First Build for an Old Time Gamer

[Marvier]

Just had the perfect storm, my birthday in two weeks, a prolonged interest in building a PC, and a small financial windfall - couple this with my passion for PC Gaming and wala - time to build my 1st PC. I have spent months researching, and decided on an AMD CPU, also decided to go mid-range, ~$2500 w/o monitor. My main concern, before ordering, is obviously compatibility, so I have included my component list below. Thanks for any insight offered and I am excited to get buildin'

Case: ASPIRE X-Navigator ATXA8NW-AL/500 Silver/Black Aluminum ATX Mid Tower Computer Case
PSU: ENERMAX Liberty ELT620AWT ATX12V 620W
Mobo: ASUS A8N-SLI Premium Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce4 SLI ATX AMD
CPU: AMD Athlon 64 3500+ Venice 2000MHz HT Socket 939 E4 Processor Model ADA3500 CGBOX
HDD: Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD4000KD 400GB 7200 RPM Serial ATA150 Hard Drive
RAM: Kingston HyperX 1GB (2 x 512MB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM DDR 400 (PC 3200) Unbuffered
Dual Channel Kit System Memory Model KHX3200AK2/1G
Pri Optical: PLEXTOR Slot Load 16X DVD±R DVD Burner Black IDE Model PX-716AL/SW
Sec Optical: PLEXTOR Slot Load 16X DVD±R DVD Burner Black IDE Model PX-716AL/SW
Sound Card: Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeMusic 7.1 Channels PCI Interface
Video Card: (2) eVGA 256-P2-N564 Geforce 7900GT KO 256MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16
FDD: None
Keyboard: not picked yet
Mouse: not picked yet
Modem: none
Lan: none (on board)
Monitor: not picked yet
Speakers: not picked yet
OS: Microsoft Windows XP Professional With SP2 - OEM
Extras: none, maybe a cup holder

Right now I am at ~$2100 at newegg still needing a monitor, keyboard and mouse. I am hoping ya'll can help with anything I may have overlooked, or any compatibility issues. BTW, this PC will be exclusive for gaming, the primary PC will be used for regular household purposes.

Thanks in advance, and I look forward to learning from this forum.

Marvier

[glc]

I would recommend one of the opticals be a standard tray load - the slot loaders won't accept mini CD's. You only need one burner anyway - make the other drive a standard DVD-ROM drive. This will save you a few bucks too, or let you upgrade the processor to a dual core. If you want a single core, look at the San Diegos - the Venice is becoming old tech. Another way to save a few bucks is with Corsair value ram - the A64 memory architecture really doesn't benefit from high performance ram and Kingston has been having quality control problems. To be safe, you *may* want to pick a SLI PSU that's on the 7900GTX-certified list, but the Enermax is certified for your cards.

[Marvier]

Cool. I understand about the optical drive and will make that change. I chose not to go the dual core route for first build due to lack of gaming software taking advantage of it just yet. Not clear on the difference between San Diego v. Venice, can you elaborate? And thanks for the tip on Kingston RAM and the SLI PSU.

Marvier

[drew.]

Your right about games not taking advantage of dual core right now, but you may want to, just to save you the trouble of upgrading in the near future.

as for speakers which i see you havent chosen yet, here are a few choices. I see you have a 7.1 video card so ill put both 7.1 and 5.1 choices.

Logitech X-530 5.1 Speaker - Retail
Logitech THX Z-5300e 5.1 Speaker
Creative Inspire P7800 90 Watts 7.1 Speaker - Retail

Everything looks GREAT by the way

[glc]

The San Diego core has twice the cache of the Venice. The 3700+ San Diego is only $30-$35 more than the 3500+ Venice.