I have taken Hero's advice as well as research extensively.

This is what I have come up with. I am weary of the DFI board, but I have loved ASUS boards and found one that I think will suit my needs just fine.

System:

COOLER MASTER Centurion 5 CAC-T05-WW Black/Silver Aluminum Bezel, SECC Chassis ATX Mid Tower Computer Case - Retail

ASUS A8N-E Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce4 Ultra ATX AMD Motherboard - Retail

XFX PV-T71G-UDE7 GeForce 7900 GT EXTREME (520MHz) 256MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16 Video Card

Thermaltake Silent Purepower W0014RU ATX 480W Power Supply - Retail

AMD Athlon 64 3200+ Venice 2000MHz HT Socket 939 Processor Model ADA3200BPBOX - Retail

CORSAIR XMS 1GB (2 x 512MB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM DDR 400 (PC 3200) Unbuffered Dual Channel Kit

Western Digital Caviar SE WD800JB 80GB 7200 RPM IDE Ultra ATA100 Hard Drive - OEM

SAMSUNG 16X DVD±R DVD Burner With 5X DVD-RAM Write and LightScribe Black ATA/ATAPI Model

Microsoft Windows XP Home With SP2 - OEM

I want to learn. Please tell me if I should change anything.

Without shipping, all of these components totaled to $859, which in my opinion, is much better than you can do buying a Dell!!

"White men can jump"

I'm not sure if hero will agree or not, but considering the minor price difference between the 3200+ & 3500+, I think the 3500+ has now become the best choice of the Venice cores.

Judging from the reviews at newegg, it would appear that they've sold 10x as many ASUS A8N-E's as they have DFI Ultra Infinity's, but I still think DFI is the better choice.

I definitely disagree with your PSU choice. It has a 20-pin main plug (you need a 20+4), plus as it only has a single +12v rail. You need a PSU that complies with the ATX12V 2.x spec & has dual +12v rails, not to mention the 20+4-pin main plug.

IMO, if I was going to be building a brand new rig at this very minute, I would go with a dual core. I can assure you that my S754 (Soltek motherboard + A64 3400+) that together cost me $141.00 on ebay a year ago will give your system a run for its money except for the 7900GT.

BTW, what happened to you waiting a couple of weeks?

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*shrug* 3500, 3200, 3000, doesn't really matter. Guess if it's only a couple of $ difference, why not?

But if you really want more performance, 1M of cache based CU's are the way to go. Opteron 144, or Athlon 64 3700.

Dual core, still go ith 1M L2 cache per core. Opteron 165 offers that at little more than the X2 3800 in price.

And yes, wait if you can. Prices are still dropping.

"Milk was a bad choice!"

Oh, dude, Asus is NOT the pinnacle of quality in S939 boards. I actually junked an Asus A8N-E, replacing it with a DFI. The A8N-E SUCKED! It sucked for overclocking, but most importantly, the chipset fan died within a month of use, AND anytime I flashed the BIOS to a new version, Windows BSOD'ed on boot, and nothing would fix it but reflashing back to the previous version. There is no question about it, go DFI!

"Milk was a bad choice!"

Sorry, I'm late for work, meant to add that the chipset fan and BIOS issues are very very common with A8N-E's, so it wasn't just me.

"Milk was a bad choice!"

"*shrug* 3500, 3200, 3000, doesn't really matter. Guess if it's only a couple of $ difference, why not?"

I realize they're basically the same CPU, but when I looked at newegg recently, the 3000+ was $92, the 3200+ was $99, & the 3500+ was $111.

I am waiting a couple of weeks, but I still want to know what I am generally going to do.

Money is an issue for this build so I am trying to keep it under $900.

Thank you for enlightening me on the PSU.

I am not ordering now, just trying to understand.

"White men can jump"

The, "DFI died after 3 weeks" issue scares me.
Also, the realtek sound has awful reviews.

I need a recommendation on the PSU. To many different brands. Maybe an Antec ATX12V?

"White men can jump"

re: psu take jams advice, heres my 10p worth, my 7800Gt Oc runs happily on this

http://www.thermaltake.com/product/Power/TR2power/w0101102/w0101102.asp

3200??? the xfx is a top card , couple it with a decent cpu tho, go for 3700 939 san diego more cache, (& here only +£50 between the 3700 and a 4000 san D.)
buy dual core only if you know u need it.
theres always next year and prices have a habit of nosediving.
board choice is yours , heres some reviews

http://tomshardware.co.uk/2005/10/12/the_battle_of_the_gaming_pc_titansuk/index.html

The argument for needing a dual core has started to make as much sense as the need for Windows XP back in 2001. The agressive pricing and easier transition is throwing the hitherto 'need based rationale' into the backseat of mainstream upgrades.

