Hi everyone. I've been lurking here (great site/forums btw ) for a while now researching for a build to replace my 2+ years old rig. Anyway after some reading, I've decided on something like this. Keep in mind that I'm in Canada so prices and availability can be a little different.

Case:: Antec P150 (with updated PSU that solves incompatibility with Asus motherboards)
CPU:: AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+
Heatsink:: Scythe Ninja or ThermalRight XP-120 (Prefer Ninja, but depends on availability)
Fan for heatsink:: Cooler Master UV 120 mm silent blue fan 3Pin 22DBA 1220RPM 42.734CFM
Thermal compound:: Arctic Silver 5 high-density polysynthetic silver thermal compound
Motherboard:: Asus A8N-SLI Premium
Memory:: OCZ EL Platinum PC3200 2GB 2x1GB DDR400 CL2-3-2-5 184PIN
HDD:: Samsung Spinpoint P Series 80GB SATA2 - I have other much bigger drives. This would be used for OS/programs/temporary data only.
DVD:: Pioneer DVR-110D Beige DVD-RW 16X6X16 DVD+RW 16X8X16 Dual LAYER+-R 6X IDE
Video Card:: Undecided, probably looking at a 7900 GT (~$300 USD). Will probably wait and read what people say about this which should be very soon. In any case, I'd rather not modify the HSF to keep the warranty. If it's too loud I could always modify it later...
Sound Card:: Will be using my current AV-710 for now.

The total is a little higher than I'd like it to be (14% tax...) but I do want this to last me a while and be quiet.

If you guys have some advice/comments on the system I'd appreciate it I haven't been following all the PC hardware trends for a while now so I don't know if I made a large error in the build.

TIA

Wow, 14% tax. I'm guessing you're in Canada.

Overall pretty good. The one thing I would change would be the Cooler Master UV 120mm fan. Generally speaking, translucent fans are more noisier than regular opaque fans. Then again, it's cheaper than a Nexus 120mm fan.

It has been mentioned that the performance between CAS3 RAM and CAS2 RAM is usually only 3% - 5% increase in performance. Also, it's been stated that AMD's memory controller doesn't really take advantage of CAS2 and the RAM will operate more like CAS2.5. I'm currently trying to verify that myself.

The 7900GT is a very good card based on many on-line reviews. It is basically a little faster than the 7800GTX and actually runs a few degrees (celcius) cooler.

For silence, I'd go with Nexus fans.

Have you considered the BenQ DW 1640? Pretty quiet, and nice performance. Might save you some bucks... which could go for a Nexus fan

I have understood that Pioneer does have a build-in user settable speed options, but with BenQ you have to use Nero's drivespeed to slow drive down. Anyway I do have BenQ DW 1650, that seems to be rather quiet comparing to some older drives I have.

If I where on budget, I would look some cheaper memory and spend that money to Nexus or Yate Loon fans.

True.

But it appears that budget is about it's limit. And one are forced to listen to the fans all the time, while opti-drives only make sounds, when used. Besides, while using DVD-media, the speed is rather slow. CD's which makes most noise, only take a few minutes to burn.

This is what I find is best for me. Others might want it different. But I suggest considering

Thanks The reason I picked that fan is because somebody recommended it and it appeared to be ok... I'll change that to a Nexus fan then

the DVD isn't a large concern because it's rarely ever on anyway like it's been mentioned.

Now to decide whether or not to go through with this I always feel guilty about big purchases