New rig how does this sound?

AMD X2 4400 1x
Abit AN8-32X SLi 1x
2GB Corsair 1x
WD Raptor 74GB 10,000RPM 1x
Maxtor 300GB 1x
Gainward 7900 GT 512MB 2x
Liteon 16x DVDÃ,±RW/RAM 1x
Antec Titan 550 Tower Case - 550w TruePower PSU 1x
Microsoft Wireless Optical Desktop Comfort ver3.0 1x
19 Inch Flatscreen 1x

Storage and Performance in one for University? Going to be doing a fair bit of rendering, so unsure if it would be worth going for a Intel for a larger and faster cache on the processor?

Pretty good save for one thing, there is only one 300gb drive. If you want it for storage Id at least have a mirrored pair in there and with the price of drives as low as they are itd be money well spent!

Other than that, not bad.

Cheers
Tongy

Raptors are quite loud in write, you want to be sure you can live with that. Pick one of the densely plattered Barracuda 7200.10s instead of the Maxtor too.

Quote from: CeathreamhnanPick one of the densely plattered Barracuda 7200.10s instead of the Maxtor too.

Thats an excellent recommendation, you will also benefit from that as a more reliable drive with greater warranty.

Just one question, thats a socket 939 mobo, why not go for an AM2? Itd be more future proof etc.

AM2?

Ohhh yeah will look at diffrent Hard Drives as well

As longs as seak times are not destroyed

Quote from: Poison_UKAM2?

new AMD Socket to be released late this year or early next.

edit: If you dont plan on upgrading for a few years S939 will do fine, itll also be cheaper.  

Quote from: Beaker

Quote from: Poison_UKAM2?

new AMD Socket to be released late this year or early next.

AM2 has been out for a while now.

Quote from: TheMallrat

Quote from: Beaker

Quote from: Poison_UKAM2?

new AMD Socket to be released late this year or early next.

AM2 has been out for a while now.

bah! brain wasnt functioning.   was thinking of the next gen of AMD CPUs.  If you are even considering upgrading then doing incremental upgrades later on then you are pretty much required to go AM2.  If you are building a rig thats powerful enough to last you 2 or 3 years then a S939 isnt going to be a bad choice.  

Socket F is what your thinking about @ beaker

Yeah S939 is what im going for....

 I just built my brother a rig for a budget and almost made the mistake of going for 939 without even realising the existance on AM2.  It took a bit of reading to catch up on the proccessor scene.

AM2 is hardly any more expensive than the current 939 rig.  It is quite simply socket 940 with dual channel capability and up to PC6400 (800Mhz) on the memory to some up the big improvements.  It would make no sense imo to pay the same for 939 rig.

As far as performance goes, the difference is practically the same, but the new socket is set to pave the way for AMDs next generation of chips.  

Example, Ebuyer....

AMD 64 3800+ (AM2) Ã,£73
AMD 64 3800+ (939)  Ã,£71

DDR2 is also getting cheaper and DDR1 is on the up again.

The 939 chips are slowly being whittled away, distributors are buying their last stocks of 939 chips afaik. After the, FX-60, there will be no faster Socket-939 CPUs produced.   Ill be fair, your not losing out as such if you choose to go S939 and its going to be a rig to last, but there will be less options at the end of the road when it does come time to change.  If you wait a while, you may see some major price slashes to 939, but atm, there is no differance.

Also thumbs up for Seagate.

All this information is helping a lot. Im behind on the hardware scene big style. Really need to do some reading up

I agree with the above, its worth spending the very small extra and getting AM2 mobo, chip and some DDR2 ram.