first build any advice?

[wbossio]

Case: ASPIRE X-Superalien ATXA6SW-BL/500 Blue Aluminum Server Computer Case ATX aluminum 500W see-through power supply Power Supply

Mobo: BIOSTAR GEFORCE 6100-M9 Socket 939 NVIDIA GeForce 6100 Micro ATX AMD Motherboard

Video Card: eVGA 256-P2-N553-AX Geforce 7600GT 256MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16 Video Card

Power Supply: Rosewill RP550-2 ATX 2.01 550W Power Supply

CPU: AMD Athlon 64 3700+ San Diego 2000MHz HT Socket 939 Processor Model ADA3700BNBOX

RAM: 2x G.SKILL 1GB 184-Pin DDR SDRAM DDR 400 (PC 3200) Unbuffered System Memory Model F1-3200USU1-1GBHS

Hard Drive: Western Digital Raptor WD360GD 36.7GB 10,000 RPM Serial ATA150 Hard Drive

Storage Drive: Western Digital Caviar SE WD2000JB 200GB 7200 RPM IDE Ultra ATA100 Hard Drive

Optical Drive: SAMSUNG 16X DVD±R DVD Burner With 5X DVD-RAM Write and LightScribe Black ATA/ATAPI Model SH-S162L/BEBN

Sound Card: Turtle Beach RIVIERA 5.1 Channels PCI Interface Sound Card

I'd just like some advice and to make sure that there are no problems with any of the hardware. I'm a mid-range gamer and want to keep the system under 1500.
Thanks!

[freakitchen]

Welcome to the forums The changes I'd make are as follows...

1) You're right to change the power supply in that case, but Rosewill isn't much of an improvement in terms of quality. I'd go for an Antec Truepower 550w instead, which is plenty to power your build and provide room for expansion.

2) Biostar, although not a poor quality manufacturer, is beaten by ASUS. It also appears that the board you chose has on-board video, which you won't be needing if you're purchasing a video card. I'd get the ASUS A8N5X.

3) The Western Digital Raptors are very expensive for the amount of storage you get, despite their speed. I'd personally get a single 300GB Hard Drive with a 16MB Cache; good speeds and MUCH more storage for your money. Nevertheless, if you do decide to keep the configuration you have listed, change the storage drive to a SATA HD, rather than older IDE technology.

4) I've had bad experiences with Samsung optical drives, and have heard others have too. I'd swap that Burner for a Lite-on (you can get them with Litescribe).

5) No need for a separate sound card, all motherboards come with integrated sound these days, and the one i recommended - the A8N5X - has surround sound support.

FK

[jayb1234]

You might need a floppy drive at some point in the setup, and they can be handy later for diagnostics etc.

For the OS the oem version of xp home w/spII will be fine unless you need some specific feature of XP Pro or want to use the Media Center Edition.

[wbossio]

Thanks for the advice.
The idea behind the 2 hard drives was a primary drive with a high rpm for my primary gaming etc. and a secondary drive for storage (pics, games i rarely play, videos, etc.)
as for my OS, i'm in college and the library here offers windows xp and office xp for free, so that's what i'm going with.