Critique my Choices

[drkspidr]

Well, I bit the bullet and ordered this yesterday. Just a little bit nervous over the money I spent, so hopefully I can get some justification here that it was money well spent.

AMD Opteron 170 1GHz HT Socket 939 Dual Core Processor - Retail

ASUS A8N32-SLI Deluxe Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce4 SLI X16 ATX AMD Motherboard - Retail

Coolermaster CM830

Turbo-Cool 510 Express / SLI

eVGA 256-P2-N563-AX Geforce 7900GT 256MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16 Video Card - Retail


Western Digital Raptor WD1500ADFD 150GB 10,000 RPM 16MB Cache Serial ATA150 Hard Drive - OEM


Corsair DDR500 TWINX2048-4000PT

Total price, about $2200 with tax and shipping.

While I am aware that for some, purchasing a 250 dollar case instead of getting a GTX video card may not seem like the best choice, I see the case as something that will last forever, while the video card might be something I upgrade in 6 months.

Dark Spider

 

[drkspidr]

I picked that motherboard for many reasons and after reading many reviews. As you can tell, I am not even setting it up in SLI mode yet.

It does have a few shortcomings, like the layout of its expansion cards is probably among the worst.

But, it is one of the few motherboards available that has an 8 phase power converter, which means a much more controlled input ripple.

This should give the board greater overclock "steadfastness", if I can make up my own word.

Also, it should take less power and generate less heat, although I don't expect that the Asus claim of 10% less power and 15C will be what I achieve.

Perhaps I will keep you all posted with what my actuals are, so that they can be a comparison to what you are getting.

Also, Anandtech gave it a stellar review, claiming that it achieves as much as a 17% increase in FPS in certain games over the DFI!

http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=2589

This all lead to my decision to go with the Asus A8N32-SLI. Its a hefty price, but the performance should be worth it.

Dark Spider