Hello! New guy needs some light shed on system purchase

[Markolc81]

Hi guys, I'm upgrading an old system that I just inherited from a friend who was giving one away. She left me an AMD 800 Duron. The only thing that this computer has that is new is a brand spankin new 80 GB HDD 7200 RPM with 8/MB cache. Well I kinda want to turn this thing into a gaming macine, and after 2 days of kinda lurking on these forums and reading up on some stuff I went onto newegg and ordered a Chaintech VNF4 motherboards, and eVGA Gforce 6600GT video card, a single DDRAM 512MB ADATA|64Mx64 DDR400, and an Athlon 64 3000+ cpu socket 939.

Is this all good stuff? I have some questions that I wasn't clear on.
Is the DDR Ram ok to run single or is it supposed to be 2 sticks?
Do I need any special cables for the video card? I read some posts that thoroughly confused me. I thought video cards drew power from the slot they were in?
The power supply in this old case is an ATX and it is 300W. This should be enough for this system right?

Again, I haven't really been into building computers for say 3 years now at minimum, so many of these questions may seem n00bish to you all, and I apologize but this is the only place I could think of to come and get help. Thank you very much!

 

[homercles337]

DDR runs fine in single mode. Slower, but it will run. Its not like rambus that requires 2 sticks.
I just looked at some pics and it seems that the 6600 GT doesnt need an extra molex connector (at least i couldnt find any). My 6800 GT need two of the mofos.
Based on the observation that the 6600 series doesnt need an extra molex you "should" be fine with that PSU, but if i were you i would pick up a new/better/more powerful PSU. Just to be safe...

 

[Markolc81]

Do you have a recommendation for a PSU? There are hundreds of them out there and I dunno what's the real difference between them all lol. I'm only gonna use this machine for running FFXI on it for now, other games to follow later, nothing intense, not even to burn CDs lol.

 

[homercles337]

OCZ, antec, P&C Cooling, etc. Look for high amps on the 12v rail, or both if its dual rail.

 

[Silversierra]

Check this out for info about psus, very informative.
http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=792566

 

[gobucks]

if you buy a new PSU, you're gonna want to buy a 24-pin one. Because of the PCIe support on the board, there is a much larger draw on the 12V line, and so a dual-rail 24-pin PSU is needed to ensure that the CPU gets the proper power that it needs. The 6600GT doesn't need any external pwer connector, because the PCIe x16 slot supplies up to 75 watts, but the card does eat up quite a bit of power - the AGP version, for example, does require an external connector because the 37 watts supplied by AGP isn't enough.

Some good PSUs to consider are Vantec's stealth series (420W, 470W, or 520W), Antec's Neopower series (make sure they are 24-pin, because some aren't), and OCZ's modstream 520. My Vantec 520 was only $90, and I think the 420W is under $70.

Also, regarding the memory, not running memory in dual channel results in a performance penalty comparable to 250-300MHz. This is on top of the difference between 1GB versus 512MB of RAM. Basically, your 3000+ becomes a 2800+ (a socket 754 3000+ is 2GHz rather than 1.8GHz because of this difference, while the 1.8GHz model is a 2800+). If you want to go really cheap, grab a socket 754, a 2800+ or 3000+, and an AGP 6600GT or 9800 Pro. You'll be able to keep your PSU and the single stick of memory won't hurt performance. If you want to buy onto a platform with more of a future (which you seem to want with the PCIe mobo and socket 939), then you might as well pony up for a good PSU and a full gig of RAM - a 300W 20-pin PSU and 512MB RAM just aren't gonna cut it if you plan to upgrade.

 

[customcoms]

gobucks is mainly correct. First, getting a dual rail psu is NOT the best option. A high single rail psu is the still the best way to go-get a E-Power Tagan 480 watt psu-that has 28A on the 12 v rail, which is better than a dual rail psu pushing 30A combined. Second, you will notice a reduction in speed b/c of only one stick of ram, on the order if 2-3%. The significant hit is b/c you don't have a full gig. S939 was still the right choice, and buying another stick will help, and is a cheap upgrade in 3-6 months time. I am only getting 512mb, but that is twinmos speed premium that I will push to DDR500, so the speed will make up for having less ram. All in all, you made a good decision, but buying a new psu would be a good idea (350 MIGHT cut it, but 300 isn't gonna do the job).

Sam