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Here's what I want to do....

S

salz

Member
This is going to be the first computer I've ever built, and I think within the next week or two I'm going to start ordering parts. I think I've gotten everything straightened out, and this should be my final list of components before I start ordering. Anyway, here's what I want to put to together.

Lian-Li PC-65 Case
Antec 430W PSU
Gigabyte 7VRXP KT333
AMD Athlon XP 1800+
Samsung DDR333 PC2700 512MB (OEM)
Maxtor Quiet Drive 40GB 7200RPM (OEM)
Gainward GeForce4 Ti4200
Sound Blaster Audigy Gamer
Altec Lansing 4.1 4100 Speakers
Toshiba Internal DVD (16x/48x)
Lite-On 40x12x48 CDRW
Samsung 181T LCD

The keyboard and mouse are still undecided, but I think I'll be getting the Logitech dual optical mouse. I'm going to bring this to college with me and I'll be installing Windows XP Pro and Office XP Pro. Without the windows software, keyboard and mouse, it comes out to around $2100 without shipping charges (what do you think of the price?). I will be ordering most of this from newegg, with a couple other sites for seemingly good deals that I found.

So what do you guys think? Anything you dislike? As I said, this will be the first computer I've ever built, so I'm a little anxious (and worried I'm going to make some huge mistake 😕 ) Any help would be appreciated.
 
looks good to me. just take care when putting the system together and dont do anything stupid like put the heatsink fan on backwards, or crack the core with carelessness.
 
Unless you really want the extra software that comes with the Audigy, get the OEM. Not sure the price difference, but it's the same card minus some free games.

Everything else looks fine. Great choice on the Gainward 4200...I got mine and I absolutely love it.
 
Are you getting the LCD for space reasons, because I have found that I despise playing on one....

The Lian Li PC-65 is awesome.. basically what I have (PC-60 wth the PC-65s side window and a few other...mods)... You might consider getting a little more powerful fan for the rear 80mm in that one and a slot blower over your video if you have room... those 2 things I have found helped my airflow a bit (of course, the 120mm fan in the top of the case helps too ;-) )

I would also "second" that suggestion at a second hard drive. Im not a big fan of maxtor either, there have been a LOT of people lately that I know of having problems with Maxtor drives being unnecisarilly slow under Windows XP. Ive had bad experiences with them before... but in this case... one of my closer friends actually chose to take my ATA66 Seagate to replace his ATA100 maxtor because his Maxtor was being such a tird. I would reconsider which brand of HDD you buy... look at Seagate, the real Quantums, WDs....

Nice speaker set.... I also "second" that you should consider the options you really need in a sound card... It has recently become obvious to me that my sound card has probably been the cause of more conflicts int he past year or so because of the lack of support for updated drivers, etc... Now its just fine, but for a while, my 5.1 was in the stage that the Audigy is in now... less support, more hardware conflicts....

Im not a fan of Toshiba drives... but thats just me. I havent had one in a while, their quality has probably improved. Still, I prefer Pioneer and Samsung.

LoRdAccord
 
I would reconsider which brand of HDD you buy
Click to expand...

I'm going to have to disagree with that one. As far as I'm concerced, Maxtor is the king of reliability. Right now I'm running a 40 gig 7200 rpm drive and some really really old 8 gig, both made my maxtor. I havn't had a problem with either. Between the comparable drives of the major manufacturers, I'd go with whatever is cheapest.

Edit: You're going to be amazed the first time you actually look at your case, I know I was...
 
Thanks for the responses guys, they're great. Now to answer some questions. Yes, the main reason why I'm choosing an LCD is for space. I'm taking this to college with me and I don't want a 21" CRT taking up half of my room (that's what I was thinking about getting before). Also, after reading many responses on these forums I feel as though the newer LCD's should not be too much of a problem with gaming (I play counter-strike), and the only noticeable difference is a slight blur of the walls when moving very quickly. Thanks for telling me about getting the sound card OEM. I wasn't too sure what I should get OEM and what I shouldn't at one point, so I tried to avoid it, but what you said makes sense. About the hard drives, I think I'm going to stick with Maxtor, but I might add a second. I chose a 40GB drive because I currently have a 27GB drive and after three (or more, I don't really remember) years of use, I still have about 17GB's free. But I might get a second drive for backup reasons, just to make things easier. Anyone else want to chime in? If I got two drives, what do you guys think about setting up a RAID configuration? I wouldn't be looking so much for increased speed, I just want to be able to backup what's on one drive in case something goes wrong with the other. Thanks again

Oh, and I'm already amazed by the case, even though I've only seen pictures! 😀
 
Looks like a great system. I would suggest getting maybe 2 x 20GB hard drives and raiding them together. I would actually say 2 x 40, but if you dont use that much space. But trust me, once you get that fast system, you will be geting divx's and mp3's galore, and those hog disk space pretty bad!
 
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