Beginner needing some advice.

[ZeroSumGame]

Just want to say hello and thanks in advance to everyone willing to help. I have learned a lot in a very short time from all of you. I am currently building my first computer and want to try my hand at overclocking. I would like to try start off small, but would like to have the ability to be more ambitious down the road. My primary use for my computer will be work related and will be multitasking a lot. I will be doing a fair amount of gaming with the system also. I am confused because I see some conflicting points of view. I have tried to research some of these myself but, frankly I can not figure it out myself.

For instance, I read posts saying that SLI boards are not worth the money. Second, top of the line ram is not worth the money because the increased performance isnt much even for overclocking.

Here is what I have so far.
Please keep in mind I will be multitasking and gaming. I use 2 LCDs at 1600x1200 and with the possibility of adding 1 to 2 more. And I would like to do some beginner overclocking and have the ability to overclock more if I desire.


ASUS A8N-SLI Premium (I chose this over a DFI because I do not want to get in over my head.)
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+
Western Digital Raptor WD740GD 74GP 10k RPM
Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD2500KS 250GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0
PC Power & Cooling 510 SLI-PFC ATX12V 510W (Is this overkill?)
Creative SOUND BLASTER X-Fi Platinum
NEC 3540A x 2
Thermaltake Armor Aluminum ( I like it and it seems like it offers good cooling and tons of space. I will probably end up adding another HD or two.)

I can not decide on what video card I should get. I have been looking at all the different 7800GT and GTXs and not really sure which one to get. Price isnt really important but I would not like to overpay for the "BEST". Like I said I am willing to purchase another card in the future as an upgrade.

I also can not decide on which RAM I should get. I am still learning what all the numbers mean. After reading the forums I see many different choices given similar builds.

So I am open to suggestions of a video card, ram and aftermarket cooling for CPU and GPU. If you can briefly explain your logic so I might understand why.

Again thanks for you time and expertise.

 

[Lonyo]

If you use 2 LCD's and might add more, an SLI board would IMO be worth it, as oyu can add a second card to power 2 extra displays without too much hassle (assuming you buy nVidia now).
Or you could add a cheap PCI card, but since most PCIe boards have limited numbers, this might not end up being a viable option down the line.

I'm not sure how worthwhile the Raptor is, because it's not the hugest leap over "normal" drives, and you could save some money/get a lot more storage capacity if you dropped it and went for a regular SATA drive.

A 7800GT would probably see you through even at 1600x1200, and a SLI would give the option of a second down the line.
I don't know if there are any SLI board which allow switching to/from SLI without a reboot, but you might want to look into that if you do end up gaming and wanting to use 4 displays.
Paying the premium for bleeding edge is IMO not really worth it, so the 4400+ is a good comprimise, and you can always OC it a bit, and a 7800GT would stand you in good stead.

 

[secretanchitman]

good setup. unless you want the absolute fastest, i would go for a 7800GT in SLI if you are planning to have 2 or more monitors. (GTX might be a bit too much for SLI, 1 GTX is okay though) money and performance wise, GT's are better.

memory wise, corsair, crucial, geil, kingston, and others (cant think off my head) are all good brands. since you will be multitasking, better to get 1GB-2GBs in dual channel.

CPU cooling, a thermalright XP-90/90C is a good choice. only difference between the 90/90C is that the C is the copper version, giving a bit better temperature differences. i dont know how big, but from what ive read/heard/seen, its worth the 10 buck price. zalman is also great for CPU cooling too.

GPU cooling, zalman is the way to go, unless you plan to do watercooling. it also depends if you want fan or fanless cooling too.

good luck! and dont feel stupid to ask "dumb" or any other questions. we were all n0obs once!

 

[ProviaFan]

You've gotten great advice so far. A SLI mainboard is definitely worthy of your consideration, because even if you never use SLI to increase gaming performance, there is no reason not to use two PCI-E video cards if you need more than two monitors, and an SLI MB has the two physically 16x PCI-E slots to handle that.

Also, I'll throw in a vote for the Raptor as an OS+Programs drive. It may not have the capacity, and it may not be that much higher than the large 7200RPM drives in sequential transfer rates, but in access time - important for quick program loading and partially responsible for "snappy" system performance - it beats everything else short of 15kRPM SCSI or solid state drives.

Finally, 2GB of RAM is certainly a good idea, since you seem to have the budget. There's no reason to get an X2 and a Raptor, and then leave a bottleneck in the form of an often-used swap file because you have "only" 1GB of RAM.

 

[ZeroSumGame]

Thanks everyone for the advice. I appreciate your time.

I already planned on getting 2GB of ram as it seems standard w/ a X2. I started looking into some OCZ platnium and then started learning about latency and timings and what not so I got a little confused. I really do not know the difference between what ram is good for OCing and what ram isnt besides price. I see the recommendations in other threads but they vary a lot. I have no problem paying good money for the goods but I am not sure which type to get. I feel like a real noob here but I have read various topics on it and still do not feel like I am educated enough to pick the ideal kind. I would like fast ram that is OCable and take baby steps as I learn. I just don't want to learn 3 months down the road that I limited myself with my choice.

As for the Raptor, I use several large access and SQL databases that receive and distribute large amounts of data to several applications. I would like this process done about every 2-3 minutes. Hopefully having these databases on my raptor would make this as fast as possible.

 

[stevty2889]

I have the OCZ platinum with my X2, and it works great. You don't really need to OC the ram with an A64/X2, because running with a divider doesn't cause any major performance loss.