New build, need advice

TJmoney

Member
Nov 22, 2004
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I'm planning on building a new system pretty soon, but i'm hoping to cut a few corners to save a buck. Please reply telling me if any of this is going to hurt me too bad, or if anything is overkill.

case: Cooler Master Centurion 5 with included 350 watt coolermaster PS
Is this PS enough if i want to do some moderate overclocking? Here's the specs on it.

Mobo: waiting for nf4 to decide

Video: 6600GT. Gigabyte is the cheapest i can find right now... I know they are a good name, but does it really matter who makes it as long as the chipset is not neutered in some way?

Processor: Athlon64 3200+ 939 90nm

RAM: I'm thinking this PDP systems 2-3-2-5 PC3200 if you guys think it will overclock much (I don't mind relaxing the timings). If not theres some cheap PDP(patriot) pc4200 rated ram. Or maybe I should just break down and buy the expensive stuff I know will work. This is where I need advice the most.

Hard Drive : Seagate 160gb NCQ. NCQ is only a few bucks more, and will be supported on the NF4, so i figure I might as well.

Burner: NEC 3500A

CPU cooler: ?? Not sure what to use here. Is the stock AMD one any good, or should I buy a 3rd party one?

I'v built 1 system before, and had no problems at all (POSTed first try!) but have never overclocked. I understand how to do it, but have never actually done it. I'd like to overclock as much as possible without spending a fortune on a power supply and ram. The parts I'v listed are around $1000, and I really would like to avoid spending much more than that. I'd like to get more into gaming, but my p3 900 laptop w/256mb and a rage128 isn't cutting it. I also run gentoo, and would love to see my compiles get a bit faster.

Thanks in advance.

 

w00t

Diamond Member
Nov 5, 2004
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get better ram and better psu
video card will be fine dont get the cheapest stuff u can find
 

TJmoney

Member
Nov 22, 2004
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Is there really a difference between for example a 6800gt made by gigabyte vs one made my chaintech, or any other maker?

Also, how far can that psu take me? I really can't spend $80 on a psu, i'm only looking for a modest overclock here, and hoping to spend only modestly more than a non overclocking system to do it... It is a cooler-master, who has a great reputation as a case maker, so I doubt the psu is utter crap, though I'm not expecting it to be great either.

I'v seen this memory recomended in a couple threads, though I think its been by the same guy every time. Is it safe to buy this and save the $50 over a better known brand? I'm only really hoping to hit 250mhz max.
 

jpeyton

Moderator in SFF, Notebooks, Pre-Built/Barebones
Moderator
Aug 23, 2003
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Originally posted by: TJmoney
Any idea how much the memory I linked to in my origional post can do?

From the user reviews, looks like it will do ~220MHz without a problem with higher timings, don't know how much beyond that (not a lot of pro reviews I could find).