talkin about RAM what is CAS Latency ? / what does a value of 2 or 3 mean?

harddrive: what is the difference between IDE, SATA and SCSI <-> which one to take?

basically a lower CAS Latency is faster.

so if you have RAM that is like 400 MHZ DDR with a 2 - 2- 3 whatever stepping than it should run faster than a bar with 3 - 3 - 3 setting.

BUT... I maybe risking flaming here, the differences between uber-expensive low latency ram (COrsair, etc.) and lower latency modules (like Kingston, Infinion, etc.) is neglactable imho.

It's the overclocking mania, that everyone thinks you have to have the fastest, blablabla gear to have good performance.

It may improve the performance but it's not worth the extra money.

Add to that, that sometimes you might not even be able to run the modules at the speed that the module can handle because the CPU+Motherboard pairing might not run stable with it.

My suggestion: Buy Ram from a good brand (Kingston, TwinMos, Samsung, etc.). you should get fast modules there.

Considering the harddrive---- well, it depends which motherboard you have.
SCSI is not needed for a home-pc and even in business systems it's not the ONLY choice.

Your choice would be between Serial ATA and normal IDE.
The difference should one day be faster performance for the SATA drives. Also a hotplug feature (you can unplug your hardrives on a running system without reboots, etc.)
But usually the IDE drives are cheaper.
I can give no recommendation here.

Here is what i got so far:

Processor AMD Athlon 64 3500+

Mainboard MSI K8T Neo2-F
Controller IDE2x Ultra DMA/133, max. 4 Geräte
Controller SATA2x Serial ATA/150, max. 2 Geräte, RAID 0 oder 1
Controller USB4x USB 2.
Soundkarte Realtek ALC850, 6-Kanal Line-Out, optisch Out, koaxial
Netzwerkkarte Realtek RTL8110S, 1x Gigabit

Arbeitsspeicher Kingston HyperX DIMM 1 GB
Anzahl Module 2
Bauform DIMM
Typ SDRAM-DDR
Standard DDR 400 (PC 3200)

Timings CAS Latency (CL) 2
RAS-to-CAS-Delay (tRCD) 3
RAS-Precharge-Time (tRP) 2
Row-Active-Time (tRAS) 6
Command Rate (CMD) 1 T

Harddrive (IDE)Western Digital Caviar WD2000JB
Kapazität 200,0 GB
Schnittstelle 40-polig Ultra DMA/100 IDE
Umdrehungen/Minute 7200
Zugriffszeit 8,9 ms
Cache 8 MB

Grafikkarte PNY Verto 6600GT
Typ AGP
Unterstützte AGP-Standards AGP 4x / AGP 8x
Grafikchip GeForce 6600 GT
Taktfrequenz 450 MHz
Pixel-Pipelines 8
Speicher Kapazität 128 MB
Typ GDDR3
Taktfrequenz 900 MHz
Speicheranbindung 128 Bit
RAMDAC 1. RAMDAC 400 MHz
2. RAMDAC 400 MHz
Auflösungen 640x480 16 Mio 240 Hz
800x600 16 Mio 240 Hz
1024x768 16 Mio 240 Hz
1152x864 16 Mio 200 Hz
1280x1024 16 Mio 170 Hz
1600x1200 16 Mio 120 Hz
1920x1440 16 Mio 90 Hz
2048x1536 16 Mio 85 Hz
MPEG2 Wiedergabe Ja
Encoding Nein
Ausgänge 1 x VGA, 1 x DVI, S-Video
Infos unterstützt AGP 8x, OpenGL, DirectX 9. Folgende Ausgabeoptionen sind möglich: VGA, DVI, S-Video, VGA+S-Video, DVI+S-Video

comments? incl. case, dvd-rom, and win xp i am looking at 1.200 Euro atm

or should i use this PCIe version of the "Grafikkarte" instead:
PCIe x16
Grafikchip Bezeichnung GeForce 6600 GT
Taktfrequenz 500 MHz
Pixel-Pipelines 8
Speicher Kapazität 128 MB
Typ GDDR3
Taktfrequenz 1000 MHz
Speicheranbindung 128 Bit
RAMDAC 1. RAMDAC 400 MHz
2. RAMDAC 400 MHz
Auflösungen 640x480 16 Mio 240 Hz
800x600 16 Mio 240 Hz
1024x768 16 Mio 240 Hz
1152x864 16 Mio 200 Hz
1280x1024 16 Mio 170 Hz
1600x1200 16 Mio 120 Hz
1920x1440 16 Mio 90 Hz
2048x1536 16 Mio 85 Hz
MPEG2 Wiedergabe Ja
Encoding Nein
Ausgänge 2 x VGA, 1 x DVI, S-Video
Der 2. VGA- und der Komponenten Ausgang sind nur über die beiliegenden Adapter möglich.
Zubehör Anleitung, Treiber CD, DVI auf VGA Adapter, HDTV-Adapter (S-Video auf 3x Cinch Adapter)
Infos unterstützt PCI-Express x16, DirectX 9, OpenGL. Folgende Ausgabeoptionen sind möglich: VGA, DVI, S-Video, Komponenten, VGA+VGA, VGA+DVI, VGA+S-Video, VGA+Komponenten, DVI+S-Video, DVI+Komponenten

impressive system you got there!

if your mainboard supports PCIe-graphic adapter go for it. it should be around 50 bucks less.
if not then go for a mainboard with PCIe.

it's only 20 € less

still PCIe is more reliable for future improvements.

If you really wanna by a new system now, I would go for PCIe

It is done!

I went for a AMD 64 3400+ in the end.

I know the 754 sockel is not "zukunftssicher" as compared to the 939 sockel, but I don't plan on upgrading anyway.
So I saved a few bucks and in 3 years time I'll get a completely new "Most hated object in household according to GF" anyway
Everything else made it into the final configuration, except the harddrive, which I swaped for a Samsung sp 160 GB.

(I ordered my first-ever mouse with a scroll-wheel - can you believe that? 21st century here I come )

grats to the scrollmouse

Just unpacked Claws' new backbone
Patching game atm: 139 MB download
cya in 20 minutes
edit: maybe 30 minutes