I feel the need to upgrade x_x

My computer has always felt...sluggish, especially when I try to multitask (Premiere, Photoshop, encoding MP3s). I think it's time for me to upgrade some things; would love any and all opinions on the following upgrade-ideas. Yes, I realize that 939 is going to be a dead end in the near future (and nobody knows when newer MacBook Pro laptops will be announced, so I'm stuck with this for now)...

Current blah-blah:
DFI LanParty UT SLI-DR
AMD Athlon 64 3200+ (Venice)
OCZ EL Platinum Revision 2 (2 x 512MB)
(Piece of junk) PNY Geforce 6600GT (PCI Express)
El Cheapo Junko It's-Very-Loudo Antec TruePower 2.0 (500W, 24-pin)

Blah-blah I'm thinking about:
AMD Opteron 165 (Denmark) - apparently, these work fairly well in the LanParty-thing.
eVGA Geforce 7600GT (PCI Express) - I dislike the PNY 6600GT that I have, and eVGA actually has *gasp* customer support for when your product breaks!
OCZ 2GB (2 x 1GB) "performance series" memory - OCZ again, since their products are known to play nice with the LanParty.
SeaSonic S12-500 (500W, 24-pin) - very quiet, apparently.

I don't plan on buying everything at once; more likely I'll end up buying the first item on the list and wait a little bit before I buy the next since I'm just a lousy student...comments? Criticisms? ;_;

Looks good to me, The Opteron CPU caught me off guard, it's AMD's high end server chips (they cost a lot more then the Athlon 64 that's all), looks very nice and will play games very well. I wish I had your budget.

My Personal Preference : Amd & Nvidia
Some will post: Intel & Ati (mix of that combo ) <- Nothing against them.

Get CPU last, that is the item to most likely drop in price if you buy over time.

Yes, although the Opteron 165 is a tad more expensive than the X2 3800+ (it shouldn't be according to AMD's set prices, but retail stores may sell it more due to a lack of stock), if you know how to overclock it is the best dual core CPU to get.

Overclocking it right, you can get it to 2.6 ghz and have a FX-60 for 300 or so dollars.

Optys are meant for OCing, and OCING HARD. If you buy an opty NOT for HARD ocing, don't bother. Also All you need to UPG is

OCZ EL Platinum Revision 2 (2 x 512MB)
(Piece of junk) PNY Geforce 6600GT (PCI Express)
El Cheapo Junko It's-Very-Loudo Antec TruePower 2.0 (500W, 24-pin)

Buy 2gb. Run 3gb Ram 150$
Graphics. 2 ways to go. SLi (Not Reccomended) Buy a x1800xt Sapphire 260$? OEM

Powersupply=OCZ Powerstream 520W FTW. Kick @$$ powersupply with power volt mod so u can effectively if needed go 4v on ur mobo.

I run amd x2 3800
with 2gb G.SKILL.

I can run 3-3-2-5 250mhz. and 2.5ghz

I wish I had my budget, too D; It's a semi-early graduation present-thing. Sorta. I want to replace the processor first, since that's what's driving me mad - every time I try to encode MP3s or export from Adobe Premiere, everything grinds to a halt...what I'm planning to do is to replace things one by one over a period of time.

I feel like spending money on something nice for once, even if I'm not going to be using it in a way that most other people would. (The same reason why I ended up with a LanParty SLI-DR unit. I don't use it for "zomg overclocking faster than your toaster" purposes like everyone else at the insane asylum also known as DFI-Street does, but I like it. A lot.)

Crossfire won't work here, SLI will if I choose to throw away more money after buying one card. So the 7600GT wins. (And it's cheaper than the one you mentioned. I don't care much for video cards, I just want something that works.)

I like OCZ's products, really, I do. I'm just not comfortable with buying their power supplies after hearing lots of stories from fourmites (is that a word?) about having to RMA their PowerStreams.

Well, now I have more to think about in my spare time, I guess...

I wouldn't buy a DFI. Waaay to expensive fo something that eats hardware. Surf on over to XtremeSystems and take a look at the deaths of things at stock speed from DFI boards.

Get an ASUS or MSI if you're looking for non-overclocked all around goodness, and a Sapphire or an ASUS if you're looking to to overclock. There are boards that eclipse the DFI out there if you do your searching, and while DFIs kill, my Sapphire brought back a CPU with a blown memory controller.

That's my two cents, but I won't let my hardware near a DFI. If I have to have something tested, they had better have another board handy. I fear them that much.

I bought it last year, so I'm stuck with it for now Maybe I'm just one of the lucky users because I've never run into any problems, ever?

Erm. Does everything else sound okay to you though, especially the PSU? (Okay, maybe not the Opteron, maybe I'll just pick up a normal dual-core. Decisions, decisions.)

For PSU, Seasonic, Tagan, or Hiper ATM, Enermax is also rock solid, and the best is of course PCP&C...

Heh that power supply's pretty good, I don't know why you're calling it crap. Go dual-core for more snappiness, which is something you seem to want.

I'd stay away from Intel unless you want to get some insane MHz on the Cedar Mills and Preslers... Conroe's just around the corner. On the AMD side, you'll be served well by an X2 3800 or 4200.

Well if gfx and such are like that. I can understand your concern with OCZ powerstreams. Hey, my first one blew up :P. Plugged it in, then BOOM. Brought it to my local store (Yes, I bought it at a local store, because everything was 20% off, So newegg's 120$ AFTER MIR, compared to local stores 108$.) they were like what is that smell. I was like it blew up. They were just oO.

