The Homebrew

I've broken the machine into components, and researched the current technology and market of each one. Now, I know this info is only good for about 3days before the newest Shiny Bright Widget (tm) comes along. But no one ever got drawn and quartered for having too much documentation. And besides, A. I've got all this, B. I need to be able to get at it, and C. At least somebody is reading this, so maybe it does have some value.

If you've got any more info to add to this, if you have questions or comments, or if you just wanna check out my other sites, then skip down to my contact info

The Contenders

AMD Athlon 64 400+
AMD Athlon 64 FX-57
AMD FX-57
AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ through 4800+ Socket 939 Dual-Core CPUs ~ $347 to $884
Chris Barnard Says "Pretty much anything on this page is great. The ones with the 'Toledo' core have a 2MB L2 cache instead of 1MB. Those are the 4400+ and 4800+. You'll want to go with these instead of the FX55 or FX57, because they're a newer technology, and good for something besides gaming. If you go with the rest of the stuff on this list, you can get a Toledo-core Athlon 64 X2 4400+ for $526

CPU Fans - You can use the stock fan or something flashier, that'd probably be something to get at Fry's, where you can see what you like. Just make sure it supports Athlon 64 X2 processors. If your case didn't come with them, get some Antec 120mm case fans,. They're the quietest."

Jason's Choice

The Contenders

Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe
Asus A8N Deluxe
DFI LANParty UT nF4 SLI-D
ASUS A8N-SLI Premium Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce4 SLI ATX AMD Motherboard $167.99

The Contenders

Mushkin XP3200 Dual Pack 1GB (2 x 512MB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM Unbuffered DDR 400 (PC 3200) Dual Channel Kit System Memory - $155
Chris Barnard says " Mushkin memory is completely excellent. This set is 1GB for a good price and it will run with the lowest possible timings, 2-2-2-5. Corsair XMS series is great as well. All you need is PC3200, don't bother going to anything "faster." You can also get 2 of these for 2GB if you so desire."

Be careful of what timings your memory supports. The timings can make more of a difference than the speed. For some hard numbers on timing, check this . And note that they are using a slightly older graphics card. So the performance bottleneck on hi-res is the video, not the memory.
Still, one wonders about the difference between 2 gb of slightly slower ram for $200, vs. 1 gb of faster ram for $150.

Jason's Choice

     Mushkin PC3200 2x512 DDR 400 SDRAM (model# 991357)
     $157 @ NewEgg.com
         

NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GTX PCI-E 256MB DDR3

eVGA 256-P2-N525-AX Geforce 7800GTX 256MB 256-bit GDDR3 VIVO PCI Express x16 - $469.99
Chris Barnard says " I actually read a bunch of reviews for 7800GTX's, and this one is one of the highest scorers out there. It isn't nearly as pricey as some of the others, either. Also, you can get one now, and add a second later, with the SLI support."

Jason's Choice

Western Digital Raptor WD740GD 74GB 10,000 RPM 8MB Cache Serial ATA150 (X2) $337.98 ($168.99 each)
Chris Barnard says "This is the big gun of SATA drives. It's only 74MB, though. If you want bigger, just go with any SATA 3.0Gb/s drives. This motherboard will support RAID 0,1,and 5, I believe. RAID 5, WOO!"

Creative Sound Blaster Audigy2 ZS - $70
Chris Barnard Says "I assume there's some kind of difference between this and the $120 X-Fi one, but I have this one and it sounds incredible, so that's good enough for me."

Here's a bit of what people say about the difference between the ZS and the X-Fi.
And here's a Gamespot review of the X-Fi series. It points to the "XtremeMusic" version of the card as the smartest buy: no frilly connections, and without the (currently useless) 64 M of extra ram.
The Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeMusic
( oooooo, it's xtreme.       whatever.     Looks like a good card, in spite of the stupid name. )
Note: There have been some problems reported with X-Fi cards and nForce motherboards. So I'll be on the lookout for this.

Jason's Choice

     The The Sound Blaster X-Fi "XtremeMusic"
     $117.50 @ NewEgg.com
            

For the speakers, you really have to just go and listen to alot of speakers.   What I found out is that Cambridge Soundworks makes one hell of a good speaker.   They aren't top of the line, maybe.   But there was a limit to how much I would pay for a set of speakers, and that was about $200; or $250 if they were really impressive.   I went to Micro Center, and listened to a bunch of pairs of speakers with some jazz piano tracks playing over them.   Piano seems to me to be one of the best tests of speakers; probably because I'm pretty familiar with what a reasonably good grand sounds like vs. an upright.

The only speakers that came close to the FPS2000 Digitals were a pair that had two speakers on top of each other in an 8" tower, a total of 4 including both left and right.   The top speaker of the two was pointing about 45 degrees outside of the bottom one.   This gave a very nice surround effect.   Although they couldn't throw sound behind you, it did sound like you were sitting at the piano, as opposed to sitting in the audience.   Very good!   However, I was getting a 4 speaker system, so I assumed that this wouldn't be so important.  

I decided on the FPS2000 Digital for a couple of reasons.   The sound was extra crisp.   The sub had good clear power, and a frequency adjustment that allowed it to reproduce more or less of the frequency range at your discretion.   I don't know off hand exactly how much range control it has.   The sub also had not only clear inputs/outputs for front and rear speakers, but also a digital input which would work with one of the sound cards I was considering.   (Incidentally, it was the one I eventually bought: the Creative Labs Sound Blaster Live X-Gamer.)   The digital input isn't really that much of an improvment over the average wire inputs.   It might be if you had really thin, poor quality wires, and almost zero background noise.   But I don't have either.   :)   Another extra goodie about the speakers is that they come with cute little 1.5 foot tripod stands for the rear speakers (very cool since I'm in a large room).  

Jason's Choice

speakers (unfortunately, I paid about $40 more for mine, but)
CAMBRIDGE
FPS2000 Digital Retail Box $ 159 Unknown??
10/27/99 5:49:00 AM CDT Bay Area Micro 888-772-5909 408-935-9216 CA -
        

PLEXTOR Beige 16X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 6X DVD+R DL 16X DVD-R 4X DVD-RW 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-R 24X CD-RW 48X CD-ROM 8M Cache SATA DVD Burner - $117.75 Chris Barnard says "Hands down, the best burner out there. This one is SATA and has a replacement black bezel to match your case.

Note: this drive works great with supported motherboards and causes trouble with others.

Jason's Choice

    Plextor PX-716SA/SW Internal SATA DVD+-R/RW
    
    $119 @ NewEgg.com
    

The CDR FAQ

I read this entire thing once. Unfortunately, that was about 7 years ago, and everything has changed since then. However, I'm sure that they have kept up very well. The latest version is 2005/09/06, and can be found at http://www.cdrfaq.org/.

Jason's Choice