So guys, I got off my butt and decided to build a new computer. Purchased a copy of Windows XP Pro 64-bit Edition. No Vista for me!

The motherboard and XP are still on order though (ie they need to mail it to me) everything else I have at hand already.

The Technical specs:

AMD Phemon X3 8650 64-bit (Tri-Core) Processor.
Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-S2H Micro-ATX Board.
Integrated ATI Radeon™ HD 3200 Graphics.
Corsair 4GB DDR2 800 RAM. (2 x 2GB sticks, leaving 2 slots free for more RAM)
SeaGate 250GB SATA2 HDD.
LG Dual Layer DVD-/+RW optical drive.

The non-tech specs:

Thermaltake Lanbox Black with Windows.
OCZ 600W StealthXStream Power Supply Unit.

All in all I think its going to be a decent system. What do you think ??

Dimitri

It's all Canad...Aah...Greek to me....

Bushmaster, do you mean Greek or Geek?

D, sounds good to me! Do you do much computer gaming?

Not really I don't do much gaming and the gaming I do is with older games for the most part, if I want to play a game I play on my PS2 or my brothers Xbox 360.

Actually going to save up for CAD and CAM software (will cut into my fun money and my outdoor money but still), and want to use this computer for that.

Dimitri

D, learning CAD is an excellent idea! I've been looking at taking some classes in it myself. The cost of the software is a bit prohibitive unless you are using it alot for work. I mean, I could buy a decent rifle or more for that much $$$!

Could buy a couple decent rifles for the cost of a CAD program!

I learned CAD/CAM in college and want to mess around with it abit.

Dimitri

Geez! I just checked the price for AutoCAD! $4,000 per copy?!?!?

Dad used AutoCAD for years in his architectural business and we used it in the R&D shops that I worked in.

Hey Bushy,

Lets you and I start a post where English is spoken.
This language is too hard for me to understand.

Eric

Mike,

I'm going to be saving for Autodesk Inventor. Thats a 5,300$ program.

Dimitri

D, sorry, I'd just have to pass and buy the guns!

Sounds like a pretty good system 'Mitri.

Why AMD instead of Intel mate? Only 260GB HDD....given that you are talking about going into CAD and CAM I would have thought that you would want a minimum of 1 TB HDD. The price between a 1 TB and the smaller GB HDD is very little here in Australia. At least you have gone for the Seagate HDD, I think they are the pick of the bunch on the market today.

I have a 160 GB WD Little Black Book external HDD which I use for backup. It is good to ghost the internal HDD onto....I ain't gonna loose data like I did once before. Food for thought there mate.

Cheers, Vince

Vince,

I'm a AMD kind of guy, don't ask why but I always refer and suggest people to go get AMD CPU's instead of Intels.

Although CAD/CAM save files can be large, especially when you do many of them. I do not want to keep them on a hard drive thats running all the time the computer is running.

The more the HDD runs the quicker it will die. So I bought a BlacX SATA Hard drive dock for data storage, to back up the files from the primary drive and delete them once copied over. Should be able to keep the "storage" drives going for a long long time this way.

Dimitri

By the way a SeaGate 1TB drive is about 190$ or more, the HDD I bought was 50$

All said and done, the computer cost me about 1000$ including taxes and the shipping I paid. As compared to the 2,500$ I spent on the last computer 5 years ago.

Dimitri

Well i was about to say that you may want to look into a drop in GPU but i looked at the specs of that board and it seems pretty decent, especially for a micro. Im getting ready to build a comp myself. i will post up the specs later.

MSI K9N SLI-F nForce 570LT ATX MOBO
AMD Athlon 64 X2 5200+ 2.7GHz
XFX PVT84JZAFG GeForce 8600GT 1GB 128-bit GPU
Patriot Extreme Performance 2GB RAM
Raidmax Smilodon Extreme Black Mid tower case
Western Digital 320GB HD
Rosewill Stallion Series 600W PSU

Stuff i have already:
DVD/CD drive
Razer Tarantula keyboard
Razer Diamondback mouse
CTL 17" LCD