Building New Comp - need advice

[nayz]

hey there,

I'm going to build myself a computer for college towards the end of July -that I'll use for gaming, working and playing. I'm working on a budget too, thinking of making it for about $700 US. The following is what I'm thinking of, what do you guys think.

Motherboard: ASUS A7V (do any relatively cheap ones support DDR Ram?)
Processor: Thinking of AMD thunderbird or Duron in the 1 gig range (which is better and worth the extra cash)
Ram: 256MB Crucial PC2100 DDR
Sound Card: Sound blaster live value
Video Card: Hercules 3D Prophet II Ultra (I want a video card that gives performance, and with a video out but I don't want to spend much either)
CDRW: Plextor or HP Writer 12x10x40ish
Hard Drive: 40 gig (what speed should I look for)
Speakers: ?? (looking for budget, but good sound, any ideas?)
Cooling: fan and heatsinks (I want to overclock, but I want to still keep things relatively quite, any ideas?)
DVD: ??

I have a few more questions, hopefully I won't seem too dumb =).

- Do I have to have a special motherboard to DDR Ram?
- Should I buy the RAM now, seeing as prices are low, as apose buying it in July when prices may be higher?
- Do you guys think the price for the Geforce 2 Ultra cards will come down soon (by July)?

Thanks for any help,
Dan

 

[Duvie]

For what you have listed even with duron (which they don't make a 1 gig and the 950 is a bit overpriced being it is the new child) it is going to be hard to keep this at 700 dollars...

lets try..

amd 1gig (266fsb) 109.00 (tcwo)
epox 8k7a ddr 120.00 + 5.00(newegg)
256mb pc2100 ddr 60.00 (crucial)
Leadtek geforce 2 pro 32mb ddr w/ 4ns memory 138.00 (newegg)
aopen 12x10x32 CDRW 100.00 (newegg)
aopen 12x40x dvd-rom 41.00 + 10.00 (newegg)
maxtor 20gig ata100 7200rpm 94+00 (tcwo)

this is a total of 677.00 and you still need decent cooler, speakers, and soundcard...probably closer to 800.00.

If you need closer to 700.00 go sdram you can save 25.00 on mobo and another 17.00 on memory for a total of 635.00 with other items to get.

I assume you have monitor, keyboard and mouse, FDD, 56k modem or NIC card, case with amd approved PS????

Case probably needs a 300watt psu and will cost around 40 for cheap and 60 for better...