Help with new system

[Nolf3]

OK, hoping you guys can help with this. I haven't built a system since the early days of oc'ing the early celerons. After that I just bought a cheap Dell (400sc). Anyway, I'm trying to put together a fairly cheap rig as an upgrade. Was reading thru these forums and decided to get

Intel E4400 (E4300's seem to be oos) - $126
EVGA nForce 650i ultra ATX - $69 (AR)
Corsair XMS2 2GB(2x1GB) - $79 (AR)
Thermaltake 500W - $49 (AR)
Seagate 500GB SATA/300 16MB - $104.99
BFG GeForce 7900GS 256MB - $99 (AR)
Sony NEC 18x DVD+R - $33.99
I am going to use my old ATX case which I still have, but don't know, may end up getting a new case too)

Total: $561 (assuming I get my rebates)

most of this stuff is from the egg and frys, I don't want to spend too much time looking around for the absolute rock bottom price or ordering from too many vendors.

Any thoughts ? Do I need anything else? I was reading some of the reviews on the Corsair memory and trying to OC with it, some said no problem, other said they couldn't get it to work.

Any help/suggestions would be appreciated.

 

[SerpentRoyal]

You could even go with the 8x multi E2xx0 for around $80. The $56 Abit IB9 (NewEgg) should be able to take this chip to +2.8GHz. Board runs cool with all Japanese caps. You'll need to add more cooling to the 650i's NB and SB if you intend to push the FSB above 300MHz. That's another $10 parts.

Fry's had the Antec 380 Earthwatts for $20 AR last week. Good 80% efficiency PSU with United Chemicon caps on the primary side.

 

[Nolf3]

Thanks for the suggestions. I'll take a look at those other boards. Any recommendations on cheap cooling? I also want to keep the machine fairly quiet too, anything cheap and quiet too?
That brings me to another question about building a pc, generally why is it that most pc's i've put together are so much noisier/louder than the pre-built stuff like from Dell. Is it the fans, psu, hard drives, cheap case or just the combination ?

 

[SerpentRoyal]

NewEgg will occasionally have open box special on the Big Typhoon. About $25 delivered.

Major source of noise...the CPU fan, PSU fan, and case fan. Look for a case with 120mm fan. The Antec 120mm has a 3 speed adjustable fan. Avoid case with 92 mm or 80 mm fan.

That Antec PSU is reasonably quiet. You can also check out PSUs from Fortron with a 120 mm fan.

The Big Typhoon comes with a quiet 120 mm cooling fan.

DELL's MB runs the fan at a lower speed...people often perceive a quiet PC as a quality PC. Unfortunately, the interior components will run hotter.

 

[Nolf3]

Thanks again SerpentRoyal! i really appreciate your help.