I was looking to put together a list for a new machine, and yours almost duplicates my own. The only thing I would switch out is the Seagate Barracuda. If you go for I believe the 7200.10 they have the perpendicular recording technology, which vastly improves performance of the hard drive.Originally Posted by Braden
The reason I suggest the 7200.10 is because you get WD raptor-like performance with 7200rpm spin speed (meaning less noise and heat), and the increased storage capacity (upwards of 750GB).
My friend put a 5400rpm Seagate Momentus drive with perpendicular recording into his celeron laptop and he finds it boots up faster than his desktop.
As to motherboard, I have to stick with MATX.
Regarding a soundcard, if you're planning to get Windows Vista, Vista uses a completly new model for the sound processing, that actually gives a boost to the performance of onboard. Normally you get a soundcard to take the load off the processor, though the way Vista handles audio makes a separate sound card less necessary. In particular, I read on Toms Hardware (if I recall) that you needed a utility from Creative to benefit from the hardware processing of Creative sound cards, which basically bypasses the Vista audio stack.
I planned to get the same video card because it has had a pretty good price/performance value. It's a strong card, and you're not paying a crazy amount for it.
The RAM won't necessarily matter on the Intel. AMD's are more affected by the specifications of the RAM because of the ondie memory controller, and the PC2 4300 (533Mhz) should be fine. 2 GB is a good choice.
I've been trying to find some details on it, but to be specific XP (32-bit) from what I've heard, is limited to addressing 3.2 GB of RAM. That's a limitation of the 32-bit operating system. I've not heard anything in regards to reducing the pagefile, but if you have the RAM available, you shouldn't need much in the way of virtual memory.Originally Posted by sapi
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