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2lakes
09-22-2008, 03:29 PM
RickyTick was kind enough to make a couple suggestions regarding my first build configuration which I have tried to incorporate with this modified configuration. Please know I plan to use two monitors with this computer but may actually use three monitors.

Any suggestions are welcomed:

Case and Power Supply
Antec Sonata III w/500 watt Earthwatts psu

Motherboard
ASUS M3N78 PRO AM2+/AM2 NVIDIA GeForce 8300 HDMI ATX AMD

AMD
AMD Phenom 9600 Agena 2.3GHz 4 x 512KB L2 Cache 2MB L3 Cache Socket AM2+ 95W Quad-Core Processor

CPU Cooler/Fan
ZALMAN CNPS9700 LED 110mm 2 Ball CPU Cooler
Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound

Ram
CORSAIR 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory

Video Card
EVGA 256-P2-N761-TR GeForce 8600 GTS 256MB 128-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card
Long term I would like to purchase to DVI monitors but short term I was wondering if I can use VGA to DVI converter (do they make vga to dvi converters)?

Hard Drive
Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD3200AAKS 320GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb (maybe two of these)

Optical Drive
LiteOn LH-20A1L-06 w/LightScribe

Operating System
XP Pro

Damlite
09-22-2008, 08:36 PM
the 8600GT comes with onboard dual link DVI, so to do a triple monitor setup you'll need to purchase an additional pci card to account for the third monitor. Most cards come with a basic set of adapters, if your particular 8600GT does not come with what you need, you should be able to quickly find a typeA to typeB monitor adapter for a few extra dollars.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136218&Tpk=WD6400AAKS
This is probably a more effective purchase for your hard drive setup. If you're going to use your second one in a RAID setup, you'll be better off purchasing a second one of these instead anyway.

Everything else looks good, just make sure your windows OS is 64-bit to use all that RAM.

RickyTick
09-22-2008, 08:49 PM
Maybe I'm wrong, or maybe I missed something, but I don't think that Zalman cooler will work with the AM2+ socket.
http://zalman.co.kr/ENG/product/Product_Read.asp?idx=164

You might be interested in this instead.
http://zalman.co.kr/ENG/product/Product_Read.asp?idx=308

RickyTick
09-22-2008, 08:51 PM
Everything else looks good, just make sure your windows OS is 64-bit to use all that RAM.

He said he is using XP. Oh well.:)