Urgent Spec Check

Scottie2004 · 10 Jun 2006 at 18:22

I'm about to place an order for the following;

CPU AMD Athlon 64 3500+ 2.2GHz (Socket AM2) £88.07
Motherboard Asus M2NPV-VM DDR2 PCI-e £70.44
Memory GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC5300 667MHz Value DDR2 £109.95
Graphics Card Connect3D ATI Radeon X1800 XT 256MB £164.44
Hard Drive Samsung SpinPoint P SP2504C 250GB £52.29
DVD Drive NEC ND4570 16x16 DVD±RW Dual Layer ReWriter £21.95
Keyboard and Mouse Logitech UltraX™ Media Desktop £35.19
Speakers JBL Creature II 2.1 Speakers £55.17
Case and PSU Antec Sonata II Piano Black Quiet Case £66.92
Monitor Acer AL1916WS 19" Widescreen £186.82

Total £796.07

I'd really appreciate any feedback, am I getting the best bang for buck? Should I avoid Socket AM2 for the moment and stay with S939? Am I better with a standard 19" monitor rather than the Acer 19" wscreen? Should I wait for Conroe? If I do what advantage am I likely to see within my price range of £800?

Panicking now, please set my mind at ease!

Scottie2004 · 10 Jun 2006 at 19:32

^^ bump, anybody?

benjo · 10 Jun 2006 at 19:35

Looks good

But apparently over the next couple of months, AM2 may have some bugs, and i think conroe is out like next month?

Trifid · 10 Jun 2006 at 19:37

I would wait for Conroe personally, but with AM2, you can just drop a K8L cpu in there when they release it (assuming no chipset changes.) AM2 has some DDR2 ram problems where it underclocks it very slightly.

Assuming that the drive is Pata (not end of the world

) it is good.

Explicit · 10 Jun 2006 at 19:42

Mobo is not ideal as it is one of them media pc ones, but I guess it should be ok. All else looks fine. I'd get Conroe myself, not long left now...

Scottie2004 · 10 Jun 2006 at 19:53

What benefit does the conroe offer over the AM2 3500+ ? Will it fit into my price bracket?

Explicit · 10 Jun 2006 at 19:56

Scottie2004 said:
What benefit does the conroe offer over the AM2 3500+ ? Will it fit into my price bracket?

Quite simply, better performance for your money. Even the low end conroes can thrash an FX62 with a mild overclock. No reason why you can't build a Conroe based rig for £800.