I believe the best package is now the X2 or Core 2 Duo line up, some might argue for single core A64 in terms of performance but IMHO not much has happened since the 754's gained popularity until very recently.

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I can go with a 3200+ or 3500+ with a 7900gt, or a 3700+ with the 1mb cache with the 7600gt.
I can not do the 3700+ with the 7900gt. Dual Core is not necessary right now.

"White men can jump"

Here's my take on the CPU's priced as they are today only, but this will probably change drastically in the coming weeks.

If you are going to upgrade to dual core later (would most likely have to within the next year and a half) on the same mobo when they become cheap, while the 3700 offers better performance, why waste that money? Especially now, when a Venice can be had for under $100, and the 3700's are more than 2x that price!

However, if you don't want to upgrade the CPU on the same mobo, arguments for the 3700 or the dual core make a lot more sense.

"Dual Core is not necessary right now."

I'm not a member of the dual core bandwagon, but advocating dual core does make a lot of sense because it's going be a major performance boost in games not too far down the pike. There are already games that benefit from it. By year's end, I think you're going to see significantly more games that perform substantially better on dual core. By the end of next year, I would say most of the hot games will run way better on multicore CPU's.

I'm honestly not saying get dual core now. However, I will say that I don't like the 3700 as it is priced today. You gain too much to go up another $100 for an Opteron 165 so you have dual core (1M cache per core), and you lose too little in performance by saving over $100 going with a Venice 3000/3200/3500.

I notice you are not looking at Opteron CPU's, and you should at least investigate them. Take for example the Opteron 146. While not clocked as high as the Athlon 64 3700, it does have the 1M cache, which is what truly makes the 3700 the performer it is. To be honest though, it's still $70 more than a Venice 3200, and I don't know if that's worth $70 when you should be planning to upgrade to dual core within the next year.

In dual core CPU's, I'd take an Opty 165 over an X2 3800 for the mere $30 more. Again, 1M cache per core instead of 512K cache per core.

I don't think "aggressive pricing" describes dual core quite yet on the AMD side. Hopefully, it will though within the next few weeks. Even if you don't think you're going dual core, single core prices will HAVE TO come down if dual core CPU's come down.

"3200??? the xfx is a top card , couple it with a decent cpu tho, go for 3700 939 san diego more cache"

I know what you're saying, 1step, but look again at pricing between the 3200 Venice and the 3700. It's over $100 right now. Yes, the 7900GT will be bottlenecked a bit by the 3200, but not by as much as you'd think, and it will still beat a 3700 with a 7600GT. Plus, the bottleneck can be alleviated by overclocking should he desire to do so, which the Venice does exceptionally well.

"Milk was a bad choice!"

Because this computer is on a budget, and I have a board that is upgradable to dual core, I would rather go for the 3200/3500, with the 7900gt rather than spend the extra on the 3700.

At the moment the DFI board, the 3200 or 3500 and the 7900gt look very attractive, and I will be able to upgrade to dual core in a year or so.

I will look into the Opteron as well.

"White men can jump"

Good man. Now just hang tight for the CPU prices to drop like a rock. :-)

"Milk was a bad choice!"

"I have a board that is upgradable to dual core,"

So what are you actually upgrading from?

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I would be upgrading from the 3200 or 3500 in a year or so, when I need it.

"White men can jump"

Never mind.

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Hi Heropsycho
"$100, and the 3700's are more than 2x that price!"
eek!
seems USA are getting a rough deal on cpu prices for some reason , or have we just had it easy, is Taiwan closer? ? i dont know, prices have dropped substantially here lol maybe the Govnmnt here really is loosing £100m a week to so called "carousel" VAT fraud on cpu & mobile phones.

3200 £65 , 3700 £95 i paid £170 for the 3700 7 month ago traded it against a 3200 754 clawhammer so i can see the difference, at the time had a 6600xfx gt in both pc's
wish i d kept the aquamark results but i thought it was worth the extra few bob for the better cpu.

regards

Stretch if your put it off your will never do it , somthing better always comes round
case of grass is greener.

ps3 out soon lol!

"seems USA are getting a rough deal on cpu prices for some reason"

Dude, we can get Venice core 3200's for under $100 USD. Dunno how that translates to your currency. It's not that we're getting a raw deal; it's that Venice CPU's have falled, while San Diego's haven't yet.

"Milk was a bad choice!"

"somthing better always comes round"

That may be true but it is not applicable in this particular case since are talking precise timing and opportunity here. There is little sense in rushing out to buy anyhing now that can be bought for a substantially lower price in a couple of weeks.

An analogy is gasoline, assuming it is always going to be available and you have less than a quarter tank that can run you for another week and there is news that the price of gas is coming down significantly in a couple of days - I'm sure you won't run out to fill up your tank today.

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