the 939 boards seem to have Firewire built in, so buying a Firewire card too). The dual channel memory controller would be nice, but not worth doubling the processor cost.

I've been down the road of buying stuff I don't need because in theory it will be more upgradable down the road, and in my experience you end up paying more in the long run. Sure, you might be able to stick a faster processor in the board later, but other technologies like DDR2 and PCI Express will mean that you'll probably want to upgrade other bits at the same time, so it's generally better to recycle the leftover bits, or sell them on.

[bellinghman.livejournal.com]

According to the Inq, there's a 3200+ 939. And it looks like the prices are the same for 754 and 939 where they have the same speed.

I'd have said the price sweet spot was at 3000+, myself.