Newbie building a PC, please critique my part list.

[ArmchairAthlete]

Hi everyone, I just registered for this forum and I've already seen how great of a site anandtech.com is.

I've had my current Dell PC for about 2 years now, and it is really becoming obsolete (mainly due to the fact that it has NO AGP SLOT). Ok, so I was a total newbie when I got this thing. This time things are going to be different however, I have decided to build the PC myself so I know I am getting a PC that has good parts, can be upgraded easily, and will have one of those cool cases with a window/neon/front USB. I also feel building my own PC will be a fun project and will be something to be proud of once it is complete.


*** Parts I can reuse ***


First off I have chosen to reuse several parts to save money. These may be:

*Western Digital 80GB 7200RPM ATA-100 hard drive I just bought (old 10GB was FULL)

*Mitsumi CR-4802TE CD-RW drive 12x read / 4x burn (slow but it works)

*32x CD drive (had a 48x but it broke, this one a friend is giving me)

*D-Link DFE-530TX 10/100 LAN PCI Card

*Sound Blaster Live! Value PCI Card

*Dell E770s 17" Monitor

*Dell QuietKey Keyboard

*Compaq Optical Mouse

*Harman/kardon speakers

*Floppy Drive



I may buy a DVD drive or a fast CD-RW drive later, but I think I need to spend the money on other parts first.



*** Parts to buy ***
*** Budget = roughly $700 ***

I think I will be using newegg.com to buy this stuff as they are the best site I have seen so far to order parts from. Feel free to suggest another if you like.

*Mid-tower ATX case (preferably with a window, and front USB). I'm not sure about the power supply size (350W?). If it comes with a neon light that's great, but I can always add one pretty easily. Some come with fans but I'm not sure how many I'll need and I don't want the fans to be real loud.

*Processor (Intel Pentium 4 @ 2.4 ghz looks like the best value for my budget)

*Motherboard (A P4 seems the best choice right now. I'm not sure how important AGP 8x is. This is an area I could really use suggestions in.)

*RAM (I think I will buy 256MB now due to the budget and add more later)

*Video Card (9500 Pro looks promising, if I can find one for under $200)



*** Current newegg.com parts Wishlist ***


*CHENMING Server Chasis (Workstation Tower) Model DX-01BD 420W BLACK COLOR w/ large acrylic window **Now w/ Front USB ports** AMD Approved Power Supply Front Accessible: 4 x 5.25", 2 x 3.5", Internal: 4 x 3.5". Power Supply: Turbo Link (P4) 420 watts ATX 12V- w/ 2 Case Fans

PICTURES

$80.00

*Gigabyte GA-8SG667,SIS 648 chipset Socket 478 P4 ATX motherboard RETAIL
Specifications:
Supported CPU:Socket 478 for Intel® Pentium® 4 processor
Chipset:Northbridge: SiS648 Southbridge: SiS963
FSB:533/400 MHz
RAM:3x DDR 3200,2700,2100 184 Pin Up to 3GB DDR266 by 3 DIMM slots or up to 2GB DDR333 by 2 DIMM slots
IDE:2 x UDMA ATA 133/100/66 Bus Master IDE ports
Slots:1 x AGP (8x/4x, AGP 3.0/2.0 compliant 5 x PCI slots
Ports:2xPS2,2xUSB,2xCOM,1xLPT Audio and game port (see pics)
Onboard Audio: REALTEK ALC650 codec chip Model#: GA-8SG667

$93.00

*Intel Pentium 4 2.4BGHz 512K 533MHz CPU Northwood P478 Processor Retail Box
Specifications:
CPU: Pentium 4 P4 2.4BGHz Northwood
Type: Northwood
Cache: 512K
BUS: 533MHz
Socket: P4 478
Retail Box (with Heatsink and fan) Model#: BX80532PE2400D

$193.00

*Samsung Original DDR400 PC-3200 256MB CAS 3 - OEM Version
DDR 400MHz True PC 3200 chip (Not over clock from PC-2700 chip) New release for Best Performance-Lifetime warranty Model#: M368L3223DTM-CC400

$93.00

*ATI RADEON 9500 PRO 128MB DDR DVI AGP RETAIL
Specifications:
Chipset:9500 PRO Visual Processing Unit
Engine clock: 275 MHz
Memory:128MB of double data rate SDRAM
Memory speed: 540 MHz
Eight parallel rendering pipelines
Four parallel geometry engines
128-bit DDR memory interface
BUS: AGP 8X support
OS Support: Windows® XP, Windows® 2000, Windows® Me
Ports; VGA + DVI + S-Video
Retail box

$198.00

TOTAL: $657.00

So there's my current list of parts to buy. My primary concern right now is to have someone post and tell me if this stuff is even compatible so I feel safe buying it. It would also be great if any veteran PC builders here could suggest different parts (within the price range of course).

Big thanks to everyone who reads this, and even more for their advice!

 

[Barnaby W. Füi]

32x is *fine*, going any higher wont make any big difference.

afaik agp8x is no big deal. things like agp2x, 4x, 8x, ATA66/100/133, etc, arent really that important early on in their life cycle. that is, unless, agp8x has some new features or something that i'm unaware of.

everything looks good to me. then again i'm not all that up to date anymore 😉

 

[ArmchairAthlete]

Ok thanks for the help.

Maybe I can sum this whole thing up and say:

"What is the best -mobo/processor/ram/video card/case- gaming bundle I can make for under $700?"

I'm not in a huge rush, I plan on ordering the parts at the beggining of January.

Anyone know when Radeon 9500 Pros will probably be on newegg.com?

 

[spanky]

u're still under ur budget... splurge and get a 40x cdrw 😀

 

[CrazySaint]

AFAIK, 9500 Pros should be available in retail channels in the next 7-10 days. Your setup looks pretty good, as long as you don't plan on overclocking. AGP8X is a non-issue.

 

[ArmchairAthlete]

u're still under ur budget... splurge and get a 40x cdrw

Well once I put the Radeon 9500 Pro on there the price will go up a bit. Plus shipping isn't added there. I'd probably buy another stick of RAM before a fast CD-RW drive anyhow, gaming performance is my primary goal for the machine.

Your setup looks pretty good, as long as you don't plan on overclocking.

Alright, so all this stuff is compatible? And you wouldn't change anything if you were buying parts for a gaming PC with the same budget?


Also, I was originally planning on getting an Asus P4S8X with the same chipset. However after reading an article on Anandtech.com about the Asus board's performance when compared to some other boards and realizing I didn't need the onboard LAN or sound on the Asus board I decided the Gibabyte one would be better. The Gigabyte GA-8SG667 outperformed the Asus P4S8X in Anandtech's gaming tests and for a much lower cost since it didn't have features I didn't need. Good choice here?

 

[bgeh]

Also, I was originally planning on getting an Asus P4S8X with the same chipset. However after reading an article on Anandtech.com about the Asus board's performance when compared to some other boards and realizing I didn't need the onboard LAN or sound on the Asus board I decided the Gibabyte one would be better. The Gigabyte GA-8SG667 outperformed the Asus P4S8X in Anandtech's gaming tests and for a much lower cost since it didn't have features I didn't need. Good choice here?

yes, i agree with you. asus usually charges higher.back here in malaysia the price difference is around us$30,which is a lot to us malaysians