How does this build look to you? Any suggestions?

Yeah, I thought you meant the new stuff. Yes a PIII 800MHz with 256MB of RAM is pushing it. Even my 3.2GHz 5000+ BE will lag with certain intensive Flash games. Even at medium quality in rare instances.

 

Oh well that's a relief :0 I thought there was something wrong with my internet connection Thanks again!

 

Let's say I have a OEM disc of vista, then I install it onto a 640GB HD, then later I decide to get a SSD. Will I be able to transfer the OS files onto the SDD flawlessly without any issues later on?

 

Yes, but I would probably advise against using an SSD as an OS drive.

 

Thank you guys so freaking much for all of your support, advice, recommendations and what not. I received my processor, Hard drive, and OS today. I connected everything, double checked, and turned it on, ran on my first try :] Changed voltage settings for the RAM which is pretty much all that needed to be changed. All I need now is speakers :/ One last recommendation... should I get the 5.1 speakers at newegg for 80 bucks or get the 2.1 speakers for $100?

 

Remind us, which speakers? A lot of people like their volume, and some like having surround but aren't too fussed about the max volume being excessively high. As far as most people are concerned, $80 5.1 bundles are often surprisingly good.

 

I'm a firm believer in the harmonic balance that PC audio and home theatre tech should have. I have my desktop hooked up to my receiver in my room for which I also have another TV, DVD player hooked up to. Sadly I can't really recommend this as there are a lot of issues with connectors like S/PDIF and toslink with use in gaming

For instance since I connect over my S/PDIF I get perfect 5.1 signals from movies that have DD and DTS tracks. However games that do surround tend to only send it out over the analog connectors since the channels are not compressed and are too much data for the above connectors to handle. Now some sound cards/motherboards support what is called DTS connect or the DD's version called DD Live, or something like that, which compress audio streams into the DD/DTS format on the fly. Unfortunately I do not have one of those devices so until I end up bumping my desktop up to my higher end receiver that allows 5.1 PCM over HDMI I won't have true surround sound in my games. Heck, I'm not even sure if my 4870 supports sending 5.1 PCM over the HDMI but i'd assume so.

 

No not really i'm not a huge fan of having volume up 100%... I'd rather have it in the mids.. you know, just the right around of volume and what not...

 

I don't like using Optical outside Vista, as XP doesn't have a volume control for every application, and being forced to 100% volume causes distortion otherwise. Then again, I don't like using Optical full stop from how unreliable it is.

 

Agreed. I am still quite fond of the good, old-fashioned, gold plated speaker jack. You don't get much better sound with optical. Your sound quality has much more to do with your source and speakers. A better sound card/home theater receiver plus better speakers with loads of custom EQ = good sound.

Not to say the wiring doesn't matter. Optical can benefit higher end setups with vinyl or lossless .flac files.