Doc said:
Eye-t case (500w atx case)
1 @ £31.58
Never heard of this brand. I will caution you, like I do everyone else,
power supplies are a big deal. DO NOT buy some cheap power supply. Two
power supplies, both rated at 500W, can put out drastically different
power. A heavier power supply is usually a better one. Look for the amps on
the +12V line, and there may be 2 +12V lines as in the Antec SmartPower 2.0
series.
Anyway, a cheap power supply is the number one culprit for phantom problems.
They mask themselves as something else. I had video problems on a Soyo
barebones kit that turned out the be the junk power supply. I replaced the
case and PSU with an Antec and all is well.
Sony DRU-810a Duel format and double layer
1 @£40.48
Consider a Lite-On instead. Fast, reliable drive, less money, and
LightScribe:
http://www.cclonline.com/product-info.asp?product_id=4777&category_id=121#
Lite-on 52* (retail)
1 @ £10.81
Is this a CD-R/RW drive? If so, why bother unless you're doing a lot of CD
to CD copying? Save some money and go with a single DVD +- R/RW DL drive.
33 in 1 media drive
1 @£10.00
Have no idea of the brand or model. 33-in-1??? Are there 33 types of
smartcards out there?
Floppy disc drive
1 @ £5.75
Useless. The only reason I put one in my Windows box is because when I built
it, you still had to boot to a floppy to flash the BIOS. Otherwise, I
wouldn't have wasted my money.
If you still insist on a floppy, consider getting a combo media card reader
and floppy from Mitsumi and killing two birds with one 3.5" slot:
http://www.cclonline.com/product-info.asp?product_id=1340&category_id=135
Besides, what in the world could can the 33-in-1 media reader read that you
need that this drive can't?
200gb Maxtor diamondmax
1 @ £52.14
Seriously consider Western Digital or Seagate, and get native command
queuing if possible. Make sure you go SATA or SATA 2, depending on what
your board supports, which I believe the current nVidia chipsets support
SATA 2/300. I used to be a big Maxtor supporter, but recently they've had
reliability problems. I now buy Western Digital and swear by them.
Corsair xms3200 1024mb
2 @ £109.42 = £218.83
If you plan to OC, get faster memory for more headroom.
128mb Winfast px 6600gt tdh Extreme Graphics card
2 @ £143.19 = £286.37
They may be great cards in their own right, but 2 6600GT cards won't
outperform one 7800GTX, and is roughly about as fast as a single 6800
Ultra. In some circumstances, the 6600GT SLI setup are faster, but in many
cases they are the same or slower. I understand you're buying the extreme
version, but it won't be _that_ much of an improvement over a normal
6600GT.
http://graphics.tomshardware.com/graphic/20050524/index.html
Also check this article out, remembering that even though they don't show
the 6600GT SLI setup, it's slower than the 6800 Ultra SLI, which they do
compare the newer cards to.
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2496
I'd get a single 7800GT or for a few bills more, a 7800GTX and be better
off, having the other slot open if I wanted to add another identical card
later to get more performance.
AMD Athlon 64 3500+ oem
1 @ £135.97
Get the retail version and you'll get a factory warranty and a cooler.
Microsoft Windows XP Home
1 @ £60.32
If you plan to swap your Athlon 64 out for an X2 later, you won't be able to
take advantage of it. You must use the Professional version of XP for SMP
to take advantage of dual core. However, if you never plan to upgrade, Home
version would be plenty.
MSI K8N Diamond motherboard
1 @ £110.74
If you like your SLI, you might want to get the next generation of nVidia
nForce 4 chipsets, the nForce 4 SLI x16, where you get 2 full PCI-e X16
lanes instead of one split between the two cards, causing a bottleneck.
Asus already has one out, but MSI and others should have them on the way.
They maybe expensive at first, but they'll come down before long.
http://usa.asus.com/products4.aspx?l1=3&l2=15&l3=226&model=744&modelmenu=1