New Comp - Up and Running!

[Phoenix64d]

The little ba****d is finally done;

EVGA nForce 590 SLI
AMD X2 5600+ 2.8Ghz (2x1MB cache)
2x 1GB Geil DDR2 PC 6400 (4-4-4-12-2t @ 1.9v)
EVGA GeForce 8600GT 256MB
Western Digital Caviar 250MB w/16MB cache (7,200 RPM)
LG 18x IDE DVD RAM
Lite-on IDE 16x DVD-ROM
Floppy + Card Reader
Rosewill 600W PSU w/dual 80mm (22A/22A)
Windows XP Professional x64 SP2

At stock, she's fast as Marion Jones on speed...no friggin' joke. I'll let it run stock for a while before OCing anything, just to make sure the warranties will remain valid should something go wrong :) . But this mainboard has a load of Ocing options -- there are memory timings on here I never knew existed, hehe. I look forward to using them. ;)

Oh, and to all of you who warned me about XP Pro x64: well, I didn't listen to you, and subsequently I've spent the last three days trying to hunt down x64 bit drivers and correcting ridiculous compatability issues. It's been a painfully slow process -- I've never spent 3 days installing an OS before, lol. But it is working now, and that's what counts. Thanks for everyone's help and advice. I think I might ship the Athlon 3200+ x86 to a family member, who has not bothered to upgrade since he bought a Pentium II close to ten years ago. :p

When I get a chance I'll post some 3d mark scores or something. It's not the best possible comp, buut it sure 'aint bad.

[jdrom17]

Pretty decent AMD setup. I would have went for Vista x64 though, but to each their own.

How much did it cost you in total?

[Phoenix64d]

Err...too much, lol. Somewhere in the region of $750 for the entire thing, I think -- that includes shipping, but not the $85 in rebates that have yet to arrive. As for Vista I'll pick up an academic copy along the way, and probably add more memory around the same time.

I really want the processing power for the Web design and 3d animation I'll be getting into, and being that I've never really been hot on the heels of newest gaming technology (that seems to improve every night), I'll easily make this last 4-5 years.

[Qbical]

nice man, u having any issues with XP64

[Dizzious]

Nice man. What drivers did you have problems with? I guess maybe I was lucky, I got everything to go without any problems - except for the soundcard which gave me a little trouble, but it works now.

[Phoenix64d]

Funny you mention the soundcard; I was having trouble with some realtek drivers. At least an update solved that problem. My x64 chipset drivers were pretty screwy, however; before an update, I had some freezes, and even after I still have one unidentified device in device manager. What really sucks is losing some of my favorite plugins, add-ons and software that have no x64 support.

But I'll stop whining about it and find some replacements, since I'd rather have this than nothing. Even with the querks, its still a pretty dern good machine.^^