New PC: I Can't Wait! I Can't Wait!

I just decided to get a new pc. The reason being, my old clunker, although is still good for browsing, watching DVDs, mpgs and simple wordprocessing, is also serving as a ICS with my brother's computer, and he's constantly complaining that the connection is slooOOOOooW. At first I wanted to just get an additional memory .. hopefully that will alleviate the situation. I bought a 512MB DDR (my current PC has 2 slots for SDRAM, and 2 slots of DDR) but ended up finding out that.. well, the DDR slot doesn't seem to be working. I tried, my brother tried, and I tried again.

Perfectly good way to waste money. My brother picked up the DDR instead.. at least its not a TOTAL waste, one of us is happy.

Well, there you go. Can't expand memory. Plus I'm considering taking up the OCP Oracle 10g certification/exam without taking those preposterous, over priced Oracle classes, and I won't be able to self learn without a Oracle10g running. And I _DEFINITELY_ need memory for that.

So after 3 days of looking (Sunday-Monday-Tuesday) and with my brother, officemates and friends' input, I found my "ideal" PC configuration morphing.. and morphing and morphing..:

Sunday:
1. Motherboard: Intel, as long as it supports 533Mhz DDR, have PCI-ExpressX16, PCI-ExpressX1 slots.
2. CPU: Higher L2 cache (this means the Intel6xx series, which boasts a 2MB L2 Cache)
3. Memory: 512MB DDR, any brand
4. Harddisk: None, I intend to use the HD i bought a few months ago and using in my current PC
5. Videocard: On board or PCI-E. No AGP Video cards anymore.
6. Sounds: On board is fine, as long as it supports 5.1
7. Lan card
8. No keyboard, mouse, floppy

Monday:
1. Motherboard: Intel, as long as it supports 667Mhz DDR2, have as much PCI-Ex16, PCI-Ex1, and PCI slots (I realized I need to reuse my old Lan card so I can still do ICS with my brother) My officemate Patrick keeps on looking at ASUS motherboards though, so I end up researching on ASUS motherboards. Hmm. Seems not bad either. Now seriously thinking of getting 945 chipset instead of 915.
2. CPU: Due to my officemate's insistence, said I really don't need a 2MB L2 Cache, Oracle is not really THAT CPU intensive. He's right though, I'm not going to make a production server out of my PC in the first place. So I settled for a IntelPrescott 531 (3.0Ghz) 1MB L2 Cache 800 FSB.
3. Memory: Now its up to 1GB. 2 533Mhz DDR2 512x2pcs
4. Harddisk: Officemate insisted S-ATA harddrive are lots faster than the old clunker IDE-ATA that I have. Better to get it instead.
5. Videocard: Onboard is fine. Upgrade later if you want.
6. Sounds: Onboard is fine, as long as it supports 5.1
7. Lan Card: on board is fine.
8. No keyboard, mouse, floppy.

Tuesday (Deposit day):
1. Motherboard: Asus P5LD2-VM (MicroATX) 945G chipset

• LGA 775 Socket
• Can support Intel CPU 8xx Dual Core series, as well as normal P4 CPUs, including 5xx, 6xx.
  
• Video: On board Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 900
• Audio: On board Realtek ALC 882, 8-ch High-Definition Audio CODECS/PDIF out interface
• Memory slots can accommodate DDR2 667/533/400,
  
• Intel Gb LAN: Intel 82573V Gb LAN
• 64-bit CPU support
  
• Sytem Bus can support FSB speeds up to 1066MHz.
  
• Serial ATA II connection
  
• Support 8 USB 2.0 ports
  
• 1 PCI-Ex16, 1PCI-Ex1, 2 PCI
• Storage: Intel ICH7 South Bridge
• Here's another spec page. And here's the spec sheet for the asus board. Its in PDF format.

2. CPU: Intel Pentium 4 531 (3.0 Ghz) FSB 800 1 MB L2 Cache (3 yr)
3. Memory: Corsair DDR2-533 512MBx2 (Corsair seemed to be a good brand, so they say.. lftme)
4. Harddisk: Seagate S-ATA 7200rpm 120GB 8MB cache (I'm so impressed with my officemate with this... I was only going to get a 80GB harddrive, but he bargained so hard, that the difference adjustment is "small" enough not to hurt my pocket, but still enough to get this 60GB diskspace upgrade.
5. Videocard: On board Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 900
6. Audio: Realtek ALC 882, 8-ch High-Definition Audio CODECS/PDIF out
7. Lan: Intel 82573V Gb LAN
8. No keyboard Mouse Floppy.
9. Drive: DVD Pioneer DVR-109 (12 mo). See specs here.

You can tell I'm so excited, can't you? I'm getting the PC tomorrow lunchtime... oh oh oh.. I dont think I can sleep! :P What a huge upgrade from my Intel P4 1.4Ghz , Pcchips motherboard. At the moment I can only dream how fast the whole thing will be. I hope I wont be disapppointed!!!! EEeeeek!