Hello Everyone! My 1st build, opinions appreciated!

[MrSparkle]

Hello everyone,

I just recently found this site and have spent some time here reading up before making my decisions on what I think is the right system for me. This system will be replacing the 1999 Dell 1Ghz P3 that I am typing this on right now. It will be my basic home/office PC that will need to be a little juiced up for my home hobby recording studio stuff. I do not have a lot of money to spend so I am trying to make this PC from the least I can whilst having a lot of room for upgrading later without it getting outdated so fast. Also remember that I am used to the 1999 Dell that I've been using for years, so I feel that I will see an amazing improvement with todays middle of the road hardware.

This will be my first build. Here is a rundown of what I want to build, if anyone has any suggestions please let me know:

--Antec Sonata II case
--Asus M2N nForce 430 Socket AM2 (switched to this socket cause I heard 939 is fading)
--AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual-Core Processor 3800+ Socket AM2
--Kingston KVR800D2N5/1G 1GB DDR2-800 PC2-6400 ECC Memory (its one 1GB stick to save room for upgrading, should I get matched 512's instead?)
--Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 250GB Serial ATA (3.0Gb/s) 7200RPM Hard Drive w/8MB (I was going to partition this drive so the OS is by itself, I heard this is good to do for audio recording, anyone chime in here?)
--Samsung 18X Dual Layer DVD±RW Drive w/Lightscribe
--Windows XP Home edition (no need for Vista yet i don't think?)
--Some decent cheap video card if I need it (Do I? Not a huge gamer, some here, some there mostly older games)
I'll trust onboard sound on this card because my dell card works fine for what I have been doing and I assume the onboard sound on this mobo is of better quality than that dinasour.

Ok, thats enough of my rambling first post.

Thanks!

Jesse

[Alaron]

Welcome to PCMech.

Are you completely set on AMD? I can piece together an Intel Core 2 Duo based machine for only a few dollars more that will outperform that system. If you're interested, use the Asus P5L-MX motherboard, an Intel Core 2 Duo e6300 and 1GB Corsair Value Select DDR2-667. Then use the other parts you listed.

As for the build you posted, if you want to stick with AMD, it needs a bit of tweaking. Go with 2x512 sticks of RAM, your board has 4 slots total. You also want non-ECC memory. ECC is only for servers.

Check to make sure that Samsung drive comes with burning software. Some models do and some do not.

My Intel build has onboard video, which would save you the cost of a video card. Otherwise, toss in a Radeon X1300 card that is not Hypermemory.

[newbuilder14]

Which exact Asus motherboard? Usually the boards with nForce 430 Southbridge have onboard GeForce graphics.

There is a 65W version of that processor.

Go for Corsair XMS2 memory, DDR2-800, CAS5.

Go for a 7200.10 SATA drive with 16MB of cache.

Go for a retail Lite-On DVD burner.

I'd recommend Windows XP Home OEM with a Vista upgrade coupon


However, as Alaron has suggested, I highly recommend an Intel system myself. DDR2-667 memory has come down in price and an E6300 will outperform that setup. I'd pair it with a P5B-VM or P5B with Corsair ValueSelect DDR2-667 memory and the other components chosen above.

[MrSparkle]

Hey thanks for the quick replies guys!

After reading your posts I have decided to go intel, I wanted to but didn't realize I could fit it into my pricerange until you guys chimed in, thanks. I have lined up the following system now:

--Antec SONATA II Case
--ASUS P5B board
--Intel Core 2 Duo E6300 Conroe 1.86Ghz
--2 GB DDR2 667 (2x1GB) of Corsair Value select memory
--Western Digital Caviar 250GB 16mb SATA HD (Picked this over the Seagate, reviews say its quieter, thats all.)
--Retail LITE-ON DVD Burner with Lightscribe
--Windows XP Media OEM with Vista Coupon (Is this version of any benefit to me over Home for my home hobby recording?)

Better machine now, eh?

[Khalil]

Intel is not better than AMD, at this time however Intel has the lead with the Core 2 Duo processors and you would be better of with them. For many years AMD led the way and may do so soon with the AM3. I have an AM2 and I am very pleaesd with it however I have to admit the socket 939 was better than the AM2. The core2duo for you is definately a better choice at this time.

[Staren]

Looks like you've been reading. That's pretty much the standard build suggestion for a lower budget build these days. If you want to go a little quieter on the hard drive, that works fine. Seagate is the main suggestion because of the warranty, but the WD equivalent is just as good. I personally prefer XP Home wth seprate software for multimedia, but with the way the Vista upgrades work, go ahead and go with MCE. It will work fine (its really just Home with the media stuff on top. You could get rid of it if you wanted to go to the trouble), and with MCE you get Vista Home Premium. You get Home Basic with Home.

[glc]

Get the P5B-VM to get the onboard video. The base P5B has no video. The VM does have a slot to add a video card later. With 2 gigs of ram, the onboard X3000 video should serve you very well unless you wanted to start gaming and it's Vista Aero compatible. If possible get a SATA DVD burner instead of IDE.

