Help me spend money!

Well, time for an upgrade.

Currently, this is my dev/gamming rig:
P4 2.4 with HT (800 FSB)
Shuttle Case
Micro ATX with onboard LAN, Sound, Video, Firewire.
512 MB DDR (400)
Geforce4200 128MB
SoundBlaster Live
DVD/CD RW combo (single layer)
120 gb Seagate Barracuda (7200 rpm, SATA)
Windows XP Pro
15" LCD (off brand).

Here is what I have to spend:$1000
(possibly $1500 if I can butter up the wife a bit more).

I need more video power, and need to get away from the shuttle (dont do LANs anymore, so a shuttle is a bit of a waste now). Need a bigger screen (I fell in love with my samsung SyncMaster915V 19" at work).

So I was doing some looking around at tiger direct, came up with a dual 7800 sli, 2.8 ghz P4 D, 19" samsung, no case, nothing else, and I was looking at 900 bucks.... Looked at Dell and saw even the low end gamming rigs go for $1000 easy....

I would like to do an SLI, but it seems way to expensive at this point. I really do want a big screen, and need a video card to push it, not to mention something that will let me try out the new games..

Things I can bring to the new pc:
XP Pro (so dont need an os)
120 GB SATA HD
CD/DVD drive (have the combo)
Mouse and keyboard (of course).

Case is optional, I can always find a cheapo from somewhere local with a big enough PSU.

I could use the 512 of DDR, but if DDR2 isnt too bad, I could dump it.

Any suggestions? Any good vendors out there that have some cheap/powerfull stuff?

Thanks in advance!

Alright, after searching price grabber for a bit, found:

RaidMax ATX868WBP Gaming Case ATX Tower
Corsair 1GB PC2-4200 DDR2 DIMM Memory
Samsung SyncMaster 930B Black 19" LCD Monitor
eVGA 256-P2-N515-AX GeForce 7800 GT Video Card w/ Call of Duty 2
Intel Pentium 4 w/ HT Technology - 3.0Ghz Processor(socket 775)
GigaByte GA-8I945P-G Motherboard


For about $1017.17

Still searching....

All that for $17.17... damn.

:-)

Get a faster CPU, I got 3.2 18 months ago but there are faster than that, as I'm sure you're aware.

Yeah, get an AMD ;)

Seriously though, an overclocked Athlon X2 4400 would probably be the fastest CPU you could buy unless you were going to get a P4-EE or Opteron.

Well I don't know about any of that but you really should be going dual core in today's day and age, not crappy old hyperthreading...

I agree with the "get an AMD" comment. Or at the very least, add another 40 bucks for a decent low-noise CPU heatsink as the ones Intel sells "in-a-box" (the one with a 3 year warranty) are absolutely appalling. My 3.6Ghz ran at 60 degrees C at 45 dB with the stock heatsink (for about 8 months before buying the farm). The Zalmann replacement heatsink on the replacement CPU runs at 21dB and 30 degrees C.

On the downside, the PC no longer significantly contributes to keeping the house warm.

Actually, it's probably the opposite: your CPU still does the same amount of work, and generates the same amount of waste heat. Now the heat doesn't linger around on your CPU die as long, but gets 'disposed' into your room air quicker. If anything, there is more heat getting passed onto your room air, not less. The air inside your PC case itself will be cooler, though.

hmmm, def some food for thought.

So what combo would you guys recommend? Figure I need a 19" LCD and a Geforce (high end). Since the 6900's are not much less than a 7800, might as we go with a 7800....

So the board needs PCIxpress..

Any good board cpu combos? DDR2 or just DDR?

DDR4 is the way to go.


:P

(Yes I know...)

Differences between DDR2 and DDR, in terms of performance, is really quite a moot point. No AMD system supports DDR2. AFAIK the only measurable difference between the two technologies is the amount of power they each consume. DDR2 is substantially lower voltage (and therefore power consumption is reduced dramatically).

As well all know though, Intel CPU's are more power hungry than AMD's, so any power you save through the use of DDR2 is more than outweighed by the CPU in your system.

For motherboards, I can only recommend Abit, or if you are a serious overclocker, the MSI neo platinum (exact name I forget). Whichever, it should be NForce 4.

Athlon 64 4000+ ~$325
ABiT mobo ~$125
Corsair 2GB DDR400 ~$250
GeForce 7800GT ~$300
-------
~$1000

That's the most important pieces and will get you a seriously screaming game machine.

I just blew £200.00 on a 'Robosapien V2'. Got home with it tonight - took an hour to prise it out of the box - was an hour and a half before I got it working.

I'm going to use it to program stuff for me in B3D and carry out minor maintenence on my PC.

Here he is (not my actual one, but I have this version of the v2):

My robosapien v1 is a drunkard... he lists to the right when he walks. :)