First, many thanks to those who have provided such good advice thus far in my quest. I have ordered a goodly portion of the components for my new build:
Motherboard: MSI nForce4 Ultra (939) K8N Neo4 Platinum
Memory: Patriot PDC1G3200LLK 2-3-2-5-T1 2.6V
Hard Drive: Maxtor DiamondMax 250 GB 7200 RPM 16MB SATA
Optical Drive: NEC DVD+RW 3540A
Case: SilverStone LC 17
Power Supply: SeaSonic S12-380 ATX12V 380W Power Supply 100 - Retail
The remaining components to be ordered are the processor (AMD Athlon 64 3500+ 2.2 GHz 512KB L2 90nm socket 939) and the video card. I'm waiting for the right price and then will pull the trigger on the processor. For the video card, I have decided on a vanilla GeForce 6800 after reading this forum. I will only do occasional gaming (though that amount may increase once the new toy is in place), and I like the value-to-performance proposition. Nevertheless, I have some questions remaining on the video card:
1) I read in another forum that the 256mb memory versions slow down the memory speed versus the 128mb versions. I can see no evidence of this, however, in any of the listed specs. Is there any validity to this or is the 256mb the way to go? The difference in price right now is only $5.
2) Assuming the 256mb 6800 is the choice, does anybody have any experience with the eVGA version? That is currently the cheapest.
3) I am considering mildly overclocking the card. Is this a very bad idea for an HTPC? I would get the VGA silencer to augment cooling and wouldn't look to do anything outrageous. I'm a tinkerer by nature, though, and the thought of squeezing some extra performance out of the card is enticing. There will only be one HDD in the case and the LC17 is rumored to have decent stock cooling. I will probably not be overclocking the CPU.
Thanks in advance for any help.
Motherboard: MSI nForce4 Ultra (939) K8N Neo4 Platinum
Memory: Patriot PDC1G3200LLK 2-3-2-5-T1 2.6V
Hard Drive: Maxtor DiamondMax 250 GB 7200 RPM 16MB SATA
Optical Drive: NEC DVD+RW 3540A
Case: SilverStone LC 17
Power Supply: SeaSonic S12-380 ATX12V 380W Power Supply 100 - Retail
The remaining components to be ordered are the processor (AMD Athlon 64 3500+ 2.2 GHz 512KB L2 90nm socket 939) and the video card. I'm waiting for the right price and then will pull the trigger on the processor. For the video card, I have decided on a vanilla GeForce 6800 after reading this forum. I will only do occasional gaming (though that amount may increase once the new toy is in place), and I like the value-to-performance proposition. Nevertheless, I have some questions remaining on the video card:
1) I read in another forum that the 256mb memory versions slow down the memory speed versus the 128mb versions. I can see no evidence of this, however, in any of the listed specs. Is there any validity to this or is the 256mb the way to go? The difference in price right now is only $5.
2) Assuming the 256mb 6800 is the choice, does anybody have any experience with the eVGA version? That is currently the cheapest.
3) I am considering mildly overclocking the card. Is this a very bad idea for an HTPC? I would get the VGA silencer to augment cooling and wouldn't look to do anything outrageous. I'm a tinkerer by nature, though, and the thought of squeezing some extra performance out of the card is enticing. There will only be one HDD in the case and the LC17 is rumored to have decent stock cooling. I will probably not be overclocking the CPU.
Thanks in advance for any help.
