1st Time Building a New Machine

[Tropican8]

Hey all,

My old laptop's motherboard fried so I'm in need of a new computer. Since I never took the laptop anywhere, I've decided to go the desktop route. Many people on the internet have suggested I build a machine rather than buy, and it does in fact come out cheaper.

Now I'm very new to this, so I'd appreciate if I was given some pointers on what's a waste of money and what's not, with the goal being a perfectly balenced system for $1350

Here's what I have so far:

An Intel 950, which believe it or not blew away a 4200+ on this bench but still comes out cheaper. http://www.gamepc.com/labs/view_content.asp?id=pd900&page=11

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819116240

An Asus Socket T mobo that has an NForce chipset for future SLi and other goodies like firewire and SATA 3Gb/s.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813131564

The ram I knew nothing about really. I just got the cheapest one for a 667 slot that has a heat spreader and a cas latency of 4. Does a heat spreader and latency make a difference though? EDIT: Doesn't matter, cheapest one happens to have a cas latency of 4 and a heat spreader.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820141211

The case is the cheapest ATX one I could find with two 120mm fans.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16811147037

The Harddrive is the cheapest SATA3GB/sec over 100GB I saw that wasn't a deathstar. Again please advise if this is going to work.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822144415

The burner is the cheapest Dual Layer DVD+-RW drive. Turned out to be a sony.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16827131031

Finally the PSU is the cheapest one that was a name brand with decent wattage.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817103937

By the way I'm very new to this whole thing so anything that doesn't look right please point out. I also have no experience building a working box so if there are any books or websites I'll need to read beyond product manuals, link away.

My OSes will be Windows XP Pro dual booted with Debian AMD64 (works with EM64T too).

The card for now will be one of these:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16814130017

 

[jimytheassassin]

looks like you've been doing some reading.. be careful when you install in that rosewill case.. cheap cases are notorious for sharp edges and will slice you faster than a lightsaber if you aren't.

 

[The_Prophecy]

system looks great, but here are the changes I would make:

CPU: Pentium D 930

RAM: Swap the PQI stuff for this OCZ 2GB (2 x 1GB) DDR2-800

Overclock the 930 to 3.4Ghz (Stock speed of the 950). Doing this should save you about $100. With that extra 100... you could get a better video card like a 7900GT, or a bigger hard drive...