Looking for advice on first build

Here are specs so far.

Antec LifeStyle SONATA II Piano Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case 450Watt SmartPower 2.0 ATX 12V V2.0 for AMD & Intel systems Power Supply - $99.99

ASUS A8N-E Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce4 Ultra ATX AMD Motherboard - $90.99

eVGA 256-P2-N377-AX Geforce 6800Ultra 256MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16 Video Card - $259.00

AMD Athlon 64 3200+ Venice 1GHz HT Socket 939 Processor Model ADA3200BPBOX - $159.00

CORSAIR ValueSelect 1GB (2 x 512MB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM DDR 400 (PC 3200) Unbuffered Dual Channel Kit System Memory Model VS1GBKIT400 - $66.50

Fan/Heatsink - will i need it?

Total $675

My budget is around 800-900 and im planning on buying the HD from fry's. Any help is appreciated. Thanks.

Looks great

Great parts all around but I would agree with the other poster that suggested the 7900GT it is a much better card and is only $299 and (should be) dropping in price.

Good luck!

agree w/the 7900gt.

u dun necessarily need xms unless u wanna oc, cheap xms really isn't worth that much anyway, although at 66.50, u mite be looking @ cas3 valueselect, mite wanna either go w/the <100 xms or at least cas2.5 valueselect that should be maybe 15 bucks more

see if u can get the ada3200[CG]box 3200, that should be 10-20 bucks more aftermarket msf only if you wanna OC like crazy, the stock setup should be able to give you 2.4-2.5ghz, so theres really no need to get one. nab a $40 lite-on dvdrw drive, i do NOT advise the lightscribe version unless you have a particular commercial need for it.

ps.
in regards to the previous post, i have not had any bad experience dealing w/corsair's valueselect ram, aside from not being able to run as fast as ram that costs twice as much

Get a Retail boxed CPU -- it will include a very good heatsink and fan + a 3 yr warranty for only a couple of bucks more.


OEM = NO warranty NO heatsink or fan




EDIT: The CPU you selected is retail boxed so it already comes with a heatsink and fan and thermal pad / heatsink compound so you're covered. You do not need anything else.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6819103535

Agree/disagree

The 7900 is a better choice

The 3700 would be a better choice. I have both those chips, and the 3700 is signifigantly faster, and has more cache. A plus for playing games. oc'ing is ok, but I'm assuming, first build, you don't know much about it. Not worth the risk if you are unsure.

Dual core chips are "in", and looking into buying one now, would be something to think about.

apps and games will become more and more dual core friendly. And you'll be able to do 2 or more things at once, instead of waiting for one task to end so you can start another one.... just food for thought

Stock heatsink and fan are adequate, don't worry about that

Value select is ok memory. Can upgrade later if desired.

mobo: I see you chose one that only has one pci-e slot

Biostar 6100-939... stable, cheaper
asus a8n-vm csm slightly faster, a little cheaper

Just suggestions, I'm sire the one you picked will work out.

Not sure if you're kidding or not...... maybe on ebay but I would not necessarily expect it to work...

Watch out for all the scammers and people charging $2 for the product and $80 to ship it.

http://www.ebay.com.au/

I don't think there is ebay NZ


You might also want to check out geeks.com

http://geeks.com/

They ship internationally and they SOMETIMES have good deals on old or obsolete stuff. Not so much on new stuff.

http://www.resellerratings.com/seller2103.html

The cheaper one has 128MB GDDR2 @ 700MHz while the more expensive one has 256MB GDDR3 @980MHz

The GDDR3 is better. The fact you get 2x the RAM is a plus but not as important a factor as you might think.

You really do not want the AGP one though. PCI-Express is a lot better.

You might want to consider a 7600GT however... @ $189

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] x=0&Go.y=0

It is a newer card, supports Shader 3.0, runs cooler, consumes less power and runs better in OpenGL in D3D it's hard to tell.

Indeed :-D

And the ASUS A8N-E Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce4 Ultra ATX AMD Motherboard - $90.99

ONLY supports PCI-Express so you need to get a PCI-Express board. AGP will not work.