Mobo Opinions for a new system.

[Byzantium]

I will soon be building my first AMD based machine for a friend and would just like some input regarding a couple of boards and some advice from AMD users on my first draught spec.
The machine will hopefully be a good spec gaming machine and will be used for little else.The weight of the budget will be on the components listed below and cuts may have to be made on the others i need.

ABIT KV8 Pro (going off the HARDOCP review)
AMD 3400 64 (Possibly 3200 64 depending on budget)
Hercules 9800 XT (a definite want)
WD Raptor 74 gb (a definite want)

I have recommended 1gb or RAM,possibly dual channel,though for the sake of budget i cannot go with anything too pricey.

The PSU iam unsure of Atm and any recommendations would be welcome.Again i will be limited by budget.

I have heard good things about the ASUS boards.Would anyone recommend one above the one i have chosen?

Also is there anything i need to be aware of when building the AMD machine,that is anything different from my usual Intels?

Any suggestions/feedback are as always greatfully appreciated.

Regards....

 

[endyen]

Abit makes great boards... but.. Like many others here, I prefer to avoid via chipsets. They have been problemmatic. The Nforce3 250 chipset is probably best right now for A64 systems. Top picks are by Chaintech, MSI and Asus. Personal preference is the Asus K8N-E Deluxe.
FYI socket 754 does not use dual channel memory. 1 gig of ram is great for Doom3.
You might want to look at Nvidia's new graphics card, the 6800 isn't that much more, and in Doom3 it kills. If you have to get the 3200+ to save some cash, it's no big.
For psu, fortron source, antec, and enermax at or above 400 watts. Good luck.

 

[Byzantium]

Thanks very much for your feedback endyen,thats a big help.
Like i said i'm fairly inexperienced with AMD systems and i just assumed their boards would support dual channel memory.I thought it would be wise to ask for some advice as i knew there would be some oversight somewhere.
From what i have heard MSI can be problematic too and i dont know a lot about Chaintech so i think i will go with my other choice the ASUS K8N-E Deluxe.
He has a good deal on the 9800XT from a friend so he will choose that but if it falls through i will suggest the 6800 as a replacement.
The 3400 64 is about £60 more here in the UK so i might suggest the 3200 64 if theres no big difference between them and use the extra cash to get better RAM.
I can get him a good deal on an Enermax 460W PSU so i'll go with that then.

Thanks again for your time endyen....