ok guys, i've been out of the loop in the whole hardware scene for the past year, and was wondering if yall had any recommendations/comments about the next upgrade i am about to do. I can spend up to $1000 US on it, but no less than what i already have listed. So please, help a brother out!

Antec Performance I P180 Silver Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case - Retail 124.99

DFI LANPARTY UT nF4 Ultra-D Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce4 Ultra ATX AMD Motherboard - Retail 125.00

SAPPHIRE 100127 Radeon X800PRO 256MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16 Video Card - OEM $189.00

Antec SmartPower 2.0 SP-500 ATX12V 500W Power Supply - Retail 68.99

ZALMAN CNPS7000B-Cu LED 2 Ball Blue LED Light Cooling Fan - Retail 38.99

AMD Athlon 64 3200+ Venice 1GHz FSB Socket 939 Processor Model ADA3200BPBOX - Retail 152.00

Recommendations on a silver DVD burner?

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Avoid Sapphire cards if you can... I've had some serious problems with them. The 50 bucks saved or whatever is NOT worth the reliability issues.

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75 DRK
Joining Of Six

really... i have had 2 saphire cards, 9500 and a 9800pro, and they have worked wonders

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I love Sapphire cards. All of my old ATi cards (9500, 9600XT, 9700Pro, 9800pro, X850XT) have all been Sapphire brand and I have never had a problem with the quality or overclockability. :P They use Samsung ram too which is usually underrated for the cards...

1) Do you plan to use SATA2? If not then there's no point in getting NF4 Ultra. I have never used DFI but I've read some good and some bad which is usually true for almost everything so whatever. lol

2)If you want to downgrade to NF4 4X then you might be able to save some cash and upgrade the GPU to the X850XT. They have the Sapphire version on Newegg for $299.00 right now. :D

3) Antec is solid. Nothing to add here.

4) Almost the same cooler I have. I have the Fatal1ty version with the red LED. lol

5) Good choice here as well. The Venice are the smaller (90 nm) core and run a little cooler than the Clawhamer core (13um or 130nm). That and they tend to handle more OC. :D

I agree with Matti. Looks like a soild setup. I give you 10 points for Antec. Im a huge fan of the ultra quiet antec products. When I replaced my Power Supply for the first time and CPU\Case Fans with the ultra quiets I couldnt believe how quiet everything was. Of course now its loud since I havent been keeping up with the compressed air.

My only problem is with AMD. Ive just never liked them since I worked retail during the old K6's that just loved to over heat and act really wonky. I'm a huge Intel fanboy myself. Dispite the proof that AMD is actually a much better chip now. I'll probably go AMD when I next upgrade, but still. I wont enjoy it lol.

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COBRA KAI DOJO NEVER DIES
RIP Shiloh

I'm not surprised at this. lol

I've noticed that most software and IT guys prefer lower performance Intel processors. :P

Stability & Reliability > .01% performance difference.

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COBRA KAI DOJO NEVER DIES
RIP Shiloh

Maybe that was true ten years ago but not anymore. lol

Don't forget that Intel processors will typically cost you quite a bit more.... unless I've been out of the game too long.....

I have an extra AMD Sempron sitting around... and 1GB of Corsair XMS PC3500..... although they could both be broken, I'm still not sure about the RAM lol.

well, i did a search on newegg and they dont have a socket 939 board that has nf4-4x :-( personally, i dont like to spend less than 100 bucks on a mobo, since it is the heart of your system and with a shitty mobo you get a shitty system. I read a review on tom's hardware guide bout the SLI version of it and it was one of the top ones in all benchs. cool thing is, both of the boards are practically identical and you used to be able to mod the board into the sli version with pencil lead^^. as for SATA2, whats the difference in that and SATA 150? just faster/more bandwidth? i have an SATA HDD and a ATA133 hdd that i would like to use for this system, but it never hurts to spend 60 bucks on a 150gig hdd.
i was very curious as to what the good graphics cards were, since i havent updated in about 3 years. i dont like buying too top of the line because the prices are outrageous, but this time i feal that spending 300 bucks is a proper thing to do with this system.

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PATA = 133Mb/s
SATA = 150Mb/s
SATA2 = 3.0Gb/s (3,000Mb/s)

So it's just a matter of overal bandwidth.

SATA2 ports are backwards compatible with SATA150 so I wouldn't go out and get a 3.0Gb/s drive unless you just want to. lol