[MrSparkle]

Ok, so I been doing a little more research and I came up with this machine as an alternative to the previous one, I decided to go with a soundcard and vidcard to step up this build. Please let me know if this one looks ok. I need to buy some of this stuff by the end of the weekend to be eligible for some of the rebates.

If you have any helpful info or see any stuff you think is overkill please tell, this will be my first build ever.



-Antec Sonata II case (nice rebate now)

-ASUS P5N-E SLI LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 650i SLI ATX Intel Motherboard
(The SLI is of no use to me but can't do micro ATX, I need the slots and 1394 plugs for stuff I have)

-Intel® Core 2 Duo E6300 Conroe Processor

-Corsair TWIN2X2048-6400 2GB Kit DDR2-800 XMS2-6400 (Nice rebate now)

-Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 ST3320620AS 320GB SATA 7200RPM Hard Drive w/16MB Buffer

- ASUS DRW-1612BL 16X Dual Layer DVD±RW Drive w/LightScribe (Black) Retail (Its IDE not SATA, is this a big deal?? I am ordering from Zipzoomfly (I get taxed on Newegg) and they do not have a retail SATA DVD-RW w/ Lightscribe, only IDE optical drives w/ Lightscribe.

-Creative Labs Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Audio Sound Card Retail (Prolly overkill but there is a huge rebate on this card right now)

-Asus EN7300GT SILENT/HTD/256M GeForce 7300 GT PCI Express 256MB DDR2 Video Card w/DVI (Good reviews, good specs, no fan so its quiet)

[Freakitchen]

If you need an ATX board with firewire, go for the ASUS P5B-E (the standard P5B does not have firewire)

You can go for Corsair Value Select DDR2-667 if you're not overclocking. But if the rebate on the XMS takes the price below the VS, then by all means go for it.

SATA Opticals are recommended for P965 systems. The IDE controller on the board is 3rd-party, and does not play nice with all IDE opticals. I believe ZZF have a Lite-on SATA optical, you should go for a retail boxed burner to get software. Think if you really want lightscribe - the media is expensive, and it takes a long time to burn the image.

FK

[MrSparkle]

Ok, I took your advice and ditched the lightscribe to get the Retail Lite-On SATA burner and decided to stick with the ASUS P5B series boards. I have been thinking and I could get away with a Micro ATX board like the ASUS P5B-VM if I really wanted to, but the P5B Deluxe has all the bells and whistles for only $50 more, so whats $50 when your plopping down around a grand right?

Also, the XMS rebate brings it down to the same price as the value select line right now so XMS it is.

Thanks!

[Freakitchen]

You don't *need* the P5B Deluxe - the extra expense over the P5B-E is for a second PCI-E x16 Video card slot - completely unnecessary for a non-gamer like yourself.

FK

[MrSparkle]

You don't *need* the P5B Deluxe - the extra expense over the P5B-E is for a second PCI-E x16 Video card slot - completely unnecessary for a non-gamer like yourself.

FK

You the man, I did not notice that was the only difference. Thanks for all your help I think I have my final answer:

Antec Sonata II Case
Asus P5B-E
Intel Core 2 Duo E6300 Conroe
2GB Corsair XMS2 DDR800
Seagate 320gb 7200/16mb SATA
Lite-On DVD-RW SATA Retail
Above mentioned sound and Vid cards
Windows XP Home OEM (I don't want all the crap that comes with Media edition)

and a lot of patience putting this thing together and praying it boots on the first try LOL!

[Freakitchen]

Looks spot on. My suggestion for the build is to follow the steps in this thread before you start assembling things in the case. It confirms your core components are working right. I've built plenty systems, and still do this before each one. It's saved me a lot of time over when I used to build without doing so.

http://forum.pcmech.com/showthread.php?t=132409

FK

[MrSparkle]

Well I pulled the trigger and purchased the parts this week, only revision was deciding to go with the Antec P180 Case cause the Sonata went out of stock ( I looked at the P180 case at a local computer "megasuperstore" and wow what a nice case!!!), and going ahead and getting XP Media center OEM because XP Home OEM was also out of stock (hope I dont regret this....)

I can't wait till this stuff comes and I can lose my PC builder virginity!

Thanks for the help thus far guys!

[Freakitchen]

The P180 is a nice case - but it doesn't come with a power supply, so you'll need to get a quality one separately. This unit is great value after rebate;

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

FK

[MrSparkle]

Ooooops! Forgot to mention I snagged this Power Supply from ZZF, it was only $32.00 after rebate, not a high end PSU but over 1000 good reviews of it on newegg so I am gonna try it out. I'm not building a monster gaming rig or anything so I hope it does OK for me:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817153023

[Freakitchen]

Unfortunately, that power supply isn't suitable for your system. Whilst it's of decent quality, it does not conform to the ATX 2 specs that are required by any system that uses PCI-Express graphics - regardless of the overall power needed. You can see this by looking at the specs on the various power 'rails'. It has only 18 Amps on the single +12v Rail (which is used significantly), and 30A on the +5v Rail (which is used much less on modern systems). Compare that to the Antec I suggested - it has 17 and 19A on TWO +12v Rails. Suggest you return it and pick up a true ATX 2 unit.

[MrSparkle]

Will do man, thanks for pointing that out!!!!!!! I'll snag the one you mentioned.