building first computer hel me out

[Xenocide2020]

k tell me what you think about this and what i should upgrade/downgrade to.

Processor:
Amd Athlon Xp 2500 barton core

MotherBoard:
Asus E-Deluxe

Hard drive:
Western Digital 160 gb Sata

Memory:
Corsair 512 x 2 ddr 400 pc 3200

Video Card:
HIS hightech 9600xt 256 mb --- or --- Sapphire 9800pro 128 mb

Sound Card:
Turtle Beach, 6 channel santa cruz card

Monitor:
Viewsonic 19" perfect flat crt monitor

PSU:
Thermaltake Silent Purepower 410w psu

CD-Rom:
Asus 52x quie-track

CD/DVD-RW:
Lite-On 8x DVD +RW/-RW

Heatsink:
Thermaltake 735 3 in 1 cooler w/ 3.5 and pci slot fan controllers

Fans:
Thermaltake adjustable blue led 120 mm fans
Zalman 80 mm slim fan w/ grill
blue uv reactive slot cooler for pci slot

Case:
Xoxide X-Blade Xtreme Case w/ 2 120 mm fans, 2 80mm fans

Floppy:
NEC 1.44 mb Floppy

Speakers:
Logitech z-340 2.1 speakers 33 watts

mouse:
logitech mx310 optical mouse

keyboard:
logitech elite keyboard

headphones/mic:
logitech xtreme gaming headset

Rounded Cables:
i wanna get blue uv reactive cables but i dont know how many to get could someone help me out on this part.

PLEASE give me feedback

thanks

-tyler

 

[Carnival Forces]

get the 9800PRO

CPU looks good, same for motherboard and RAM...

i wouldn't know about the Sound Card, monitor, or HDD though..but they all seem fine to me

where's your CD Burner ? i see a DVD burner, and a CD drive...but CD Burner, where?

EDIT: get better speakers if you can, like 4.1 or 5.1
also, try for an mx500 ( i LOVE mine) or a 510 (i hear they're amazing)

 

[D3v1an7]

Get a saphire 9800 pro 128MB. Just make sure to get the 256 bit and not the 128 bit

Even the top of the line 9600 won't compare to the 9800pro and they are just about the same price.

If you plan on doing any overclocking, get the 2500 mobile, the multiplyer is still unlocked on that chip.

The PC3200 is nice if you plan on overclocking, but is more than a Barton 2500 needs. It only has a 333 bus so pc2700 is all you really need. The nice thing about the 2700 is you can still find the Mushkin LVL2 in that flavor.

If you want to see some insane load times, get to 80GB SATA drives and set them up RAID 0. I swear you will cream yourself when you see the difference.

If you go with the Abit NF7-S you will get the Soundstorm audio built into the card. With that, you wouldn't have to spend extra on an add in card. That board is better for OC'ing too if you are planning on it.

As far as cables go, you would need 1 18-24in rounded dual device IDE cable and one rounded FDD cable. Either the MB or the HD will come with a SATA cable so I wouldn't worry about buying an additional one. Look at Newegg, you will find plenty of cables at a good price.

BTW get some Artic Silver 5 for your thermal paste

You rig looks really good. Let us know how it turns out.

 

[ReNeGaDe*]

I third that Radeon 9800 PRO and personally, I'd plump for an equivalent priced smaller TFT monitor. I've been using this crappy old 15inch one for nigh on 3 years now and I couldn't ever go back to a CRT now I don't think. The response times don't bother me, and it's a lot more practical (I actually get space to work on my desk now )

 

[D3v1an7]

Yeah, the TFT monitors are nice but if you are going to get one, make sure it has low response times. ReN mentioned it briefly, but if you have a TFT with a high response time, you will get ghosting when playing games or watching movies. Good ones cost, on average, about $600. 16ms or lower is what you should be looking for...

 

[Carnival Forces]

what about OS? don't forget to include that in the price...

 

[Wixard]

Id reccomend the sound storm over the turtle beach. Oh yea, like carn says dont be a lame ass who spends a bunch of money on a computer then just uses a *backup* copy of win xp.

 

[Xenocide2020]

so.....

go w/ the 9800pro 128 mb 256 bit

ill get the mobile 2500 (are there any drawbacks to that as opposed to the athlon xp?)

im not sure if ill overclock so ill stick w/ the 3200 or maybe 3000

if it doesnt cost to much more ill get dual 80 gig's on raid 0, ill look into it definetely

ill change to the abit and drop the sound card

i really dont have enough for an lcd monitor, so thats out if the question

wixard what do you mean by "spends a bunch of money on his compute and uses a "backup" copy of win xp on it" i dont understand what your trying to say or what is wrong w/ that? help me out

thanks for all your help guyz

 

[Xenocide2020]

o yea and i decided to change my case to a Lian Li Case w/ an acrylic window

 

[archevilangel]

the drawback to a mobile, is that the multiplier will default to 5 or 6, which was a problem when I wante dto sell my cpu to a friend without multiplier adjustments :/, but you should be fine.

 

[Xenocide2020]

i looked the mobile up on newegg and they dont have any with barton cores, so they are all 266 fsb

and for some odd reason on newegg the pc 3200 is less expensive than the 2700 so why not stick with the 3200

 

[SEALTeamSix]

so..... go w/ the 9800pro 128 mb 256 bit

good move

ill get the mobile 2500 (are there any drawbacks to that as opposed to the athlon xp?)

