So I just built this....
 

... and felt like gloating a little.


MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum
2x wd caviar 250GB sata
16x dvd+-RW
52x cdrw
16x dvd-rom
2x 1gb kingston 3200/400 ddr
amd 64 4000+
msi radeon x850-xt platinum [pci-e]
sb audigy 2 zs platinum
1.4mb floppy/memstick reader
added an acer 20" widescreen panel


$3800 us

Very nice :) You set up a RAID array on those drives?

No raid yet. It's got 4 slots for solo sata devices, and 4 more for raid. Until I start with video dumping & whatnot, not really gonna need raid. Will be taking this with me to costa rica, using it as my game rig & camcorder dump. burn off the kids movies to dvd & ship to familia in the states.

why do you need a cdrw, dvdrw and dvd-rom? geez.

Would have just got the CDRW that can play back DVD, theres about 70 bucks saved. IMO

Game a lot I supposed? $3800 still quite steep for most of us.

All top of the line stuff ... you must make a lot to build something like that.

I've had plenty of headaches on old systems where DMA doesn't work 100%, screwed up tons of burns, just didn't want to deal with it anymore. And I doubt I'll be able to find a supplier for hardware in CR that can get me replacements in 24 hours.

I never trust reading my burns on the burner that made them anyway.

And Gloat you should. Not too shabby - you should post some pictures.

So with the new Intel Chipset Mobos, they are selling that DDR2. It doesn't seem that AMD based boards are using it. Any way you or anyone else can get technical on me and explain what is happening here? I also saw the new Playstation3 uses DDR3. No idea what is happening there either.

It is simply memory that runs at a higher frequency, and thus faster.

I totally hear you on this one. Sometimes I think about building and keeping a legacy system to protect me from DRM issues.

There are a few reasons for AMD systems to not be using DDR2. First, AMD CPUs have their memory controllers on the chip while in Intel systems they are external to the CPU. This means AMD would have to make an entirely new line of CPUs to support DDR2 that wouldn't be backward compatible with any existing motherboards or RAM.

Second, at the moment, DDR2 does have higher bandwidth than DDR, but generally higher latency as well. Some applications are bound by bandwidth and some by latency, so it's not a clear advantage all the time to be using DDR2, not to mention the fact that DDR2 is more expensive. (Also, might I add, high-performance DDR can be clocked high enough to hold its own against DDR2 in the bandwidth department as well.)

These are also major reasons why AMD systems more or less dominate Intel systems in games, because games are generally latency-bound rather than bandwidth-bound (coincidentally, lower network latency is also more important than bandwidth for online games). The combination of low-latency RAM and the on-chip controllers means AMD systems are much better suited to those type of applications, but less suited to things like video encoding that require high bandwidth.

Can you explain what you mean by saying AMD Cpus have memory controllers on the chip, and intel systems have it off the cpu?

Are you talking about the memory chips that you buy and put in the memory slots? If so explain how amd has memory inside the cpu etc?

Im guessing you are talking about a different type of memory... thanks for any help on the subject.

ps I found this site to be pretty helpful
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DDR-II

The controller and the memory are seperate components. You buy the memory but not the controller, well, you buy it, but not seperately, it's on your motherboard or CPU. The controller assists the CPU with memory accesses by setting the appropriate control signals so that the memory itself returns the data being read or writes the data being provided. AMD controllers, being on the same chip thus physically closer and running on the same clock, can handle requests sooner after the CPU makes them. So the upside is that your memory accesses can be faster. The downsides are, one, your chip is more complex, and two, it's not quite as easy to make changes to the architecture such as switch to DDR2 memory because both the CPU AND the motherboard need to have nontrivial changes.

Not bad since I could build something similar for about half of what you paid.

Let's see some pics.

Thanks n0nsensical, sorry for derailing the topic but could you explain what being in dual channel means? Im trying to understand all these memory terms. Like when someone says.. "Got 2 sticks running on a ASUS P4P800-SE and it works great! And that's in Dual Channel, and not overclocked"

Basically it means two DIMMs can be accessed at the same time, increasing bandwidth. Theoretically doubling it, but realistically not that much, and can be almost no difference in the actual performance of apps that aren't that starved for bandwidth. (like many games) Overall it's still beneficial and more or less free, so there's not really any great reason not to have it in a new performance system. The only reason I'd go single channel is if I knew I was going to be adding more RAM in the near future so that in the end I'd only have two DIMMs rather than three or four. (generally you get better performance out of two than more assuming the same amount of memory, plus you have more room for further upgrades with more open slots) For example, if I was getting 512 MB now and adding another 512 in a month or two, I'd buy a single 512 MB DIMM each time rather than buying two 256 MB DIMMs right away.

Intel places the memory controller on the northbridge chipset, while AMD places it in the CPU. This means that upgrading from DDR to DDR2 means you must buy a new CPU, Mobo and RAM for the AMD while on the intel only needing a new CPU and RAM. This is, however, not a major concern for most people. Having the memory controller on the CPU does allow the CPU and RAM to communicate directly, not having to pass through the northbridge chipset, this brings certain advantages as outlined in the informative posts by n0nsensical above.

can't get the VIVO functioning on the video card yet. tried all the wdm drivers I could find, even the .NET stuff. can't get any signal in.

All that money and it's out of date already. DVD-ROM, CD burner, and DVD burner = 2 things that are a waste of money, DVD burner will do the jobs of the others. Don't trust your dvd burner to read what it burns? you send these dvd's to family, if you can't play it what kind of assurance do you get that they can play it. IMHO if my dvd burner can't play a dvd that it burned, it's not a very good/compatiable burn.