First Build Help/Questions

[dbf7267]

Hello,

This is my first time building a PC and I have a few questions, mainly if all of the componets are compatible or if anyone has any suggestions/reccomendations. I would like to keep it around the same price though.

Case: COOLER MASTER Centurion 532 RC-532-SKN1 Black Aluminum bezel, SECC chassis ATX Mid Tower Computer Case - Retail


PSU: SeaSonic S12-600 ATX12V 600W Power Supply 100 - 240V UL, CE, CB, FCC - Retail

Mobo: SUS P5ND2-SLI Socket T (LGA 775) NVIDIA nForce 4 SLI Intel Edition ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail


CPU: Intel Pentium 4 640 Prescott 800MHz FSB 2MB L2 Cache LGA 775 EM64T Processor - Retail


HDD: SAMSUNG SpinPoint P Series SP2504C 250GB 7200 RPM 8MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM

RAM: CORSAIR ValueSelect 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM Unbuffered DDR2 667 (PC2 5300) System Memory - Retail

Video Card: eVGA 256-P2-N563-AX Geforce 7900GT CO 256MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16 Video Card - Retail

DVD Burner: LITE-ON Black 16X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 8X DVD+R DL 16X DVD-R 6X DVD-RW 5X DVD-RAM 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-R 24X CD-RW 48X CD-ROM 2M Cache ATAPI/E-IDE 16X DVD±R DVD Burner W/ 5X DVD-RAM Write - Retail

[Staren]

Just two thoughts. For the most part, this isn't a bad parts list. You've been reading.

SeaSonic is a very good brand. They make good PSUs, just a bit over priced. An Antec TruePower II 550watt should be more power then you need, and would cut about a third off the price of that SeaSonic.

The other thing you might want to do is spring for a more reliable hard drive brand. Now I have a Samsung hard drive that has given me no problem at all for three years, but just to be safer a good Seagate or Western Digital might be worth looking at.

[kram 2.0]

Looks pretty good. You are missing a few components (among them, the operating system, KB/Mouse). What will this computer be used for?

kram

[dbf7267]

Thanks for the input, this pc will just be an upgrade over my current one since it has extremely limited expandibility(Dell 4600C) so it will be used for a little bit of everything(playing games, working in maya, watching movies, ect.) The stuff that I left off i'm going to try and use from my old computer(mouse/keyboard, monitor, speakers) and I can get an XP from school for $5.
The thing I am most worried about is the componets not being able to work together, or some other problem that would prevent the system from working properly. But i will upgrade the HD to a more reliable brand, a question I had about the Power Supply is if I decide to use SLI some point in the future would 550w be enough? Also, on newegg some people said the mobo had problems with RAID, what is RAID and would this be a problem?

Thanks for the input, I need all the help I can get.

[Staren]

You really only need 600+ watts if you have multiple hard drives, multiple optical drives, lighted fans, you know really going all out. A basic system, even with SLI will work just fine on the Antec I listed.

RAID stands for Redundant Array of Independent (or Inexpensive) Disks. On it’s most basic level RAID can either stripe data so that it is split between two hard drives to speed up access time (for servers, there is no real difference for a normal home box), or mirror data so you have two copies incase a drive goes bad. I do not recommend trying this for a newbie. It can be a female dog to deal with when it does work right.

[dbf7267]

How's this HD?

Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD2500KS 250GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM

[Alaron]

Good choice of hard drive.