System: AMD ATHLON 64 3000+, Asus nFORCE4

[Boris]

Hi all,

I am building a PC from scratch and I'd like to know if you see any
component that is weaker or much better than the rest.

I am spending around $600(no monitor) for a reasonably fast PC that I
will use for daily stuff (web, video etc) and some occasional gaming
and research (including visual stuff, but not TOO much demanding).

CPU: AMD ATHLON 64 3000+ W/512KB SOCKET 939
Motherboard: ASUS A8N5X nVIDIA nFORCE4 (AMD SOCKET 939)
RAM: 1GB (2x512MB) DDR400 (for dual channel use)

Graphics: ATI RADEON X1600PRO 512MB PCI-E DD2 W/TV & DVI #RADEON
X1600PRO5612
HD: SEAGATE 250GB ST3250824AS SATA 8MB 7200RPM

My questions:
* Is it worth to upgrade AMD 3000+ to 3200+ for this system? I heard
that 3200+ has better overclocking capabilities too.
* Is it worth to upgrade the motherboard to ASUS A8N-E with nFORCE4
Ultra chipset instead of nFORCE4 for a system using Athlon 64?
* As I figure, since Athlon 64 has memory contoller etc on the chip
itself, I can use my RAM for dual channel operation without any problem
with this motherboard, right?

You may check the following if you have the time, I know they are not
much Athlon 64 related:
* Is it worth to use X1600PRO with 512MB or should I go down to 256MB?
* Would you recommend other video card than ATI X1600 not exceeding
$130 online?
* Does it make much difference to use a HD with 16MB instead of 8MB?
* Do you see any item that you don't like or you would definitely
change for another one?

Thanks in advance, I'll appreciate even if you can answer one question
in the whole bunch.

Boris

 

[DP]

I'd say if it was cheap enough and you could afford to do it, double your
ram.
Not that there's anything wrong with 1 gig. But 2 would be better. or even
1.5 gigs of memory.