£1500-ish spec

PinkPig · 6 Feb 2006 at 17:26

Hello all!

I've just put together some ideas for a new £1500-ish gaming system - haven't done this in a while, and am looking for friendly criticism, have I chosen anything entirely useless or incompatible or just any suggestions for improvements?

CP-148-AM AMD Opteron UP 170 Dual Core San Diego 2.0GHz 2MB Cache (Socket 939) - Retail (CP-148-AM) 1
£299.95 £299.95
GX-047-CO Connect3D ATI Radeon X1900 XT 512MB GDDR3 AVIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (3056) (GX-047-CO) 1
£304.95 £304.95
MB-129-AS Asus A8R-MVP Crossfire (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-129-AS) 1
£69.95 £69.95
CD-027-NE NEC ND4551 16x16 DVD±RW Dual Layer ReWriter (Beige) - OEM (CD-027-NE) 1
£29.95 £29.95
HD-018-SA Samsung SpinPoint P SP2504C 250GB SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM (HD-018-SA) 1
£68.95 £68.95
CA-009-TG Tagan TG580-U15 580W ATX2.01 Easycon SLi Compliant Modular Silent PSU (CA-009-TG) 1
£77.95 £77.95
CA-027-AN Antec SLK3000B Midi Tower Case - No PSU (CA-027-AN) 1
£27.50 £27.50
SP-022-LG Logitech Z-2300 THX® Certified 2.1 200 Watts Speakers - Retail (SP-022-LG) 1
£77.95 £77.95
MY-008-GS G.Skill 2GB DDR HZ PC4000 (2x1GB) CAS3 Dual Channel Kit (F1-4000USU2-2GBHZ) (MY-008-GS) 1
£124.95 £124.95
MO-029-SA Samsung SM-930BF 19" LCD Monitor - Silver/Black (MO-029-SA) 1
£209.95 £209.95
Subtotal £1,292.05
VAT £226.11
Total £1,518.16

Thanks in advance!

(Ooops! Sorted now I hope ;-)

)

PinkPig · 6 Feb 2006 at 22:34

Would I be better with the Athlon 64 X2 4400+ rather than the opteron? I know they're essentially the same.....

PinkPig · 6 Feb 2006 at 23:40

I'm probably sharing your sentiment there, I don't mind a bit of overclocking but I tend to prefer stability over anything else. Think I might be going for something very much like that spec. with an adjustment or two.

Thanks all!

PinkPig · 7 Feb 2006 at 00:18

I do actually have a Samsung 27" HDTV that I will be using for much of the time, this monitor is intended mostly as a small screen to use while I'm at Uni and so on. I had pondered getting something expensive and very high resolution (e.g. the Dell widescreens), but have decided that the cost of keeping a system that can do them justice is too high, and the picture on a "normal" resolution monitor is just as good in the scheme of things. That's my opinion at the moment, at least.

PinkPig · 7 Feb 2006 at 23:23

A few doubts about the motherboard after reports of it breaking quickly or being generally not as good as the reviews suggest.

Since I'm not going to be using crossfire anytime soon I'm tempted by something like the DFI Lanparty Ultra-D. Requirements are that it's stable and reliable and as good an overclocker as possible. Will either of these boards (or others) be compatible (I know not officially supported) with the Opteron 170 if I go for that, and will some ugly BIOS flash be necessary? If a BIOS flash is necessary, how can I do that when I don't have a (nother) supported CPU? Sudden big confusion about the whole issue.

Any comments?