Need help with new pc

[halman]

ok guys. i need to make a new pc. right now a friend of mine has some names of products which i'l tell you. but i'd like to know from your point of view also. i'll be building a 800fsb system. i have some ddr400 ram right now that i can use. i can always guy better ram later. the chip will probably be Intel P4 2.4g 800fsb. i'll be using my volcano 7+ on it unless someone has any other suggestions. the main thing is that i want recommendations on the mb. the ones right now that he's given me are

Abit IC7 i875P P4 (800FSB) Skt478 DDR ATX Motherboard w/Audio, Serial ATA Retail

and

Abit IS7-E i865PE P4 (800FSB) Skt478 DDR ATX Motherboard w/Audio, LAN, Serial ATA Retail



what do you guys think. i might overclock it but i may not. i need good performance for games mainly and bits like 3dsMax. also, i'd like to hear from the guys who actually have systems like this running. no offence to others intended. but i want to know real performances besides benchmarks and stuff.

thanks.

[Wizzard~Of~Ozz]

I'm not much of an Intel person, however for a heatsink I will recommend the Vantec Aeroflow heatsink, I have one on my Athlon XP and it's very quiet and keeps it extremely cool.

http://www.tomshardware.com/motherbo...603/index.html

According to that review, Asus or MSI 875 neo (http://www.msi.com.tw/program/produc...&MODEL=MS-6758)

I'ld lean more towards the MSI board (lower cost and I'm biased against Asus from previous dealings)

Those are the top 2 manufacturers of 875 boards, Abit is very low on performance (lowest of all boards reviewed.)

[Omardeth]

it all depends on what you want to do with this system . i left the intel camp long ago so i am not really up on there system boards i am sorry to say . but i do like abit products .

i have to agree with wiz the vantec aero flow is a great hsf . it is very quiet and if it can keep the hot blooded amd cpus cool it will surely do the job on an intel cpu .

do you need sata ? if you aren't going to use it , the hds are smallish compared to ide hd's , why get a board with it .and they cost alot more . but i would say to get lan onboard and sound if your not an audiofile .

[EOD]

I tend to stay away from Intel boards as they do not allow for much adjustments to the system. However I just built 2 PC's for a friend using Intel's latest 875 board and I was suprised to see that you can now overclock it! There is a option in the bios called "Burn-in" which allows you to overclock.

For the PCs I went with the following:

Intel 875BZ motherboard $184
2.4C P4 (runs at 104 degrees with stock fan) $189
9600 Pro ATI Built video card $178
WD 120 GB "JB" hard drive $117
1Gig DDR 400 ram from crucial $170
Sound Blaster 5.1 Live Digital $29
ANTEC 2600 series case $68


The performance rivaled my P4 3.06 w/ 1Gig 1066 RDRAM PC!