Hey guys I was just wondering what you think about this computer i put together and thinking of building. I'm going to use it mostly for gaming. AMD Athlon64 4200 Dual Core Asus A8N-SLI Motherboard 1GB PC3200 DDR400 Memory 160 S/ATA 3.0 GB/S hard drive 1GB Nvidia 7950 GX2 PCI-E Creative Audigy 4 Sound Card 16x DVD/R Drive Samsung Logitech Keyboard Logitech Optical Mouse Samsung 955DF Monitor XION ATX Tower 450W Ethernet Card The only thing is I dont know where i'm going to find that Samsung monitor. I heard it was a really good monitor for gaming but they don't sell it anywhere. Since i'm goin to college soon i was thinking of a LCD monitor to consume some space. Whats the best LCD monitor for gaming under $300?

I think it looks great only you might want to get 2gb of memory to make it a true beast. I have a 19 inch acer widescreen monitor and it is the s--- so try that one out. It cost me 220 i think. -Paul Gerhardt-

Does 2G of memory really make that much of a difference?

I'd say go wireless on the kb and mouse...its really awesome to have wireless and u can get a really nice wireless combo for under 100. DONT go with anything but logitech though. Other brand optical just dont hold up as well. Looks like a nice system. you might want to take the other guys advice and get another gig of ram, but i think 1 gig is more then sufficient. I use 512 and i want to upgrade to a gig, but i can game fine with only 512. I think ur money would be better spent by upgrading to a 300 gig hd...you can find them for under 100 bucks on tigerdirect.com. (no i'm not advertising for them, just cheep place that i use to get stuff) LCD will be good since your in college, but they stink for gaming, they refresh to slow...either ur gonna have to spend and arm and a leg for a really nice lcd or go with a cheaper crt if u want high performance gaming. putting a normal lcd on a system like that is a shame. lastly, i would try and reduce noise on this system as much as possible if your going to college. If you get a crt..it will be like 200 bucks cheaper then an lcd and you could get a liquid cooling case. there about 300 bucks, and you would also be saving money for your case. Most have clear side panels that make ur system look boss. I would also recommend a seasonic power supply. (google it)They are the quietest available and if u use water cooling an a seasonic, you wont even hear the thing. O yea, i believe ur mobo has built in lan so unless ur doing crazy networking were u need 2 Ethernet ports u have a gigabyte built in. Hopefully this helps a little, i know it will cost a little more, but i def recommend the seasonic ps with a water cooling system. It sounds beautiful on many of my clients systems...if your more then a foot away you dont realize its even on.

The video card is overkill, especially with that CPU. I'm sure you're planning for the future, but 99% of current games are not optimized for dual core. The 3500+ Venice actually beats the X2 4200+ & it sells for less than 1/3 the price. http://www23.tomshardware.com/cpu.html?modelx=33&model1=236&chart=69&model2=246 I'm not recommending the 3500+, but I am saying the X2 4200+ is not a good choice, especially considering the video card. The 3700+ San Diego is over $100 less & will run circles around it. And there are other choices you should consider as well. DFI is currently making the best boards for the S939...you may wanna have a look at LANParty or the Infinity series. And IMO, SLi is a complete waste of money. You're definitely gonna have to get a better power supply, Xion sucks. Don't risk running all this high priced hardware on a crappy PSU. Plan on spending at least $50 for a good one & you may be better off getting something in the $75-100 price range.

You really think the video card is overkill? What if I was to get the 4000+ San Diego? Would it still be overkill? I was considering that video card because it was the same price as two video cards and i read that it was a lot more quiet. If it's still overkill what do you recommend? I don't want to have to upgrade my PC for a couple of years. I was thinking of going with a NZXT APOLLO BLACK Black Secc Steel Chassis ATX Mid Tower Computer Case 400W Power Supply instead of the Xion. It costs about 90 buckeroos. Now that i'm looking at that 400w doesn't seem like enough. I was looking at DFI but i figured why not just get the Asus because it was cheaper. Would it make that much of a difference? Since I wasnt going to use the SLi technology should i even bother getting an Sli board? If it's not too much trouble could you link me a decent mother board? Thanks for all your help.

Why spend money on the Athlon 64 4000+ when you can get the 3700+ which is the same thing just a lower clock speed for 80 bucks less? The diff between the 2 is 200mhz, but you will be able to overclock it to 2.7ghz 100% stable with decent cooling. regardless of which one you get you are still going to max out at 2.7ghz 100% stable. All AMD is doing is charing you an extra 80 bucks for a minor 200mhz increase over the 3700+. 400w is not the big concern, what is the biggest concern is the amount of amps on that power supply. You can get a 550w psu buut if the amps on that power supply suck then you are heading towards a psu burnout with a system that is amp hungry. 24pin ATX 2.02 sli ready psu's from solid name brands such as thremaltek, Ultra, Antec etc.. will give you promising results because SLi's psu's have a standard to them that have to support powerful pc's where as none Sli psu's don't. AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+ OC 2.7ghz 2GB Dual Channel DDR 3200 Nvidia 7800GT SATA II 2x 200gig 7200rpm 16mb cache RAID-0 Gigabyte Nforce 4 SLI