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First time for a system build, tell me what you think

L

L337Llama

Senior member
This is the first time I've built a computer, so Im a little unsure if the stuff Ive chosen goes together well.
I play a lot of games, but I'm not an extreme gamer (I play at 1024x768 for the most part)
Also, I already got a mouse (mx300), a hard drive (100gb WD with 8mb cache)

AMD Mobile Athlon XP 2400+, 266FSB, 512K Cache - OEM $77.99

MSI nForce2 Ultra 400 Chipset Motherboard for AMD Socket A CPU, Model "K7N2 Delta-L" RETAIL $69.00

SAPPHIRE ATI RADEON 9800 PRO Video Card, 128MB DDR, 256-bit, DVI/TV-Out, 8X AGP -BULK 210.00



Buffalo Technology 184 Pin 512MB DDR PC-3200 - OEM $99.00


ANTEC Black Solution Series ATX Mid-Tower Case with 350W Power Supply, Model "SLK3700-BQE" -RETAIL 85.00 (putting in 120mm Enermax adjustable fan)



NU Technology White 8X DVD+RW/-RW Drive, Model DDW-082 77.99


Thermalright CPU Cooler for AMD: Athlon XP Palamino, Thoroughbred, and Barton 2500+ and up (Heat Sink Only), Model "ALX800" -RETAIL $19.99 (pairing it with a Thermal Take Smart Fan2)

Logitech Access Keyboard PS/2 104keys -RETAIL 13$


Logitech Z640 5.1 Speakers -RETAIL 50$



Im also picking up some stuff to put a window in with and some wire management stuff, but that is going to be roughly 15$.

What do you think of it? Its roughly 720 total. Im not using 2 sticks of ram because of cost, from what I can tell, DC DDR doesnt make much of a difference for AMD stuff, and if I want to get a gig of ram when RAM prices come back down, I wont have to dump some of the chips. Also, I do plan to overclock, but not a massive amount.

Any suggestions for changes?
 
Another note, I'm gonna use the Thermaltake ducting mod and im not sure if i should get the 3700BQE or the 3700AMB. Both end up costing the same (the BQE is more, but has less shipping. Vuce versa for the AMB)
 
Looks pretty good. Maybe do some searching, I think you might be able to find the 9800 a little bit cheaper (not too much though).

The only thing that I would suggest is perhaps look at some reviews for motherboards (see if you can find any for the mobo you listed). I don't know if that is supposed to be a pretty good board or not. You might want to go with the lower end version of a board that is given props for overclocking. For instance get the mobo that is pretty much the same board as it but doesn't have say gigabit ethernet or s/pdif.

Oh, go check out the hot deals forum, you can get 512 Mb of DDR400 Kingston valueram for around 15-20 bucks cheaper.
 
well, your not going to get much of an overclock with the motherboard, ram, and psu. if you want a better motherboard, go for the abit nf7. its about the same price as the msi you listed. also, a stronger psu is recommended, even though its an antec. you should go for 430W at least if you overclock, and go for better ram. if your going cheap with ram, then get the mushkin 512mb pc3200 for $96 at newegg. its better hten the buffalo. if you have any problems with instability on the overclock, it'd be likely to be from the psu if you keep the 350W.
 
The buffolo has Winbond chip (i think these are BH5) From the reviews I've read, they are good. I belive Corsair uses a lot of Winbond stuff.

Any suggestions for a different PSU/Case? Preferanly with fans larger than 80mm and under 90$ for both the PS and case.
 
2 things, bigger PSU, it'll come back to bite you later, and maybe go with a Lite-On drive instead of NU tech, i never heard of them but my 4x DVD+-RW Lite on works great, no problems so far with it, and most other people have the same feeling about it. Lite On makes great drives, and Abit makes great motherboards, my IC7 overclocks like a beast, 950mhz overclock on a P4 with a stock cooler.
 
I checked the NF7, and it doesn't seem much different than the MSI board. The MSI has a slight advantage. Its got more USB 2.0 ports and comes with rounded cables. The Abit NF7 has an optical out, which I'm pretty sure is for sound. I definately wont need it.

Which has better customer service? MSI or Abit?

Also, looked at cased and PSUs a bit more. I saw the Chenbro gaming bomb, which looks alright, but its got a 92 and 120mm fan. Then I saw the Chenbro Xpider2, which is an update to the oringal gaming bomb. It looks nicer. Any news on it? Also, I found this PSU: Allided 400 watt psu, 33$ Is it any good? It seems to sell a lot, so that shows its at least well known...
 
