First Time Building a Computer ^_^

[pawz]

This is going to be my first time building a computer (kinda scared >_<). It's going to be used for mostly gaming. I've been trying to learn as much as I can and I hope what I am planning will work out. I am buying the parts soon and will appreciate any comments for improvement(which doesn't cost much more) or compatibility issues. These are my main parts as of now.

$180 Thermaltake Armor VA8000SWA Silver Aluminum ATX Full Tower Computer Case

$190 ASUS M2N32-SLI Deluxe Wireless Edition Socket AM2 NVIDIA nForce 590 SLI MCP ATX AMD Motherboard

$280 eVGA 512-P2-N637-AR GeForce 7950GT 512MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16 KO Superclocked Video Card

$118 COOLER MASTER RS-550-ACLY ATX12V/ EPS12V 550W Power Supply

$183 AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+ Windsor 2.2GHz Socket AM2 Processor Model ADA4200CUBOX

$300 CORSAIR XMS2 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model TWIN2X2048-6400C4

$450 Two Western Digital Raptor WD1500ADFD 150GB 10,000 RPM Serial ATA150 Hard Drive

Other Questions:
Best cooling ie:Hard drives, Fans (that I can mount w/o modding case), chipset? Quantity?

Efficient power supply?

Once again I appreciate any help.

(I am a newbie)

 

[apt403]

1st, budget? 2nd, screw amd, go for c2d, you selected ddr2 800 ram, so im assuming your going to oc, and if your not, well, you can save a load of money if you do.

change the mobo, cpu, ram to these

good asus board, featuring my favorite chipset, P965.
Asus P5B Deluxe - $178.99

contender now, oc it a little and it'll blow the athlon away.
E6300 - $180

cheaper ram, exact same performance.
G. Skill 2gb - $239.99

drop the raptors if you want and get an 8800gts with the money you saved, or a better c2d so you can get a higher overclock.

and one of these coolers for the cpu. there all great, but i like the scythe infinity the best.

Scythe Infinity
Zalman CNP9500
Thermaltake Big Typhoon
Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro
Tuniq Tower 120

 

[merc14]

I'm an AMD fanboy but have to agree that C2D is the way to go right now. I also agree that you should dump the Raptors and put the money into something that will give you more bang for the buck. Two 160GB SATA 300 disks in RAID 0 will only set you back about $150 and will give you great performance for level loading and booting etc. Throw that $300 savings at a DX10 card.

EDIT: Also, you may want a little beefier PSU. I'd suggest http://www.pcpower.com/products/viewproduct.php?show=S75EPS or the 610 watt model http://www.pcpower.com/products/viewproduct.php?show=S61EPS

Don't try and save money on the PSU, it will cost you later

 

[pawz]

Thank you for your very fast reply apt. I will definately consider that setup vs the amd. I'm just a lil hesitant since I've only been looking at amd parts. My budget is 2000-2200 and I will not be ocing right away since I still need to research that some more. So it will be some time before I'm comfortable with the idea of me doing it. As for the ram and cooler I have added into my build. Thanks again ^_^

 

[apt403]

so if your not oc-ing right away, and you have a fairly high budget you should probably go with the E6600 instead, that way you can keep it at stock for awhile if you need to.

 

[WR2]

AMD systems will be VERY good performers. Especially compared to systems 2 and 3 years ago. C2Ds have a slight edge and they will overclock easier and higher than AMD X2s. No matter which way you go you'll get a powerful system.
THG CPU Chart benchmarks AM2 X2 4600+ $250 vs C2D E6400 $230
Go through the different benchmarks and compare.
You have enough in your budget that you can build a really kick ass system with either a X2 5200 or C2D E6600.

 

[pawz]

Okay you two convinced me (Thanks apt and merc). I am gonna drop the amd and the raptors. So two of these instead? > http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822144122

Other questions: Do I need any hard drive or memory coolers? Is the onboard sound good enough. hehe okay maybe I'm asking for too much help now. ^_^

 

[WR2]

The case you chose has 2x90mm and 2x120mm which should help keep the HDs and RAM cool.
Onboard sound is good to start out with. If for some reason you find it's not good enough - a sound card upgrade is easy enough to do later.

 

[apt403]

hehe okay maybe I'm asking for too much help now. ^_^

nah, thats what the boards are for! as far as that hard drive goes, never get and IDE drive anymore.

get one or two of these, if two put them in RAID 0. should be plenty of storage.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822144417

hard drive and ram coolers arent need. onboard sound is fine unless your an audiophile. i dont really trust cooler master psu's, get one of these. kindof overkill, but you can never have enough power!

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817341001

 

[merc14]

No, those are IDE drives. You want SATA 300 drives. I updated my above post with two PSUs I'd recommend. Two 80GB SATA 300 in RAID 0 are a great combo and very inexpensive. I'd get a 160GB hard drive as well and leave it as a single off the RAID to store all your photos and music etc. on. That way when you reinstall XP you leve all your valuable data alone when you reformat the RAID array.

PSUs from me
Also, you may want a little beefier PSU. I'd suggest http://www.pcpower.com/products/viewproduct.php?show=S75EPS or the 610 watt model http://www.pcpower.com/products/viewproduct.php?show=S61EPS

Also, it is fine to ask advice. As Apt said, that is what the boards are for. The reason you are getting so much help is you did your homework and have some idea of what you are talking about. Everyone appreciates that and all have been in your shoes at one time. What ticks people off is the folks who don't bother doing any research and expect others to do the work for them. They end up being pains and usually screw up their build. 90% of a first time build is learning and you have done that.

 

[pawz]

Wow I'm so glad I posted. You guys have been so much help. Thanks alot. This is what I like so far. Hope those are the right ones you guys picked out for me.

