Building my first PC!

[Cap'n]

Well frustration has finally pushed me to the point of building a PC for the first time. My current piece-o-crap has become all but unusable. Granted it's like 5 years old, but still, it gets worse all the time. I mean this thing can't even run my daughters pre-school games. :lol: Plus it's stopping me from completeing my NWN mod and doing flash work. Grrrrr....

Anyway, after a couple days on newegg I've come up with the following setup. You can click the link to view more info on my wish list at newegg, but i'll give a brief description here as well. The only thing missing is a hd and a dvd-rom which I couldn't find retail at newegg. I try and stay away from oem parts. Anyway, I could use some feedback about my choices.



-Raidmax 10 Bay ATX Mid-Tower case with 420 psu and 4 fans. With a side and top panel with 2 of the 4 fans being neon. It's very sleek lookin.
-ASUS K8v SE Deluxe motherboard.
-AMD Athlon 64 3200 Processor
- Crosair XMS extreme 512mb DDR400 pc-3200 Ram x2
-ASUS ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 256 card
-Soundblaster Audigy2 ZX gamer
-Plextor 8x DVD/RW
-Viewsonic 17inch Perfect Flat monitor. (I refuse to spend the mony for LCD's)
-80gig SATA HD (still gota find this...probably get it at bestbuy)
-Sony dvd-rom (same as above)

That's about it, so what ya think?

[RHooks]

All good specs. Don't press the red button.

:wink:

[Feuerwizard]

Sounds good Cap´n....About the ASUS ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 256 card. Why don´t u wait till the new v-cards arrive? We are almost in May, and the new v-cards are just around the corner.

[Tavo]

Or, you can get a bigger monitor.

[NotSoFast]

Or, you can get a bigger monitor.

That's what I was thinking. A good 19" CRT is very affordable nowadays. :thumbup:

[RangerRick]

The only thing missing is a hd and a dvd-rom which I couldn't find retail at newegg. I try and stay away from oem parts. Anyway, I could use some feedback about my choices.



-Raidmax 10 Bay ATX Mid-Tower case with 420 psu and 4 fans. With a side and top panel with 2 of the 4 fans being neon. It's very sleek lookin.
-ASUS K8v SE Deluxe motherboard.
-AMD Athlon 64 3200 Processor
- Crosair XMS extreme 512mb DDR400 pc-3200 Ram x2
-ASUS ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 256 card
-Soundblaster Audigy2 ZX gamer
-Plextor 8x DVD/RW
-Viewsonic 17inch Perfect Flat monitor. (I refuse to spend the mony for LCD's)
-80gig SATA HD (still gota find this...probably get it at bestbuy)
-Sony dvd-rom (same as above)

That's about it, so what ya think?

Great choice in the mobo. I just built my system with the exact board, and had absolutely no problems. I went with the Kingston memory and the 3400 processor. I went with the Kingston memory because that was on the list of tested memory for both the cpu and board.
I kept my original sound card, video card and cdrw and dvd drives.

As for the disk drives, why do you feel you need to go with retail versions? I went with 2 maxtor 160gb(raid 0) drives(OEM), and they have 3 year warranties. The only + for retail is they come with rails and documentation, plus the box!

I have not installed SATA the drives as of yet. I'll do that this weekend. Currently, I have my 40gb 7200rpm drives in the system, and all I had to do was re-register XP.

I would also recommend waiting a month or 2 until the new video cards come out. Even if you don't get the newer cards, the price drop on the older cards will be worth the wait.

[Cap'n]

I may wait for the price drop in video cards, but I have no interest in the new cards coming out. I just read the review of the new "latest, greatest, biggest jump in vid cards in years!" on the new GeForce 6800 Ultra. Phhhhfffttttppppp! After reading that I'm defiently sticking with the ATI 9800 Pro. Yeah, the 6800 is faster, but check out the shader quality comparison in the review. ATI looks much better than the new 6800. I would much rather my game to run at about 40fps and look good, than to run at 70fps and look like old ps1 graphics. See for yourself...
http://www.tomshardware.com/graphic/20040414/geforce_6800-46.html
The full write up is here....
http://www.tomshardware.com/graphic/20040414/index.html


So I take it you went with AMD as well Rich? How did it work out for ya?

