Topic: suggestions for new pc

[littleracer3]

I need some help.I am planning on building a new pc with the following parts:

AMD Athlon XP 3000+ "Barton", 400 FSB, 512K Cache Processor

 EPoX "EP-8RDA3I" nForce2 Ultra 400 Chipset Motherboard

Mushkin 512MB DDR PC-3200

Western Digital Special Edition 120GB Hard Drive

SAPPHIRE ATI RADEON 9600 Video Card

Plus the drives, all in a chieftec case w/450 watt psu

Will this be a good setup? Please tell me of any components that may be better that are in the same price range. Also im not to sure about that motherboard, any other suggestions. Im not a hardcore gamer but would still like to be able to play the latest games pretty well. Thanks

[Dack]

I'd say that the only real weak point of the system is the graphics card - 9600 isn't really that great these days.
http://www20.tomshardware.com/graphic/20031229/index.html would give you an indication of relative speed.

Prices are likely to drop on the older cards as new products have recently been launced (the Geforce 68000 and the ATI 800)

Epox make reasonably good motherboards these days - though can be a bit picky on ram. Luckily you are going to be using decent stuff. It may be worth considering http://www.dfi.com.tw/Product/xx_product_spec_details_r_us.jsp?PRODUCT_ID=2141 which is currently on sale at PC World for £48. Its the Lan Party board but without the extra bits. People have got these running at a 250 FSB

Also worth getting the Ram as 2 x 256 if you intend using the dual channel mode.

Price of going to a 160 Gig drive is quite small (£5 to £10) when compared to the 120G so may be worth upgrading that.

[littleracer3]

Thanks for the help. I'll take your suggestions into consideration.