Newbies Need Help w/ Building High-End System

[LordFortius]

Hey everyone, I'm new here, so if I say something stupid, please forgive me, k? Also, sorry if any of my questions have already been posted many other times. Anyway..

A friend and I are building a new high-end system. Neither of us have ever built a whole computer before, however we are pretty experienced installing RAM, vid cards, mobos, etc. We can't order everything till next month because its not all available yet, but here are the specs we are going for right now:

1.2ghz Athlon w/266mhz bus
TaiSol CGK742092 HSF
ASUS A7M266
256mb CRUCIAL PC2100 DDR SDRAM
45GB IBM Deskstar 75gxp 45gb
Plextor 16x10x40
Hercules 3d Prophet III
Cooler Master ATC-201
Sparkle 350w PS
Windows 2000 Professional

We will be getting the NIC, modem, DVD-ROM, disk drive, and sound card from an older computer.

Here are my questions:
Are we forgetting any parts?
Any major incompatibilities?
Will the heatsink be able to fit on the motherboard?
Anything kinky besides the RAM voltage settings that I should know about the motherboard?
Would I be better off with a Lian Li PC60 case?
Do I need a better power supply?

Thanks in advance for any help.

 

[KameLeon]

The Aluminum case is sweet!
Get it, if you can afford it!

If you still have a month, You might as well get a motherboard based on the KT266 chipset, which will hopefully be out within that time, instead of the A7M266.



<< 256mb CRUCIAL PC100 DDR SDRAM >>


You mean PC2100, right?

Everything else seems fine. The 1.3ghz thunderbirds have also started to appear too..

 

[LordFortius]

Yeah, Pc2100. I just edited that. Thx

 

[Hoober]

You might want to look around for a better/bigger heatsink, especially if you're interested in Overclocking your T-Bird. Anand has a decent review of heatsinks/fans. So does tomshardware. I'd look into both reviews.

 

[Howard]

Try the Thermosonic Thermoengine from Azzo instead. Better cooling.

You'll want a CD-ROM drive, unless you plan to use the DVD-ROM to read CDs.

Are you really sure you want a Geforce 3? If so, I'd grab ASUS's V8200.

I'd take an Enermax 330W power supply instead.

 

[Howard]

CRUCIAL DOES NOT OFFER PC2100 MEMORY AS OF NOW.

 

[LordFortius]

No, they don't offer it now. But supposedly they will have it on their site in 30-60 days. I just figure its better to wait a month so I can pay maybe $150 at crucial for a 256mb pc2100 dimm than go to mushkin now and pay 400 bucks. Even if Crucial goes up to $200 its still a better deal. We've got a pretty high budget for this system, but there's no reason to waste money like that, so I am being pretty careful about getting good deals on components. Also, what are the advantages of getting a V8200 over a Prophet III?

Anyway, thanks for your posts, and I'll definitely look into getting that heatsink.

 

[Howard]

But other than that, it's pretty sweet.

AMD Thunderbird 1200MHz - $230
Thermosonic Thermoengine - $35 (Good performance, not very loud)
ASUS A7M266 - $200
(2) Samsung PC2100 DDR-SDRAM - $260
IBM 75GXP 45GB - $175
Plextor 16x10x40A - $210 from Hot Deals Forum
ASUS V8200 - $530
Enermax 330W PSU - $70 (Higher quality)
Lite-On FS020 - $180 (Better ventilation)

--------------------------------------------
MONITOR: Samsung 1200NF 21&quot; Flat-screen - $750
SPEAKERS: Klipsch ProMedia 4.2 - $320
--------------------------------------------

Total - $2940 + tax (shipping already calculated)

Modem
NIC
Sound Card
Floppy Drive

 

[Howard]

 

[Maverick]

looks good to me, I don't see any glaring incompatibilities.
You might want to listen your sound card, modem, and netcard too.
Those can sometimes be incompatible since they often share IRQs.

 

[hifimaster]

I love my ATC-201,its light and it looks really really really nice Good airflow as well,my mobo temps are 20c (70f) all the time(or whatever the room temp is.

 

[Howard]

LordFortius, could you please enable Private Messages? You can do this by clicking on Profile, and click on the Yes bubble right next to Allow Private Messages:.

 

[LordFortius]

Ok, I did that.

 

[SammyBoy]

how about the volcanoII for a heatsinc. do you think that this would be comparable to the thermoengine with a stock fan??? I want this too so please reply, hehe

 

[LordFortius]

I was just reading the posts about scsi and I kind of got thinking. Would it help me in speed much if I got say, a small SCSI hd around 12gb for the OS and Apps, and kept an IDE HD for mass storage, would I see much of a performance gain?