Customized computer?

[Buffalobiian]

@Ani: the Megahalems is good. I would recommend that one myself. You could also look at the Thermalright 120's latest revision. That one is also good, as is Noctua's flagship(?) cooler with the 14cm fan (forgot the model - update when I get home and search). They don't vary too much in size and price though, so you'll have to work out what you can put in your case.

@En: you can use two different pairs of ram in dual channel if you match the pairs up (eg channel A uses 2 OCZs and channel B uses two Corsairs). You can actually run dual channel using any mismatch of sticks - only the slowest clock speed will be used though. I'm not sure how AMD's bus works (hypertransport on that board?), but Intel would just use the slowest stick's spec for the RAM overall, from memory.

Really though, quantity >speed for general computing and games. Only until you get to the point where more ram doesn't matter that you start looking at speed. Just get any stick that's not worse than your current.

[Kraco]

Really though, quantity >speed for general computing and games. Only until you get to the point where more ram doesn't matter that you start looking at speed. Just get any stick that's not worse than your current.

Sometimes you can get good deals on semi-high quality ram, making them easily worth the small extra money. It'll allow some freedom at setting the speeds.

Anyway, Enkoujin, if you really budgeted the 700 dollars, my personal opinion is to look more at building a new system. Any money you now invest in old technology (like DDR2 or AM2) will most assuredly be wasted when you next time upgrade. But that's just my opinion, of course.