building a gamer concerned about compatability

[mic66]

never built a sys. befor. have done upgrades. plan on using an asus a8n32slideluxe mobo, with an amd athlon 64x 4200+ duel core cpu. with 2gig of ram. picked up a 500gig seagate hd., a sony 16x dvd rw, a raidmax volcano 630 watt psu (atx but not sli) figured i could swap it out later if i wanted to add another vidio card. also picked up a xoxide x-ventilator case with some lighting and 5 case fans (80mm each). i believe the mobo has a nic card. wasnt planning on adding a modem or floppy drive. also planning to try the sound on the board befor buying a sound card. already have a good moniter, speakers, keyboard, etc. several things i'm worried about

1. is the psu overkill? i dont want to fry my mobo and cpu the first time i turn it on.

2. haven't decided on a vidio card yet. want to go with nvidia chip set and at least 256 meg of ram. pcie slot. any suggestions would be appriciated. would like to stay around $200. if possable.

3. evan with all the fans should i be worried about heat?

4. going to have to use an older version of windows until vista comes out, anybody know when it might be availible? and will this setup be able to run true 64bit programs properly?

5. am i missing something obvious?? and were might i be runnig into problems?

help a dummy out would ya.

[tempus]

the psu wiil give the power demanded not more.

heat is always a problem, especially the cpu. put a good heatsink

windows should run ok on a 64 bit machine

[Staren]

When it comes to your PSU, overkill is a good thing. The main point of computer power supplies is to change the AC out of the wall to DC and then amp the power down to the right amount for each part. The higher the wattage the better really. You could alwaays find a use for more down the road.

[blue60007]

Raidmax makes horrible quality power supplies. It needs to be dumped for something quality from Antec, Forton, Sparkle, to name a few. THe most important number to look at is the 12V amperage...looking at the 12V rails the combined power (34 amps) is the same as a 430W Antec PSU I have. In that case I'd consider that similar to a 430W power supply. I recently read an article where they tested a junker PSU and it blew up after only being loaded to half it's rated power. If that PSU was attached to a computer, there's a good chance it would have taken out the computer when it went up in smoke.

I looked it up on Newegg it and it's way overpriced and flashy...you can get an Antec Truepower II 550 for $20 or so less and it's at least double the quality (and is SLI certified, so you are good to go there)...I wouldn't trust a junk PSU to run a simple case fan...


2)You're choices would be a 7600GT ($150-$175) or a 7900GT ($250 or so I think).

3) You should be fine...a Retail CPU will come with a heatsink/fan that will keep it plenty cool. Personally 5 80mm fans is overkill and is probably going to be noisy (compared to 2 120mm fans - which is what I usually look for).

4) Use Windows XP - I wouldn't use anything less than Win 2000, but I'm not sure if anything older than XP supports multithreading - which means unless you use XP you won't be able to use that second core of the 4200+. Athlon 64's can run 64-bit programs fine, provided you have a 64 bit OS (isn't Vista going to be?) - and avoid the 64 bit version of XP Pro - driver support is not good.

5) The mobo has onboard LAN and sound...you didn't specify what RAM you got, so I assume you got DDR-400, 184pin.

[flanzig1]

I agree with Blue on the Raidmax.
As for an OS, just get an OEM copy of XP Home, they are around $85. Vista isn't coming out until the end of the year and I think that consumers versions won't be available until next summer.

[mic66]

thanks for the heads up on the psu blue. i'll look for something better. haven't bought the cpu and mobo yet. heard amd was cutting there prices tomarrow. figured i'd wait and see if its true. not sure what ram to get. sorry for being such a novice.

as far as vidio cards, are there manufacturers to avoid.

yes i was worried about the noise factor but more afraid of the heat. i do have the option of swapping 2 of the 80mm's for 1 120mm and dropping 1 or 2 of the other 80mm's.

as i understand it vista is a true 64 bit os, which is why i wanted to make sure the machine was capable. haven't seen a coppy of xp home for less than $200, maybe im looking in all the wrong places. thanks for pointing out the multithreading aspect, i would have missed that.

thanks all for the input, was varry helpful.

[blue60007]

Yeah, they are supposed to...you might wait and see what that does to prices.
Here's some RAM:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820145579

I would go with eVGA if nVidia cards - they are nVidia's primary brand...

Looks like you can swap the two in the front for a 120mm fan...not so on the back though. You might get away with unplugging the side fan and maybe one on the rear.

Win XP:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16837102059

[mic66]

thanks for the links. that helps alot.