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Is this my best choice?

P

pinflo76

Junior Member
I have decided after talking to several people that I should build my own PC. Now I would like your help in telling me if I have the right hardware to build the neccesary PC.

I would like to be able to play games (ex: Roller Coaster Tycoon 3) without screen lag, be able to watch videos up to date, and listen to my 10,000 song library clearly.

This is what I am looking at buying:

Rosewill R-Y862 Black SGCC ATX Mid Tower Computer Case ATX 350W power supply for AMD/Intel with 20+4 pin main connector Power Supply - Retail

Maxtor DiamondMax 10 6L200S0 200GB 7200 RPM Serial ATA150 Hard Drive - OEM

ECS RS482-M (1.0A) Socket 939 ATI Radeon XPRESS 200 Micro ATX AMD Motherboard - Retail

SONY Beige IDE CD-ROM Drive Model CDU5225 - OEM

Unincom U8025 80mm Sleeve Cooling Fan - Retail

AMPO 1GB (2 x 512MB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM DDR 400 (PC 3200) Dual Channel Kit System Memory Model 3AMD1400-1GK-R - Retail

AMD Athlon 64 3800+ Venice 2.4GHz Socket 939 Processor Model ADA3800BPBOX - Retail


I hate to say it, but I only have a small grip on what I am doing here. I would appriciate someones help in telling me if it sounds like i am building a suitable PC. None of this hardware is set in stone so I am open to suggestions. I have however already bought a 256 mb PCI-E video card, so please keep that in mind.

I will be eternally greatful for all your help Thank You.
 
what video card do you have?

most people will frown upon rosewill and ecs, i have never heard of ampo but others may have.

when you talke about "videos up to date" do you mean @ 1920x1080 as in 1080i or something else?

what are the requirements for roller coaster tyconn 3?

what is your budget?
 
My video card is an ASUS EN6200TC 512/TD/256M Geforce 6200TC 256M (Effective memory 512M) GDDR2 PCI Express x16 Low Profile Video Card

Videos up to date, I basically mean Videos in general TFT 17" quality I am not hooking it up to my HD flatsceen any time soon, (I know almost any computer is capable of running vidoes) so just forget about this requirement

Right now I am working in the $500 price range, so I am going to have to stick with Rosewell and ecs in less you know of cheap alternatives. Or and ampo is a no name, cheap brand but it had good reviews.
 
If your going to use that video card, you'll probably wan't to look at getting some more ram, I believe the 6200TC steals it for its own use. 🙂
 
The case/PSU, motherboard are problem areas. Rosewill & ECS is junk, 1GB is not enough RAM for a moderm system. There is also no excuse not to have a optical drive that is able to at least read if not write DVD discs.

InWin make some very solid cases with ok bundled PSUs; here is one example of many. If you want a better (cleaner power, relaiblity and longevity) PSU I would suggest the Seasonic S12; the 330 watt version would be plenty for what you intend to power, the 380 watt will cover just about any future upgrade.

Socket AM2 is the successor to 939, so AM2 is definitely the way to go, this MSI looks good.

For the RAM I would stick with the trusted and reliable names; Corsair, Kingston, Crucial, and Mushkin. For the optical drive I prefer Samsung.
 
Operandi, I have decided to go with some of your proposals. Obviously I have not done enough research, AM2 is the same price.

The MSI mobo is awesome with great expandibility in the future, I can now use SATA 3.0Gb/s, which means a cheaper hard drive, and DDR2= cheaper RAM (Kingston).

The case is excellent with great reviews, I think I will stick with the PSU bundle.

I went for the Sony (sorry not samsung) DVD Burner.

I am still sticking with 1 gb of ram, I will expand later on.

All this for only an extra $40. I can not thank you enough.
I would still appriciate more posts on this topic
 
You might want to consider a floppy drive for bios updates, SATA drivers, etc.. Since you seem to really be into your media, a larger hd might be worth considering (been some great deals lately), or you might want to add another later. Can't tell from the pics, but if there is a mount for a front fan to cool the hds, I would add one.

As an aside, I am sorry to hear you bought a Sony drive. I don't think they deserve our money. When you listen to their high ranking execs tell us what they think of us (DRM - "Most of our customers don't even know what a rootkit is, why should they care?"......in reference to making backups of DVDs - "We would rather you bought another one if your kid breaks it."), it appears that they do not care about the consumer at all.
 
Originally posted by: pinflo76
Operandi, I have decided to go with some of your proposals. Obviously I have not done enough research, AM2 is the same price.

The MSI mobo is awesome with great expandibility in the future, I can now use SATA 3.0Gb/s, which means a cheaper hard drive, and DDR2= cheaper RAM (Kingston).

The case is excellent with great reviews, I think I will stick with the PSU bundle.

I went for the Sony (sorry not samsung) DVD Burner.

I am still sticking with 1 gb of ram, I will expand later on.

All this for only an extra $40. I can not thank you enough.
I would still appriciate more posts on this topic
Click to expand...

NP,

Make sure you get your RAM in 1GB sticks (not 512) as populating more then two DIMMS should be avoided if it can.
 
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