Building my first computer... need some advice and a suggestion for a good case...

[fooshkee]

I'm gonna jump on this intel deal for employees since i work at best buy. you get a retail boxed 3.0 hyperthreading pentium 4 cpu ($390ish) and a Intel D865GBF motherboard ($105ish) AND a copy of xp pro OS... so basically about $600 worth of
stuff... and i can get it for $199. Well now that i'm done bragging...

Right now i have a 1.7 p4 Dell with 384 ram 60gb hd, dvd rom, cdrw... and I'm pretty content with it...
but this deal is just wayyyy too good to pass up...

So I figure all that I really am gonna need to buy (at least to start off with
is) is a new case (do cases typically come with fans and a power supply??) and then I'll just take my current ddr ram out of my dell, my cd
burner and dvd player out of my dell, and my hard drives... and just use the
on board video and on board audio for now (and buy an agp video card later)... can you think of anything else
i'd need to purchase up front to get this beast running? Thermal compound, fans, cables... anything?

Is there any picticular case you'd recommend for this motherboard combo? I don't want to spend more than $100 max on the case. How
many watt power supply should i get, 400?

Any advice would be awesome... thanks in advance for helping this "newb" out.

thanks... any advice or insight would be great, thanks. hope all are doing
well... i'm chugging away at school... taking a college pre calc class (got
my first test back today... 105!!) and also taking a college political
science class... (had my first test today... think i did well) and also
doing music classes at dover high... i'm starting my college admissions and
scholarship essays this week... what fun...

-joel

 

[Slogun]

Most cases other than, say Lian-Li aluminum cases come with power supplies.
Any ATX (which is what most are) case will do.

Antec cases and power supplies are both top-performers and relativley inexpensive.
Most people would say a 400 watt power supply will be sufficient, quality somewhat more important than wattage.

Other than that, you might be all set.

That retail CPU will come with a HSF and thermal pad attached.
The case will come with it's own fans.
The mobo will probably come with with ide cables.

Sounds like a great deal.

I don't know what type of RAM you have , but likely it is not quite as fast as what that system can handle.
(You probably have DDR 266 (PC2100) RAM, the minimum spec for that board.
Best to get some DDR 400 (PC3200) RAM down the road.

 

[Lyfer]

Antec Sonata.

Comes with TruePower380W, and has a very good black pain job.

 

[Slogun]

Black's not my thing, but that does look like a quality case.

 

[BaboonGuy]

wavemaster by coolermaster is a pretty cool looking case

 

[fooshkee]

hmmmm that sonata case by antec is looking like a winner... its $130 at best buy... $90 with my discount and then there's a $30 MIR... so $60, not bad.... i want a really quiet case... the only downside on the sonata is that it looks pretty boring

 

[BaboonGuy]

$60 for the sonata is a great deal, considering that it comes with a truepower 380 (expensive itself). the sonata is NOT boring, the pictures on the net dont do it justice, it has a nice black glossy finish (real shiny and nice), plus you can add some cold cathodes to really make it look sweet. like me, i just put one blue cc inside the case under the ANTEC holes and it lights them up and looks awesome