I've always had problems with OEM parts, but I may try again since I'll be getting them through newegg now.

[Cap'n]

Btw, anyone know of a good site and/or guide to building a PC. I'm pretty confident in my skills, but it would still be nice to read all I can before actually doing this.

*sigh* Can't wait! I just tried playing the demo of Painkiller and loading up my game of NWN:SotU with terrible results. Grrrr.....

[Bruenor]

Well, I couldn't see this big shader quality difference you are talking about since the 6800 is using PS3.0 and ATI uses PS2.0, the differences are very minor at worst (which is why ATI is tooting their horn saying that Pixel Shader 3.0 is meaningless because the R420 doesn't support the new shader). The NV3X series vs ATI is a whole different ballpark.

It doesn't matter what you really do with video cards anyway, your power supply is too weak for the new Nvidia offering and likely too weak for the new ATI offering anyway. Furthermore, you're capping yourself out anyway. With the BTX format replacing ATX, and PCI-X replacing AGP very, very shortly now (and the aforementioned power supply issue with the new cards) you may as well get the best you can now and screw waiting. Waiting will probably cost you more than it's probably worth to you anyhow. You would have to replace the case and PSU, MOBO and Video Card, and God knows what kind of RAM will be the standard in 6 months. All this to wait for the next round of vid cards? Bah I say!

Nah, what you have now looks good for the next couple of years. Just go for it and have fun.

[Bruenor]

Btw, anyone know of a good site and/or guide to building a PC. I'm pretty confident in my skills, but it would still be nice to read all I can before actually doing this.

*sigh* Can't wait! I just tried playing the demo of Painkiller and loading up my game of NWN:SotU with terrible results. Grrrr.....

I have a great guide that I always refer to when I build PC's, I'll post it later if no one else does. Or you can just search for it on pcstats.com.

[RangerRick]

So I take it you went with AMD as well Rich? How did it work out for ya?

I've always had problems with OEM parts, but I may try again since I'll be getting them through newegg now.

Aside from the SATA drives, which I have not installed yet, but will do that this weekend, everything went very smoothly(that is, except for me having a IDE cable cocked). And yes, I have the AMD 64 3400. This is the first time I bought the latest and greatest processor.

I updated from a AMD t'bird 1.4ghz. And the new setup is my 3rd AMD.

I would recommend that you go with a 480 watt supply, unless the case comes with the supply. I have a new lian LI case, so I had to buy the supply seperately. I bought a Thermaltake 'Purepower' 480W Butterfly supply, which has the power connectors for SATA drives. The only problem is they don't reach where I mounted the drives :lol: . I'll use the connectors that came with the mobo.
I also bought the round cables for the new setup. All in all, I'm happy with the new rig. I'll probably update my TI4400 to a faster card near the end of the year, along with a faster cdrw(8x now).

[Bruenor]

Here's the guide I referred to earlier.

http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=1444

I know it says "beginner", but it's a great step-by-step guide that I always refer to should I forget something, or whatever. I've used it to some point or another with the last five PC's I've built over the last little while for my wife, myself and friends and family.

[OldsterHolster]

As far as helpful sites, you're posting on one of the best. If you have any questions, these folks will set you straight with a variety of knowledge, experience, and personal attention. When I built my first gaming computer, a couple of years ago, I was just astounded by how helpful everybody was.

The biggest mistake I made, in retrospect, was buying the "latest/greatest" and spending too much money for a relatively short-lived experience. "Year-old, mid-range" is definitely my philosophy, these days; given my personal state of perpetual poverty, and I'm happy with the results. I am able to adequately play the newest games, and I don't find myself still making payments on something that is already obsolete.

The best decision I made was to buy a killer monitor. I got a 21" Sony, and it has just been a constant delight. Not only will it last for years and years without becoming "old," but it is, after all, the main sensory connection to whatever equipment you happen to have at the time. Good speakers, of course, are similarly important. I would recommend a good 19" flat-screen CRT, minimum; and decent 4.1 or 5.1 set of speakers. In two years, when you need to build another gamer, these components will still be perfectly usable; and you will automatically be ahead of the game, you know?

Good luck, and keep us posted on your building adventure. Edward.