Shopping for computer components

I'm finally getting ready to build a new computer to replace my ancient Pentium III machine. It feels like I've been planning to do this forever. Every time I've felt ready, one reason or another for postponing the purchase have appeared. There's the ever popular "If I just wait a couple of months I can get these significantly better parts" excuse, of course. The all-too-reasonable "Damn, I can't afford this right now" is another classic. Finally, I'm rather picky and the products I want to buy never seem to be available; I don't want to order stuff from all around the world, for obvious reasons.

I was all set earlier this year when I discovered that it was virtually impossible to find decent power supplies for sale here in Sweden. While I won't need an extra-ordinarily powerful PSU initially, a bit more than the average setup is required, there will be upgrades, and I'd like to have some margins. Most of the power supplies available seem to be either of low quality or low power (frequently both). I'm not sure what other people are using to power similar rigs, maybe there's a secret power supply reseller hiding somewhere.

After pestering resellers about products for quite some time I did manage to find a power supply that looked decent. The next problematic component turned out to be the processors. I wanted the newer .09 µm Opterons (stepping E4). My contact at AMD claimed that there was no shortage and that the distributors had plenty, yet they were nowhere to be found among resellers this summer. I'm still not sure what that was all about; I suspect the distributors tried to get rid of all the old models. The processors appear to be available now, at least in limited quantities.

Barring any further setbacks, this is what my new computer is going to look like:

• 2 × AMD Opteron 250 CPU
• 4 × Corsair PC3200 1024 MB ECC REG DDR-DIMM memory
• Tyan Thunder K8WE motherboard
• MSI NX6800GT-T2D256E graphics card
• Western Digital Raptor WD740GD 74 GB 10000 RPM hard drive
• Plextor PX-740A DVD burner
• SilverStone Nimiz TJ03-S chassis
• SilverStone Zeus ST65ZF 650W SLI power supply

I would have gone with SCSI but I'm stretching my budget as it is. Besides, I thought I'd give this new-fangled SATA thing a chance. I can always get a SCSI adapter for one of those PCI-X ports later. In fact, I'm counting on some upgrade potential so that I won't need to build a new system for a few years.

I'd love to get some feedback about my choice of components (and, if you have had bad experiences with any of them, what you'd recommend instead). You don't need to tell me that I'm crazy for going the dual Opteron route rather than getting a dual core Athlon 64 system; I already know that I'm paying a premium for that particular choice.

Update the 1st: Switched to a Plextor burner after a discussion with my brother.

Update the 2nd: After two weeks I got tired of waiting for the ASUS 6600GT "Silencer" video card to become available. The 6800GT from MSI gives slightly less bang for the buck, but it looks like a good card and my supplier had it in stock.

2 September, 2005