Another First-time Builder Needs Advice

[teddyv]

My 5 year old Dell 8100 is on the way out and I've decided I have had enough of pre-built, propreitary systems and am building my own. The only online gaming I do is UO so I am not spending a lot on a Graphic Cards - mainly doing web stuff (Adobe PS & Illustrator, Dreamweaver) and importing miniDV and ripping video/DVD. I am pulling my new Benq & Lite-On DVD drives, the 3.5 floppy, and one of the 120-gig hard drives (the 19" monitor still works well too.)

Here is what I have so far (ordering from Newegg), was trying to keep this under $700 but I'm already over a bit:

- MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce4 Ultra ATX AMD Motherboard - Retail
- ASPIRE X-Navigator ATXA9NW-BK/450 Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case 450W Power Supply - Retail (gotta have a little fun with this)
- SAMSUNG SpinPoint P Series SP1213C 120GB 7200 RPM Serial ATA150 Hard Drive - OEM
- (2) crucial 512MB 184-Pin DDR SDRAM DDR 400 (PC 3200) Unbuffered System Memory Model CT6464Z40B - OEM
- Microsoft N09-01152 Windows XP HOME Edition With Service Pack 2 - OEM
- AMD Athlon 64 3000+ Winchester Integrated into Chip FSB Socket 939 Processor Model ADA3000BIBOX - Retail
- SAPPHIRE 100121 Radeon X700 128MB GDDR3 PCI-Express x16 Video Card - OEM

I'd like to have the SATA as the boot and use a 120-gig and 80-gig eide hard drives I currently have loaded with 5 years of stuff. Eventually I'd like to add another sata 120-gig just for video projects. I also plan on using the on-board audio for now. The front firewire and USB are critical, as is a fast onboard network port for my cable modem.

For the build I was going to build it, load XP, then add the 120-gig eide drive with all my data from the Dell 8100.

Any comments or advice very much appreciated - I've learned a lot here and elsewhere over the last few weeks but know I've a ways to go!

 

[ShadowBlade]

id reccomend a non-aspire case and especially not aspire power supplies (the one that came with my case has something like 15A on 12V)
dfi or gigabyte are my personal reccomendations for motherboards, but that one is good
BFG or eVGA 6600GT would be the best video card for roughly that price range
if you do nothing with 3D, look into matrox, they have the best 2D performance (PS type stuff you mentioned) but their 3D performance sucks

just a note on hard drives...
i ran through prices of 3 brands of the commons sizes 7200RPM's and found 200GB's to be the cheapest per GB in all 3 brands

and lastly...Welcome to AT

 

[teddyv]

Thanks for your advice - I looked at the 6600GT cards and they seem to start at about $155 (the Saphire card is $104) - is it worth to bust the budget a bit more if I won't be running the high fps games?

Also on the case - do you have any advice for a good under $100 case that will hold 5 hard drives and two opticals, with firewire and usb on the front?

Thanks,

TeddyV

 

[stevty2889]

Looks pretty good to me. I do like Aspire cases, but you will definatly not want to use the PSU that comes with the case. Nothing wrong with the X700. For the PSU I'd recomend anything from Enermax, Antech, Fortron, Seasonic, OCZ, and the Xclio seems to be pretty popular and getting good reviews. Any of those at 380W or more should be plenty.

 

[teddyv]

Looks like I'll go with the Venice core over the Winchester, the price difference is pretty small.

Good advice on the PSU, unfortunately the budget gets blown even more 🙂

 

[Ike0069]

I also recommend a better PSU. It may hurt the pocket a little now, but you'll be much better off in the long run.

 

[The Pentium Guy]

There is something you should notice. The PSU you have might have a 20-pin ATX connector. I'd recommend getting a PSU-less case and get a PSU that has a 24-pin ATX connector (which your motherboard can support, it can support 20-pin but that is dangerous). Antec 400W ATX 2.0 (24-pin) is around $60 at newegg.

 

[deathwalker]

The system looks just fine for what you said your needs are...expect...do replace the Power Supply in that case with a high quality device that is over 400watts...I have a Antec true power 430...but..there are other very good Power Supplies .