If you do not want to go OCZ. Pick up a Hiper PSU or Seasonic. I personally don't like Tagan, however PCPC Is the best PSU company. Along with that I advise against FSP also

"Crossfire won't work here, SLI will if I choose to throw away more money after buying one card. So the 7600GT wins. (And it's cheaper than the one you mentioned. I don't care much for video cards, I just want something that works.)"

Um.... Where do i mention Crossfire lol.... Upgradeability will come as a problem, since u will not be able to buy the same. However. My 7800gt scores 7.8k on 3dmark05, while the x1800xt scores 8.3kish on 3dmark 05, so your 7600gt would do around 7.3kish

Fan is very noisy-ish. Other than that, it's perfectly fine.

Mr. Serafita Kayin also recommended something from PCP&P, so it's on the "maybe this, maybe that" list like the Opty 165. I do like the idea of using the SeaSonic though - nearly dead silent...

Mmmhm. What I meant was that I want to have the option to use two cards at once if I ever made the choice to. Buying an ATI card would leave me stuck (can't use Crossfire).

Last bump, any last-minute recommendations/changes (if any) would be helpful.

Putting off my (latest) plan to grab a MacBook; thought about it rationally for a bit, decided that I wanted to have one with Merom instead of Conroe (XP x64 + Boot Camp?) Meh.

Also wondering if I should just rip off the stock eVGA cooler on the 7800GT and pick up something from AC or Zalman since a few reviews and posts on eVGA's support boards have said that they get (somewhat) warm. (eVGA, fortunately, allows this under their very liberal terms of the warranty. I don't subscribe to the "if it's not broken, don't fix it" line of thinking, obviously...)

Everything seems ok, except I think you would be better off getting an AMD Athlon X2 3800, or its Opteron equivalent, and putting the money you save towards a 7900GT, not a 7800GT, because those are the same price as 7900GT's.

You could overclock the 3800 a lot, but even if you don't want to, it really doesn't matter. Depending on your RAM timings, you might want to keep you 1gb, and add 2 more 512 sticks.

PC&P&C Is dead epensive. I personally do no like Seasonic for no Sleeving on Cables.

"For PSU, Seasonic, Tagan, or Hiper ATM, Enermax is also rock solid, and the best is of course PCP&C..."

I agree with all of that except for Enermax, as their noisetaker 620w I used in 4 computers I was custom building on eBay. Those 4 computers cost me as I was at 100% feedback, and ALL 4 died.. Luckily they were all nice enough to give me neutral. But hey that's just me.

Koneko, the one thing with OCZ is that their powerstreams incorporate Powerflex, and have Active PFC.

Along with that becuase of the RAM you are planning to get, you won't be overclocking far, unless you are on a divider. For better Latencies just go to their Platinum edition 2-3-2-5 for 141.99$ currently @ newegg

Rumor has 17" MacBooks in May, who knows what might be inside them.

http://www.macrumors.com/pages/2006/...07144028.shtml

I'm starting to have second thoughts on the Opty165. So far, everyone here has said "no, you idiot, go buy a X2 instead, the Opty is not for you!" =\ So that upgrade is on hold until I can clear my thoughts.

The 7900GT looks expensive at $319...and there's no way I'd ever be able to convince myself to spend that much on a graphics card. I can justify the cost for an Opteron/X2 (running multiple CPU-intensive things at once without driving me off the wall), video card I can't (I don't play many games now except for GW). :|

Still not sold on getting a PowerStream, as great as their other products and customer service are. I'll look into the Platinum sticks, though, thanks - don't know how I missed those the first time.

Newegg tomorrow. Whee. Er...today.

ha your current computer blows mine out of the water

I did the x1900XTX thing for a bit, returned it, got an A8N32-SLi and a pair of 7600 GS PCI-E.

SLI goodness.

The 3800 X2 is clocking better than the opty 165 right now, especially if you can find a BH stepping. It's all your call, bro...

I'm doing a similar upgrade as well. From what I have gathered lurking in a couple of tech forums is that optys are meant for servers systems with real good quality parts. This also makes it highly overclockable with very stable results. I have read people with Opty 165 (which default 1.8ghz) ocing to 3 ghz. The DFI Lanparty is also very oc-frienldy so it wouldnt be too tough as long as you have good cooling.

But I myself am going with a x2 4800+ and hoping to reach atleast fx60 speeds (Mind you that the 4400+ is only 200mgh behind and has the same L2 cache and also costs much less). Dont have too much cooling here, just going to add a Gigabyte G-Power Pro cooler and hope for the best

The rest should look like this -

1. Asus X1900XT-X
2. DFI LanParty UT NF4 Ultra-D
3. Tagan 580
4. OCZ 2GB (2 x 1GB) PC3200 Dual Channel Platinum Series EL-DDR CAS2
5. NEC MultiSync® LCD20WGX2 20.1" Widescreen LCD Monitor
6. Western Digital Caviar Special Edition 200GB and a 74GB Raptor

You might want to consider this card.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814102698

Benchmarks higher than my 7800gt, and gives around 3-5 more fps than a 7800gt. Not sure, how it compares to a 7900gt, but if you are getting a 7900gt

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814130281

Which is 319$ as you've said.

Amazingly, they are all sold out...... lol...

Also, if you don't want to do OCZ for your PSU, then I'd just reccomend taking a tagan, a silverstone, or anything that serafita mentioned with the exception of enermax.

Also, yeah go get an x2 lol. However, if your not planning to do multitasking, get a venice 3200+, swap out the RAM for either higher clocked OCZ, or g.skill ram, and oc to a poor mans fx-55, of course you will be missing 512kb of l2 cache, but that's why it's poor mans.