Here I go again (spec'ing new system)

[beaky]

I've had a lot of fun building and fiddling with my rig... got a lot of key mistakes out of the way without spending too much money
 But old Bessie has proven herself unworthy to  run FS9 to my liking after about 18 months of tweaking and baby-step upgrades...by the time I properly upgrade the key components, i'll be basically building a new system , so...
Love my WD drives (still going strong!) ; probably will move both to the new case, or maybe leave the smaller one behind in what will be a system devoted to utility-type stuff... but everything else will be upgraded. The Lite-on DVD/RW is great, too... I'll most likely get the same or similar, so i have one in each system.
Been window-shopping online; got lots of time as I don't have the loose shekels yet (around $1K is what i'm looking to spend), and I have a few ideas; would love to hear comments, as I'm already experiencing a little overload here.
For starters,I'm not looking to overclock; not very interested in any other games,  just want a system that, when optimized conservatively, will reliably deliver 30fps or more in FS9- with no jaggies- no matter what I add or what settings I use.... preferably with no smoke coming out of the case. Other than FS9, I will probably do a little A/V and photo editing, but nothing fancy.
I like AMD; gonna stick with that. The 64 4000 (Clawhammer) looks good to me, but only if it will really solidly support the gfx card, which I'm thinking will be a 7800GT, most likely eVGA. Absolutely a minimum of 1GB RAM at 3200; anybody know anything about the Gigaram modules? Seems like a pretty good deal at New Egg, but I smell a gimmick ("multilayer" or somesuch). And would 2GB be worth it?
 I'd really like to get a module (or modules) with a heat spreader, seems smart to me... unless the gurus out there think it's not worth it (BTW, I'm not looking to water-cool or anything; just gonna get a basic but solid case with a side duct and front and rear fans... and a powerful PSU; probably 450W).
Where I'm sorta lost is on mobos. I want at least a 400FSB, gonna go PCI express, need onboard LAN, and I'm toying with the idea of leaving my (pretty solid) Audigy SB 5.1 card in the old rig and using onboard 6-channel audio. Other than ripping and playback (all stereo right now), I don't do much audio work, but that may change (surround recording, editing, 5.1 speakers)...I could just add a good sound card later, but not if  I find a mobo with better-than-average onboard audio that supports what I need for good flight-simming. I was looking at the DFI UTRDX200 "LANparty" board, but...? What do you guys think? My current board is an Epox; clunky but reliable... never heard of DFI.  The DFI board claims 800 with hyper-threading support; does this benefit me in any way with the CPU, RAM, and gfx card specified? Overkill?

[congo]

The XP4000+ CPU is basically identical to the 3700+ Rotty, just that the cpu multiplier is locked at 12x on the 4000+ and 11x on the 3700+. You only pay extra for the ability to use the CPU at a faster stock speed. There really isn't any other difference.

Look at my signature, I can get this RAM pretty cheap, though it's still 50% more than quality budget RAM. Buy 2 x 512mb sticks now if you are on a budget, FS9 will never use that much anyway, and get another 2 x 512mb sticks later if you need them.

It costs me $64 (aussie dollars per gb purchased) extra for this fast ram rated at 500mhz. It cost me an extra $150 for a 4000+,

[Weather_Man]

That particular DFI board you listed has an ATI chipset which is required for Crossfire (ATI's version of nVidia's SLI). Unless you want dual ATI cards at some point, which would be rather good, don't get this board. The 7800GT you want will work in it, but only as a single card solution, never SLI.

[beaky]

Thanks a million (or at least several hundred) guys; knew i could count on the gang here, especially good ol' congo.

No problem with the complex reply, congo- I need info, the more the better.

No illusions about a "magic" CPU, just want the best within my price range.
And i certainly haven't ruled out overclocking; just trying to make it clear that I don't want to make as much of a hobby of tinkering as i do of flight-simming, if y'know what i mean... I've done plenty of experimenting with the nVidia OC settings with my 5700LE, flown thru many a bright-green sky... .
But I'm not looking to spend hours benchmarking and bragging online, or trying to break records. i don't get the appeal of spending hundreds on a watercooled case,  and all the fuss involved just so I can crow about a minor reduction in temps, or 100fps in some game as opposed to 60.  And over $1K for a CPU? who am I, JPL?  I fall somewhere between that camp and the poor souls who buy turnkey systems... just an average tinker who would usually rather just go flying.

 Your advice on the CPU is in fact illuminating, congo... determining which chip/mobo combo to go with is, for this noob, the murkiest area of all; i need all the help i can get there.
Suspected as much about the RAM heat "speaders"... my gut reaction was that those suckers just want elbow room with air flowing freely.

And weather man: I also had a feeling that that board may be more than i'm looking for; i've heard widely mixed reviews of the possible benefits of  SLI, and don't think i'll be going there. that being said, it'll probably wasted on a lone 7800, i guess.


I've heard a lot of great things about the eVGA  7800GT, though, so I guess my plan is to sort of build the system around that.

BTW, for your perusal, my plan for the second rig is now; use it as an entertainment system, and also only use that one for email, etc. my current system is crap; don't even have a receiver or surround speakers; cheap DVD deck. But i love watching movies, so the old gfx card with a new read-only CD/DVD drive and some mid-priced 5.1 speakers should do nicely for that. Keep a few mp3/mpeg files on the 40GB WD, then later maybe add another bigger one.

I will most likely then want to network the two PCs for file transfers... that should be interesting.
Then, I'll be all set to talk myself into buying a big LCD panel for that, or maybe a small DLP projector...
but... a projector would be great for the sim...but my CRT is too small for home theater... uh oh... here I go again...

[congo]

A great overclock on the 3700+ CPU / NF4 ultra chipset is this easy:

From BIOS, select:

220mhz FSB/HTT/whatever they call it in your BIOS

Save and reboot.

You now have more than a 4000+ CPU, and a 10%

[beaky]

Thanks again, congo- the fog is lifting. I'm taking notes.
...and there's something.... wrong with your pig.

[congo]

Tell me about it. One day he just came home like that.

[Weather_Man]

Congo, I'm not sure what you mean by non-standard. The RD200 is actually a good chipset just like the others, VIA, SIS, nVidia, and works just the same with decent performance. The only difference is the chipset is designed to be Crossfire capable -- meaning you don't need a bridge to physically connect two ATI cards in dual mode. It's not really any different than nForce4 boards designed for SLI. Those are specialized in the same manner (broadly speaking) as Crossfire, but only work with nVidia cards in SLI mode. It's just that ATI and nVidia didn't want/couldn't standardize their dual-card solutions so we now have these specialized chipsets for each company.

You can use both ATI or nVidia cards in either nForce 4 SLI boards or RD200 Crossfire boards. But, if you want dual-cards, you must choose between the two based on your brand video cards. I think that was the point I was trying to make.

[congo]

Exactly, so not only do we have to choose a graphics card genre, but now our chipsets are bound by the choice as well, this means that a change from an ATI card to an nVidia card/cards and vice versa can result in massive costs to the end user, where he is forced to upgrade chipset and possibly other components as well, that's what I'm getting at, non standard sucks.

I never did like SLI or Crossfire, I'm just glad we can run a single card normally on those chipsets. The GPU makers finally come up with some decent gear, we, the eternally graphically challenged rush out and buy the cards and they assume we are all millionaires so they go at us double or nothing.