$179 ASUS P5B Deluxe Socket T (LGA 775) Intel P965 Express ATX Intel Motherboard

$470 eVGA 640-P2-N821-AR GeForce 8800GTS 640MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16 HDCP Video Card

$210 PC Power & Cooling Silencer 750 EPS12V EPS12V 750W Power Supply

$308 Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 Conroe 2.4GHz LGA 775 Processor Model BX80557E6600

$240 G.SKILL 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model F2-6400CL4D-2GBPK -

$140 Two Western Digital Caviar SE WD2500JS 250GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive (Merc I couldn't find the ones you were talking about on newegg, are the ones you mentioned the same as apts?)

$43 Scythe SCINF-1000 120mm CPU Cooling Fan/Heatsink

 

[qrhetoric]

Hi,

Good luck with the build!

Guys, why are you telling him about overclocking, it's his first build.

I agree with everyone here, of course C2D is the best path now. And I agree also that Asus P5B Deluxe is probably a good choice.

I actually just build a computer last week, after extensive research, but I was unfortunately much more limited in budget than you apparently are. I got a Gigabyte motherboard for 110 (P965) and I'm quite happy. I used the E6400, which I percieve as the best value. More than that, may as well spend on a better video card instead.

Make sure you get a power supply with at lest 550 watts if you're going to get a good video card. And as for Raptors... Yes, they are fast, but Raid increases your chances of a failure... my brother in law had a failure in the exact configuration you mentioned a couple of months ago. I suggest getting one smaller raptor for fast data, and one seagate barracude .10 for large data.

Don't bother with the aftermarket heatsink, since you aren't overclocking.

When you open the chip package on the C2D, make sure your fingers NEVER touch the top or bottom of the chip, or the thermal solution on the bottom of the heatsink. Better yet, use latex gloves and you won't have to worry if you touch it (grease on fingers can ruin heat transfer). Also, be prepared to use a lot of force to push the four pins of the heatsink/fan into the motherboard.

Don't forget that the power supply comes with a special output that feeds directly into the end of your video card.

I don't remember if you mentioned soundcard... you'll need an audigy2/4 for games.

Good luck again!

 

[cdonato]

If you stay with AM2 you might want to check out the Asus Crosshair mobo. it's got great options, easy OC ability if you want to start playing with OC (that's what i've been up to) & looks pretty damn hot.

Also take a look at the Zalman CNPS9700 NT or CNPS9500 AM2 for a CPU cooler & don't forget the AS5. The artic clean also works nice to remove the pre-applied glop on the heatsinks

 

[apt403]

with the scythe infinity, you need to pick up some artic silver 5 thermal paste. other then that your system looks great!

Guys, why are you telling him about overclocking, it's his first build.

free performance.

I don't remember if you mentioned soundcard... you'll need an audigy2/4 for games.

um, onboard is fine.

 

[merc14]

(Merc I couldn't find the ones you were talking about on newegg, are the ones you mentioned the same as apts?)

I didn't link any drives but those are a great choice. I like to have a third drive off of the array for storage. When you reinstall your OS, something I do often, you need to reinstall the programs as well. Usually this means reformatting. I keep everything I care about on a third drive and just unplug it when I reinstall XP and all the pregrams. I have my setup configured like this:
RAID Array:
C: 10GB OS only
D: 3GB Virus, Spyware, drivers and utilities
E: 147GB All programs and junk
SEPARATE 250GB Drive:
P: 4GB Page File
F: Storage (Photos, documents, DVD Raw Footage and ISOs)
External HDD eSATA 320GB Back up of F: and other stuff.

In a reinstall I unplug the 250GB and reformat the entire RAID array and install XP and my programs. The 10GB OS partition allows you to defrag in about 5 minutes. Page File on the the separate drive saves wear and tear on the array (you shouldn't need much page with 2GB of RAM), saves more time on defrag and speeds things up a tiny bit.

 

[Rashind]

Guys, why are you telling him about overclocking, it's his first build.

[...]

I used the E6400, which I percieve as the best value. More than that, may as well spend on a better video card instead.

[...]

Don't bother with the aftermarket heatsink, since you aren't overclocking.

[...]

I don't remember if you mentioned soundcard... you'll need an audigy2/4 for games.

First, why does everyone discourage OCing for the first build? Back in the day, that might have made some sense, but C2D is incredibly easy to overclock. Sure, you can mess up, but that just means you have to step up slow and be cautious. Not OCing a C2D is throwing money away.

Second, even if you are OCing, you still probably don't need an aftermarket heatsink. It helps, if you're obsessed with low temps (either for it's own sake, or because you want your processor to last 4+ years), or if you plan to push the OCing REALLY far... but, that's a dangerous game even with a good heatsink/fan.

I agree about the soundcard. Onboard sound is adequate for 2.0/2.1 sound, IF it's not too crackly (a lot of onboard sound has big problems with this), but if you want to run 4.1 or better, or if you have problems with your onboard sound crackling, you'll want a soundcard. I've been recommending the audigy 4, but I've met with a lot of resistance: people want to recommend the new X-fi cards. The newer cards are better, but I think the tech has gotten to the level where you need a pretty good ear to tell. If MP3s@128 sound okay to you, dumping money into an X-fi is probably inadvisable.

[Edit follows]: Oh, I forgot to talk about the E6400. It's a good processor, especially if you plan to overclock, which you SHOULD. =D

 

[pawz]

Kay picked up thermal compound and also 250gb hard drive in addition to the two used for raid.

Thanks for all the tips too.

Thank you to everyone that helped out. <3
Merc and Apt, you two are awesome.