New gaming system, new builder, low budget

What PSU does the case come with?

I have the following system running on a 300W PSU- AMD 3000+ (939) MSI nForce 4 board 2x 512 DDR400 (dual channel) X800GT PCI-Express 2x 80GB Seagate Hdds in RAID0 and my DVD-RW. So i wouldn't upgrade the PSU yet.

Next I would buy a 3000+ to save a bit of money as there is only a tiny difference in performance between a 3000+ and a 3200+.

The slowest part in your setup is the Video card. With the money saved from doing the above put it into getting 6600 GT or an X800 GT (the X800 GT is better) The standard 6600 is not a very good card and the 256mb on it will not be used very often.

The sound on most motherboards is fine, unless you want to have a 5.1 or 7.1 setup. So don't waste money on getting a nice card yet.

All PSUs act like an expensive fuse- if it blows or there is a surge in the power, the chance of your hardware going is very very small.

When building the PC it is a good idea to find someone who knows about building PCs. It is easy to damage something when it is your first time and you're not sure what you are doing- I almost damaged the first PC I built!

here's some change:

we downgrade the CPU to 3000+ definitely

and yes save $$$ with value ram

and no you don buy 6600LE, at least a GT or 6800GS

No doubling drive size, you won't even fill 40gig if you don dump music and video on there

KEEP THE ASROCK, don't switch to NF4, the asrock is a heck lot quiter and the onboard sound is better

swtich the PSU to the aspire for 30 after rebate or this thermaltake for less power and no surge protection but for less shipping

that case got a raise in price, so what you do is get the Ultra Wizard UV blue with side window for 31.55 shipped from THENERD.NET.

Now you just saved like $50 bucks, then you drink one less can of coke for a month and !!! GET the 6800GS !!!! for like $200 and lot better performance . search the prices on pricegrabber.

for help, just ask us

hi everyone, thank you for the quick and clear responses.

I just have a couple more questions.

I'm very nervous about buying a case/psu combo because of what i've heard but if you think this psu can handle it, I'd jump at the chance to save some dough. Antec Solutions

Will that Psu be able to handle the 6800gs? also which manufacturer should i choose? eVGA, XFX, Gigabyte, MSI, Verto?

I like the idea of the ASrock having both the AGP and Pci-e, but since i'm getting a Pci-e card i don't want to spend money on a feature that i'm not going to use, would there be any better options in the $70-$80 price range?


I am going to go with the corsair valueselect ram and the amd athlon 64 3000+ to save some cash. also the 80gb hd is not so bad since this computer will only house games. and this is an upgrade that i can do later without consequence (when the 80 is filled, which i don't see happening soon).

thanks a lot for all of your help guys, Joe.

That case is a good one cause it has one 120mm fan, vent for cpu (which has no noise and is more effective than a 80mm fan there), plus a quality PSU.

The MSI mobo is fine except it doesn't have SATAII (something you'll need when you upgrade) and the M2 upgrade socket (although running M2 with DDR is not the best) and worse sound and it's louder. (I'm trying to get you to buy the asrock, you see......but the asrock has it's own problems too, like layout). It really depends, I don wanna NF4 in the lower-end range. You are not paying for the AGP part anyway and you can't find better mobos that's cheaper than the asrock or MSI.

must be Powercolor???????? What are you talking about? Also, buying made by ATI cards gets you higher prices and stock performance, not that good of an idea.

As for the 6800GS, get the eVGA or XFX, they are the cheapest and very reliable. Monarchcomputer has the eVGA for 195 with 3 bucks shipping. Oh, any of the brand you listed is good buy. Just go for the lowest price.