Getting that new hardware itch...

[Aaron Grewell]

>
> Here's what I'm thinking - any recommendations or suggestions
> are welcomed. I'm not a gamer or a multi-media guy - I do science
> and noodling around so I don't need really high performance graphics,
> but I like to have oodles of memory and plenty of cycles. I run gentoo.
>
> cpu : 2 Ghz Athlon 64 939
> Motherboard : ASUS A8N-SLI - not sure which one, regular, premium, or
> deluxe Disk : 2x250 Gb Western SATA
> Memory : 2 Gb (4 Kingston 512k DDK 400)
> DVD/CD/RW : Sony DRU 700A??
> Video : eVGA GeForce 6200 128 Mb??
> Audio : soundblaster Audigy 2 ZS

> Not sure on the video card - I'd kinda like to get one that has the option
> for dual heads. I might want to do that in the future.
>

Dual-head and SLI are mutually exclusive (that is you can't use them 
simultaneously as far as I know) so since you say you're not a gamer I'd skip 
SLI and save a few bucks.  Asus is good, I also like MSI boards and have had 
good luck there.  Make sure whatever board you buy is dual-core ready so you 
can extend the life of your investment later if it seems a bit poky.  Most 
just require a BIOS update if that.  

I have a dual-head Radeon card that works well, but no distro I've ever used 
could configure it.  It's xorg.conf all the way.  So for convenience I'd 
probably stick with separate cards unless somebody has a suggestion for a 
dual-head card that will work out of the box.

On the software side I'm currently using Suse 10 64, which is nice and stable.  
The downside is the dearth of available 64-bit packages.  I think your plan 
to go with Gentoo is probably a good one, though I haven't used it on my box.  
I'd be tempted to go dual-core from the outset on a Gentoo box since you'll 
be doing so much compiling, but perhaps with a -ck kernel that might not 
really be necessary.

Another plug for Seagate as well, they're definitely my drive of choice.

Have fun shopping.  Man I love  new hardware.  :)