I'm building a new system as well, and I'd like some input.

[Silsarik Dracoen]

Well if y'all are curious my previous computer died almost two months ago and I've been forced to go back to a really old system that can't play any of my game library, horizons included. Now that I have found a job I'm simply waiting one week for my second paycheck to come before I go about buying parts and building a new system.

So what I'd like right now is some feedback on my planned system. Since I only have one week left I'd like to get some opinions and whatnot before I actually start spending the money. Here are the highpoints of what I'm considering:

Motherboard: Asus A8V deluxe VIA K8T800 Chipset
Processor: AMD Athalon 3800+
Video Card: Asus nVidia GeForce 6800 Ultra
Hard Disks: 2 Western Digital Raptor 74GB 10,000rpm SATA
drives in Raid 0
1 Hitachi 250GB 7,200 RPM STATA drive for storage
RAM: 2GB DDR400

I am choosing the Geforce 6800 because that's the newest Nvidia card and quite a few of the games I have are optimized for Nvidia chips, not just Horizons. (If you can call it that.) And I'm going AMD mainly because it's less expensive than Intel and money is a big concern.

The things I am mainly questioning though are should I go for the cheaper retail package for the AMD chip which comes with a stock Heatsink and fan or would I be better off to go OEM with the chip and look for a third-party CPU heatsink? I've heard repeatedly that AMD processors have a tendancy to run hot and I'd be curious to hear what sort of opinions you all would have on this issue.

Any feedback you all have is much appreciated.

[Tigris]

The AMD Heatsink is a big peice of aluminum with a smaller face, but gets the job done. A better heatsink, copper, with a higher speed and/or bigger fan might do better, especially if you live in a hot area.

On the video card - don't use the Nvidia website drivers, use the Omega drivers. I have a 6800 also, and the nvidia website drivers and Horizons hate eachother.

[Ethan]

From Where to get Omega Drivers?

[Gwindor]

http://www.omegadrivers.net/

[Tigris]

What Gwindor said. [;)]

[Menkure]

Aside from a difference in hard disk brand, this is the identical system that I built for my brother, which I play Horizons on at night.. It's a rock-steady system with no problems.

I'm very happy with it myself

-Menkure

[Dobro]

If you are going to be overclocking the AMD chip, I would definately get a better cooling system for your CPU. I went with RAID 1, because I was more interested in the mirroring. Check the owner's manual on the drives you are using, and you might want to consider placing the drive near a fan to keep them cool. I built a machine with a pair of the high-rpm drives, and it overheated. Adding a couple intake fans in the case took care of the problem when they blew over the drives.

[Seikojin]

:o on the drivers... I have the nvidia drivers and have no problems in the game (crashing wise or visual glitches)... Would I see a performance difference?
some specs:
Amd xp 2600 (running at 1900mhz)
512 megs of pc3200 (clocking at 166mhz, need an additional for dual channel at 200mhz)
Geforce FX 5700 with 256 megs of 400mhz ram on it

In my config file I have the backbuffer frame enabled...
And I run the game at my desktop res... 1280x1024...

Alot of the time with my current in game visual settings I get about 20 fps on average... sometimes it gets down to 1fps though :(