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I haven't built entirely from scratch in a long long time, over 10 years. Mostly due to the good graces of having some really nice local shoppes who haven't charged me anything to burn in machines if I order all the parts through them. Now I have a hankering to put together a machine from scratch. If it worked, I would replace my wife's Pentium 4 D machine.
The hard fact is, I may have missed something obvious, so feel free to point it out.
Some things to get out of the way
Budget is ~$400
I am not bound to any manufacturer.
All the links are from a local shop with which I have had no problems. I do not need to buy from there but I do strongly prefer one stop shopping (B&M or mouse)
I have no interest in overclocking the CPU or GPU but refuse to take lousy default ram timings.
The system must have a viable upgrade path for a graphics card.
All of that out there, here is a list of what I am considering purchasing and what I have
Case (+power supply) Antec Sonata III Quiet ATX Case w/ 500W http://www.centralcomputers.com/commerce/catalog/product.jsp?product_id=57438&czuid=1219375859781
Motherboard Asus M3A78-EM AMD 780G http://www.centralcomputers.com/commerce/catalog/product.jsp?product_id=67409&czuid=1219375859781
Processor AMD Athlon 64 Dual Core 4800+ http://www.centralcomputers.com/commerce/catalog/product.jsp?product_id=54792&czuid=1219375859796
HSF: Ignorant of wether or not the above is a retail box, willing to work with stock fan.
RAM: OCZ PC2-6400 4GB Kit OCZ2N800SR4GK http://www.centralcomputers.com/commerce/catalog/product.jsp?product_id=65033&czuid=1219375859781
HDD: I have two WD 160 GB SATA drives sitting idle.
Optical Drive: Use an old PATA DVD burner at first.
Video: Onboard
Audio: Onboard
OS: Not sure. I will probably try FreeBSD 7, expect some driver shortages, try a linux variant and if all HW works well buy something for the wife to use.
The hard fact is, I may have missed something obvious, so feel free to point it out.
Some things to get out of the way
Budget is ~$400
I am not bound to any manufacturer.
All the links are from a local shop with which I have had no problems. I do not need to buy from there but I do strongly prefer one stop shopping (B&M or mouse)
I have no interest in overclocking the CPU or GPU but refuse to take lousy default ram timings.
The system must have a viable upgrade path for a graphics card.
All of that out there, here is a list of what I am considering purchasing and what I have
Case (+power supply) Antec Sonata III Quiet ATX Case w/ 500W http://www.centralcomputers.com/commerce/catalog/product.jsp?product_id=57438&czuid=1219375859781
Motherboard Asus M3A78-EM AMD 780G http://www.centralcomputers.com/commerce/catalog/product.jsp?product_id=67409&czuid=1219375859781
Processor AMD Athlon 64 Dual Core 4800+ http://www.centralcomputers.com/commerce/catalog/product.jsp?product_id=54792&czuid=1219375859796
HSF: Ignorant of wether or not the above is a retail box, willing to work with stock fan.
RAM: OCZ PC2-6400 4GB Kit OCZ2N800SR4GK http://www.centralcomputers.com/commerce/catalog/product.jsp?product_id=65033&czuid=1219375859781
HDD: I have two WD 160 GB SATA drives sitting idle.
Optical Drive: Use an old PATA DVD burner at first.
Video: Onboard
Audio: Onboard
OS: Not sure. I will probably try FreeBSD 7, expect some driver shortages, try a linux variant and if all HW works well buy something for the wife to use.
