My new PC parts

[The Duke]

Ok, i have gone from ignorant PC builder to ignorant amateur PC builder in a matter of hours looking at your site and others. I paid careful attention to benchmarks and power needs, but I still need help with compatibility. This is for gaming by the way.

For those of you curious about a budget (It is rather important), I don't have one because of the potential in Xmas and my b-day. Anyways, these are the parts I have on my wish list thus far...

Athlon 64 4000+ socket 939

Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe

Samsung 1 Gb PC 3200 400MHz or maybe Corsair 2x 512Mb which seems to be highly suggested by a lot of you.

I'm going to go with the SLI but I might not get both cards over Xmas. But I looked up a few of your threads and a few benchmarks and came to GeForce 6600 GT 128 Mb as my card of choice.

I have no ideas yet on my HDD and I know I do want a CDRW and a DVD writer/player.

I would also like a suggestion on how much power this will take (350W or higher?--maybe 420W?) Thanks for any help you guys can give me.

[Cricket]

Originally Posted by The Duke I would also like a suggestion on how much power this will take (350W or higher?--maybe 420W?) Thanks for any help you guys can give me.

If you're going to go with SLI, you must use a power supply off this list. As you can see, there's nothing under 500 watts.

Cricket

[Science_guy]

Originally Posted by The Duke I'm going to go with the SLI but I might not get both cards over Xmas. But I looked up a few of your threads and a few benchmarks and came to GeForce 6600 GT 128 Mb as my card of choice.

You might want to re-think that choice. Using two 6600s in SLI mode is a waste of money; a single 6800GT will be faster than two 6600s.

[rspassey]

I'll help you get going:

1) PowerSupply - yes you need one of Cricket's link for an SLI build
2) HardDrives, you will want to go with SATA (newest technology) you then have options of one or two larger driver, or multiple smaller driver, In most cases, one small and fast drive for the OS and games along with a larger drive for music and other storage. Seagate is a good HardDrive brands, you should consider them.
3)Video Card - the 6600gt is a powerful little card, if you have *no* budget, for the time being I would suggest a 7800gt (if you can afford it) and just get one. I would highly get this card over dual 6600gts b/c the one 7800gt is more powrful that both 6600gts together - and you can always ad a second one later if you choose. If you need to, take a little money out of opticals and harddrive and shoot for the 7800gt for a gaming machine, IMO
4) opticals - one combo drive will suit, lots of people like two drives, one for burning and ripping, and the other for daily CD use (etc). There are various good Optical brands.
5) the rest of the stuff - case, floppy drive, monitor, speakers, keyboard, mouse, cooling (fans will do).

[jayb1234]

Liteon has some pretty nice DVD burners that come with CD and DVD burning software and a couple that have Lightscribe also.

HDD: Look at the 7200 RPM 16 Mb cache models, Seagate or Western digital.

OS: Get the OEM version of Windows, it is about $100 cheaper than the retail version

.

Floppy Drive: You might need one to load some of the drivers etc.. Check the manuals at the parts manufacturers websites

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Ram: check the list at ASUS or use a configurator to be sure you order a compatible part number.

[spartan015]

Corsair definetly then samsung (anyone have any issues with it?) but OCZ and patrioit works great... and again like jay said check the asus homesite for compatiblity.

7800gt or a little bit more a gtx, then later add another one.
if u have money go for 2gb (2x 1gb) tho its overkill in most cases it feels like you see some better performance but that is imo.

actually u dont need a floppy disk, i built my friends comp without one and it was fine. i got the lastest updates off the net and then jus burned it on a cd

[The Duke]

Thanks guys. I have thought about it a lot and have come up with most the parts I will use in my build. One last question, though, about the power supply. If I am going to need a power supply off that list for my SLI config (when I am able to get two cards), is it a problem if I get the highest wattage for my computer, or will overshooting the power needs cause problems? I have looked at a few websites to estimate the power needs of all my parts, but I can not find a website that is specific enough to give me a good answer. I think I would be safe to get a 550W supply, but I would like for one of you to tell me from your experience. Thanks.

Athlon 64 4000+
Asus A8N-SLI deluxe mobo
GeForce 7800GT 256mb (two when I get around to buying the second)
2x Corsair 1gb memory PC3200
WD raptor 74gb 10k rpm 8mb cache
WD 250gb 7200 rpm 8mb cache
a cheap but reliable PCI sound card
CDRW and DVD drives
of course the monitor, keyboard and mouse (kb and mouse will be optical)
I think that is it...

[Adams551]

Duke,

You mentioned a "cheap but reliable sound card". That MoBo has built-in audio (7.1 I think) that many say is great, especially if you weren't going for a high-end card to begin with. That extra card gives no gain only potential problems.

IMO,
B

[jayb1234]

Case: Make sure that you get a case with good airflow, all that high end hardware will put out quite a bit of heat.

[The Duke]

Can any one give me a website to estimate the power needs of the system I am building with the parts listed above, or does anyone have a general idea?

Thanks

[Cricket]

With that build the minimum wattage I would go with is 550 watts from a SLI 5certified power supply from this list. If it were my build I'd go with either the Seasonic S12-600 watt or the FSP Epsilon FX600.

Cricket

[The Duke]

Thanks again.

[The Duke]

Turns out I will be keeping a few parts from my old system, but I will still be building an SLI system. I will keep my WD 80gb 7200rpm 8mb cache drive and I will get a WD 250gb 7200rpm 16mb cache drive. I will be getting a different gigabyte GA-K8NF-9 mobo with SLI compatibility and an ATI or XFX (not GeForce?) 256mb grafx card. I will still be getting the Athlon 64 4000+ 939 socket and might be getting the same memory as before, maybe not. This is obviously a more economical choice, but I will still be upgrading quite a bit. Cricket, does your recommendation for power supplies still stand as the same in this new situation (I know it has to be from that list regardless)? Any comments from anyone else with more experience with a gigabyte mobo? Also, I didn't notice a lot of ATI cards that were SLI when I went looking around for those types of cards...

[blue60007]

If those hard drives are IDE, you might want to make sure there are enough IDE channels to go around for the hard drives and opticals.

SLI is not for ATi video cards. It's only for nVidia (GeForce). So you either have to get nVidia cards or drop the SLI board. Yes, you could use an ATi card in a SLI board, you just couldn't do a dual card setup. So why pay for SLI if you can't use it?