Building a computer.

[Xenon14]

So my dad got me an Asus A8N-VM CSM mobo, Opteron 144 Cacje stepping, and a duel layer dvd burner. That's the good news. The bad news is that I currently have a 2500+ XP, 9700Pro agp, audigy sound card, 2 ide harddrives, 2700 ram, etc... So ram & video card are not compatable at all.

Right now I want to keep it cheap... since the mobo has built-in video card, I'll stick with it for now. The mobo is small, so I want a small case & power supply and cheap ram (but ram that I will be able to overclock my cpu with to at least 2.4ghz). Also, I have 2 IDE drives, which are full... so I want a cheap SATA solution for the new comp.

To break it down I need:

1) Small case compatible with Asus A8N-VM CSM mobo (ideally for 2 cdrom drives, but 1 is fine).
1a) Needs to accomodate 3 expansion slots, which will be used for video card, my audigy sound card, and a tv tuner.
2) Power Supply
3) Ram, want to keep it cheap but im looking at 512-1gig solution with ability to overclock.
4) SATA Harddrive... I will buy adapters for my IDE drives and make them external USB drives.

 

[Xenon14]

bump, can i at least get Case advice??

 

[Finns14]

P150 just got good reviews but its a little pricey and also if you have an Opty don't go cheap on RAM get something that is decent so you won't have to use a huge divider.

 

[hurtstotalktoyou]

Originally posted by: Xenon14
So my dad got me an Asus A8N-VM CSM mobo, Opteron 144 Cacje stepping, and a duel layer dvd burner. That's the good news. The bad news is that I currently have a 2500+ XP, 9700Pro agp, audigy sound card, 2 ide harddrives, 2700 ram, etc... So ram & video card are not compatable at all.

Your RAM is 100% compatible. Your video card is not necessary.

Right now I want to keep it cheap... since the mobo has built-in video card, I'll stick with it for now. The mobo is small, so I want a small case & power supply and cheap ram (but ram that I will be able to overclock my cpu with to at least 2.4ghz). Also, I have 2 IDE drives, which are full... so I want a cheap SATA solution for the new comp.

Actually you don't need any of that. But I will make suggestions, nonetheless.

To break it down I need:

1) Small case compatible with Asus A8N-VM CSM mobo (ideally for 2 cdrom drives, but 1 is fine).
1a) Needs to accomodate 3 expansion slots, which will be used for video card, my audigy sound card, and a tv tuner.

If you're on a budget, you can get an mATX (or ATX) case/PSU combo from supergooddeal.com for $27 shipped. If you want something a bit better, just shop around.

2) Power Supply

Why can't you re-use your existing PSU? Well, if you want a new one, the supergooddeal.com case comes with a cheap 350W psu. If you want something better than that, you can get a Fortron Source 300W from NewEgg for about $30.

3) Ram, want to keep it cheap but im looking at 512-1gig solution with ability to overclock.

Ms4me.com usually has the best deals on budget RAM. You can get 512MB for $38 shipped, or 1GB for about $76.

4) SATA Harddrive...

Most all SATA hard drives are within 5% of eachother as far as performance goes. The real question is reliability. Western Digital, Samsung and Seagate are all very trustworthy. Maxtor has never failed me, and Excelstor has a good reputation among professionals, it seems. Hitachi has a bad reputation, but if you feel like taking a chance, go ahead. Magnetic Data Technology is the only brand that you should absolutely, positively never, ever buy.

I will buy adapters for my IDE drives and make them external USB drives.

Wow, that's.... really inefficient. Why don't you burn the data off to DVD+RWs or something?