Planning on a new setup

[TRDCorolla1]

Top of the line motherboard:

ASUS A8N32-SLI Deluxe Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce4 SLI X16 ATX AMD Motherboard - Retail
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813131568

or this:

DFI LANPARTY nF4 SLI-DR Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce4 SLI ATX AMD Motherboard - Retail
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813136151

But look at those prices!!! Are you needing the SLi feature or not??? I really trust Abit though, but that's just me.

 

[ownage]

I suggest DFI LP Ultra-D, moddable to SLI even a first time builder can do it. And for RAM, if you pay a couple bucks more, get the G.Skill 2x1GB PC4000, the one with the black heat spreaders.

 

[kev]

Motherboard: DFI LanPary Ultra-D: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813136152

GPU: 7800GTX: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814130254

HDD: Seagate 7200.9 160GB SATA 3.0:http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822148105

RAM: Mushkin Extreme Perf 2x1GB DDR500: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820146397

That should be well within your budget.

Why would you put DDR500 RAM on a board that only takes DDR400?

 

[aowen416]

you should get the 3500 the specs are barely different and you could easly overclock it to the 3800 its much cheaper and then you could get a better video card

 

[ownage]

Why DDR500? Because its guranteed to run at DDR500, which gives you more headroom in overclocking. DDR400 is only guranteed DDR400. The 3500+ is a single core, 3800+ X2 is dual core.

 

[kev]

Why DDR500? Because its guranteed to run at DDR500, which gives you more headroom in overclocking. DDR400 is only guranteed DDR400. The 3500+ is a single core, 3800+ X2 is dual core.

That board does not support DDR500 therefore your RAM would downclocked to 400

 

[ownage]

But DDR500 gives you more headroom for overclocking if you want to do that in the future. Think ahead of time and give your system some breathing room.

 

[TRDCorolla1]

All you're doing is pumping more voltage to run at that faster speed. DDR500 supported RAM should be able to take the extra juice going through it.

 

[Gamingfreak]

Motherboard: DFI LanPary Ultra-D: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813136152

GPU: 7800GTX: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814130254

HDD: Seagate 7200.9 160GB SATA 3.0:http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822148105

RAM: Mushkin Extreme Perf 2x1GB DDR500: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820146397

That should be well within your budget.

ok thats a very good setup trust ownage he know what hes talking about, i would deffinately get the DFI board because its an amazing motherboard far better than asus in my opinion as for a montior anything from veiwsonic will do if its LCD make sure it has a low responce time and for a case i think this one is really nice http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16811133132
edit: oh and dont get a dual core unless your planning on running 20 apps at once i think a opteron 148 cpu would be much better and it can overclock to 3GHz no prob

 

[ownage]

optys are getting very expensive, and are pretty difficult to find at a good price. www.tankguys.com (if you have problems with them, send me a pm, im in direct contact with them and newegg ) They have a superb price on the Opty 165 at 300 compared to newegg's 330. Give them a try, you wont regret it.

All you're doing is pumping more voltage to run at that faster speed. DDR500 supported RAM should be able to take the extra juice going through it.

No, not true at all. The DDR500 RAM uses the same amount of voltage as DDR400. They speed bin DDR500 RAM do its guranteed to run at DDR500 at 2.7V or how many volts it needs.