Is this a good deal?

[Sebmolo]

I'm looking at buying a second-hand (apparently about three months old) box, with stats as follows:

Case: Hairong ATX MidTower 400W PSU
Motherboard: ASUS P4S8X-X [533FSB, 8x AGP, Audio, LAN]
Processor: Pentium 4 [2.4gHz]
Memory: 512MB [DDR333 RAM]
Graphics: ATi Radeon 9500
SCSI: Adaptec 2490AU
Hard Disk:
40GB 7200rpm Western Digital 8MB Cache
20GB 5400rpm Maxtor
Removable Disk:
Cyberdrive 16x DVDROM 40x CDROM (IDE)
Sony CDRW 10x/10x/32x (SCSI)

Includes all the latest drivers for the Radeon 9500, Catalyst and the Omega Drivers which open up 4 extra pixel pipelines. Can score over 12k 3dmarks with normal drivers. The current price is $NZ1000, which is around $US 610. No monitor (and possibly no peripherals, but I have spare). What do y'all reckon, is that a good deal? Most importantly, what is the onboard Mobo sound like for this kind of beast? I do a lot of sound editing/composing and need a reasonable rig, though up till now I've only had a SB Live, so my standards aren't skyhigh. If it doesn't work out I have a spare Terratec sound card lying around which would do.

It doesn't come with software so I'm considering putting Win98 SE on there, as XP gives me the shits.

[Case]

I'm looking at buying a second-hand (apparently about three months old) box, with stats as follows:

Motherboard: ASUS P4S8X-X [533FSB, 8x AGP, Audio, LAN]



SIS chipset! Run away!

[Sebmolo]

Uh, meaning?

[Alan Au]

Uh, meaning?
Sounds like a "no" to me.

- Alan

[Case]

Uh, meaning?

Meaning get a motherboard with an Intel chipset... or, at least, a Via chipset.

We've seen some compatibility issues, memory timing problems and instabiliy with many SIS based boards. Not all of them, mind you, but far more than those based on Intel chipsets. You can find some pretty good deals on Intel 865-based boards these days.