I'd go with the NF7 over the MSI mobo. I've got an MSI board (P4 PT880) and while it could just be the chipset mine has, it is terrible at overclocking. I've got DDR500 RAM and it can't go with an FSB higher than 145 on my 2.4B. See if you can find a review for the board somewhere before you make a final decision, because if you get a bad overclocking board then there is little point in getting a 2400 with 266FSB when you can get a 2500 with 333FSB for pretty much the same price. Just some words of warning, because like in my case the mobo has the same specs as some other boards that are a lot better at overclocking.
 
If you can fork out some more money, I'd go for an Abit (NF7 or even NF7-S if you can) or Asus (A7N8X) for better overclocking options, but that's my opinion 😉
 
Well, the antec PSU should be fine powering your system. Why not try it first anyways and if it wont work well with overclock then buy a new one
 
Originally posted by: L337Llama
I checked the NF7, and it doesn't seem much different than the MSI board. The MSI has a slight advantage. Its got more USB 2.0 ports and comes with rounded cables. The Abit NF7 has an optical out, which I'm pretty sure is for sound. I definately wont need it.

Which has better customer service? MSI or Abit?

Also, looked at cased and PSUs a bit more. I saw the Chenbro gaming bomb, which looks alright, but its got a 92 and 120mm fan. Then I saw the Chenbro Xpider2, which is an update to the oringal gaming bomb. It looks nicer. Any news on it? Also, I found this PSU: Allided 400 watt psu, 33$ Is it any good? It seems to sell a lot, so that shows its at least well known...
Click to expand...

OK a few things to clarify:

-the NF7 supports 6 USB ports...are you telling me the MSI has 8??
-rounded cables are TERRIBLE...they cause data loss and slow down your hard drive immensely
-the NF7 will overclock that CPU to insane levels that the MSI board can't touch

I suppose I might be jaded towards MSI because I had a mobo made by them that died, but I still feel confident in reccomending the Abit board to you as others here have done. MSI is simply not in the same league as Asus or Abit.
 
I also vote against the MSI board. Try the Asus AN7NX-X (spelling?) if you want a cheaper board, but I also reccoment the NF7.

On my first time build I made the mistake of trying to cut costs too much and skimping on the motherboard. Don't make that mistake; the mobo is the last thing you should cut down on. Not only do the better mobos overclock and perform better, they are easier to install and come with many good onboard parts that save you $$$.
 
Originally posted by: Mik3y
well, your not going to get much of an overclock with the motherboard, ram, and psu. if you want a better motherboard, go for the abit nf7. its about the same price as the msi you listed. also, a stronger psu is recommended, even though its an antec. you should go for 430W at least if you overclock, and go for better ram. if your going cheap with ram, then get the mushkin 512mb pc3200 for $96 at newegg. its better hten the buffalo. if you have any problems with instability on the overclock, it'd be likely to be from the psu if you keep the 350W.
Click to expand...

The's a good PSU, should power just about any single processor system without tons of drives and stuff like that just fine...

I have an overclocked Pentium 4 processor, two sticks of RAM, an overclocked 9800 pro, two hard drives, two optical drives, and 6 case fans running off of my Fortron 300w PSU without a problem. The Antec is fine.


And yes, what he said about rounded cables is true. The difference might not be extremely noticable, but data corruption and slow downs can occur with all of those wires so close together. There's a reason modern IDE hard drive cables are 40 pin, but with 80 wires. The extra ones are to provide space between the data wires to prevent them from "bleeding over" or anything. When you have them all twisted together in a round form... Yeah, that's not good
 
I will be powering 1 or 2 optical drives (i got a CD burner, but since im getting a dvd burner, it can do anything and might make the cdrw uneeded), a HDD, the 9800, 3 or fans. I dont think I will overclock to insane levels.

Btw, isnt the Abit AN7 pretty much the same as the NF7 series, except it "officialy" is an Nforce 2 400 Ultra.

Also, is there a big difference between the two versions of the 3700 case? Im leaning towards the BQE over the AMB.

Last question, are the chips in the mushkin ram better than Winbond CH5? The reviews show that there are no problems with realiability, but they dont run as fast.

Thanks alot for the help too.
 
1st, go with the Abit mobo, NF7 is good, NF7-S is better, ignore the -M.

Also, go with the Antec Sonata Case, it comes with the 120MM fan already and also with a 380w Truepower PS, you won't regret it😀

WTT

P.S. I you would like to you can ignore anything and everything I say😉
 
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