There are a few - for one, a 2500+ mobile doesn't come with a heatsink. Also, and I'm not sure about this, but they might have a shorter warranty because they might be OEM. However, I'd still go with it because of the greater overclockability, unlocked multipliers, and lower heat output. As far as them not being Bartons, well... what makes a processor a Barton? The 512mb L2 cache? Check... The 333Mhz (166FSB * 2 data pipes) speed? It'll go much higher than that... anything else? Not really... it might not be called a Barton, but it is one.

if it doesnt cost to much more ill get dual 80 gig's on raid 0, ill look into it definetely

From my experience, RAID 0 does give a creamy speed boost, but if you lose 1 hard drive you loose all your data. My advice is to get 2 smaller (and hence, cheaper) drives, like 2 20GB drives, and RAID them. Install the OS, programs, and games on this array (it will look like 1 drive to Windows, even though it's physically 2), and then have another large drive for storing your files. If I were in your position (and, strangely enough, I am ), I'd spend an extra $26 and put the file-storage drive in an external USB2.0 enclosure. That way, it's portable and allows for convenient file transfers to and from any other computer.

ill change to the abit and drop the sound card

Another smart move, my man.

wixard what do you mean by "spends a bunch of money on his compute and uses a "backup" copy of win xp on it" i dont understand what your trying to say or what is wrong w/ that? help me out

He's saying don't be a pirate... arrrrrr matey!

thanks for all your help guyz

Anything we can do to help - half the fun of having our knowledge is sharing it

-SEAL

 

[Xenocide2020]

thanks for all your help Seal and all the rest of you guyz

o yea and what is raid 0, i kno raid is like combining multiple hard drives to create more space or to backup your files, but specifically what is raid 0 and what are its benefits besides the speed boost and why does it give it the speed boost for that matter?

thanks again

-tyler

 

[SEALTeamSix]

...specifically, what is RAID 0, what are its benefits besides the speed boost, and why does it give it the speed boost for that matter?

RAID 0 (also called "striping") speeds up data transfers by storing and retrieving data from 2 drives simultaneously, as opposed to just 1. Since only 50% of the data is on each drive, and the data is stored/retrieved in parallel, it takes less time than if 100% of the data were read off of a single drive. There are, as usual, some factors which alter how much of a performance increase you will see, but the results are very noticeable in things like loading Windows, large programs, levels in games, etc. I have a RAID 0 array in my current computer, and it will load Windows XP Professional after just 2 bars (normal is ~6), Microsoft Word takes literally about 1 second to load, and when gaming I'm always the first person to have the next map loaded. Here are some links to answer your questions about RAID 0: 1, 2, 3, 4.

-SEAL

 

[Xenocide2020]

so is raid hard to setup (ive never built a computer before)? and do you know if you can get SATA drives smaller than 80 gigs, looks like that is the lowest on newegg.

thanks for all your help tho seal,

-tyler

 

[ReNeGaDe*]

I think i've seen 36GB Raptors before but apart from then I don't seem to know of any other <80GB drives. I've never built a computer myself either, but am planning to after my exams finish tomorrow but I have seen articles on it and it seems to be just connecting two drives up to your mobo or raid controller and then setting it up in the bios and in windows setup, so it looks fairly easy to me, being a novice.

 

[SEALTeamSix]

so is raid hard to setup (ive never built a computer before)? and do you know if you can get SATA drives smaller than 80 gigs, looks like that is the lowest on newegg.

thanks for all your help tho seal,

-tyler

Anytime! (literally, it's like 4:50am here lol) RAID is very easy to set up on most motherboards - it's usually an option under where all the hard drive / IDE channel controls are in the BIOS.

Just looking at the regular places, I don't see any SATA drives except Raptors under the 80GB... hmm, maybe the NF7 isn't the mobo for you after all... or maybe you don't need to have the portability of an external drive. It all depends on what you want and how you would use this computer. I'm normally more of a value-oriented builder myself, and right now most of the SATA drives don't offer many advantages over the regular old ATA-100 interface (the drives just aren't fast enough to really use the new speed that the SATA interface offers)... you should just make sure they are 7200rpm with an 8mb buffer.

If you are value-oriented, I'd find a good NForce2-based mobo with an MCP-T southbridge (for the audio and firewire support) that has RAID 0 for regular ATA-interface drives, and then find my drives using deal websites. Deals like 80GB drives for $45 apiece happen frequently, you just have to catch them while the rebates are still good... anyway, you should decide whether you want/need SATA, as that will determine your motherboard choice. If you do want to go with SATA, there are some decent deals on those uber-fast Raptors that would be worth your while to look at.

-SEAL

 

[Xenocide2020]

i think im gonna stick w/ 7200 rpm sata, newegg has a deal for 67 for an 80 gig sata so im gonna buy 2 of those i think and use raid 0. itll be about the same as 1 160gig drive. and for the motherboard i really dont know what i want, ill look into what you recommended me.

thanks again seal

-tyler

 

[Xenocide2020]

o yea does motherboard you recomended to me fit those qualifications i kno it has raid 0 and i know it has the nforce2 chipset but i dont know about the southbridge.

 

[SEALTeamSix]

i think im gonna stick w/ 7200 rpm sata, newegg has a deal for 67 for an 80 gig sata so im gonna buy 2 of those i think and use raid 0. itll be about the same as 1 160gig drive. and for the motherboard i really dont know what i want, ill look into what you recommended me.

thanks again seal

-tyler

Again, np. If you are going to do a SATA RAID 0 setup, the NF7-S is a good board for you. As far as SATA RAID 0 goes, I've been very happy with my DiamondMax 9 SATA drives in RAID 0. These drives seem fast to me, did well in all the reviews I read about them, and can be found here for $71 shipped. I'm not saying the hard drives you found on NewEgg aren't good, but I'd do some google searches for comparisons of the drives in question before I bought them.

-SEAL

 

[ReNeGaDe*]

sigh if only the egg shipped internationally

 

[Xenocide2020]

if i were to get the mobile athlon xp, would i need to get a different motherboard or different ram or anything? is the chip a different size or just a different kind? like would i need to change any of my other parts.