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The only thing I see I would worry about is the power supply.  I would try to get a 400W power supply instead.  This is really just being on the safe side.


This is your secant computer now.  Next you will be going for you A+ certification and doing this for a livening. 

On the P/S issue, try THG's article on same-

http://www.tomshardware.com/howto/20021021/index.html


If you can afford it, I would (and might well) go this way: a different mainboard, with the NForce2 chipset- the Abit NF7/7S, or  the ASUS A7N8X...the Abit is competitive on performance and has the most tweakable BIOS going, and ASUS is just plain quality. NForce2 offers dual channel DDR, doubling memory bandwidth; Corsair PC3000C2/ C2PT (platinum colored heatspreader) will plug right in and run PC2700/DDR333 speed with aggressive timings programmed on the SPD chip, eliminating all but hardcore tweaking. For dual channel operation, get two 256 MB sticks- not cheap, but its performance will reward you. The faster the CPU, the greater the benefit to this approach.

The NF7 and basic ASUS are cheaper, with fewer features. The -S and the ASUS Deluxe version are $15-20 more. Only you know if the extra features would be worth the slight extra cost; compare carefully.

There are other boards, but these two I know and come well reviewed; and both will run much faster CPUs, so you're future-proof.

is this the one you guys talking about?


http://www.newegg.com/app/viewproduct.a … ASUS+A7N8X

let me know... and I just want to make sure, is this an 8x AGP? I think it is, but since I have the MSI G4 MX 8x, I want to take be able to use the 8x.

Thanks

Yup, those are the ASUS boards. The qualifier I forgot is that my RAM setup only shows its best gain on the newer Athlons with the 166/(333DDR) MHz FSB- the 2800+, 2700+, some 2600+s (those so specc'ed), and 'unlocked' Athies able to have their bus speeds and multipliers set where desired. Otherwise, there's still a gain, but a lesser one; but you're still future-proof and will get the full gain after a bit when the 2800+ price drops.

If you know how, a 2100+ can be unlocked, tho it's not as easy as unlocking a TBird. I've unlocked my 1900+.

DDR 400 is only showing gains under a few demanding pro apps that eat memory bandwidth- otherwise, synchronous bus speeds with minimum latency give best performance, and with dual-channel DDR you're already getting the bandwidth of 'PC5400/DDR666,' if there were such a thing.

Yes, they're AGP8x- that's where the '8X' in A7N8X comes from. Every NForce2 board I know has it.

Find a review of the Abit, with much about RAM, at

http://www.hexus.net/review.php?review= … amp;page=1