My New Build

[Estavez]

Hi everyone, I'm starting this thread about a new system in the hopes if you can confirm if everything fits together. I am what you probably would call an intermediate computer user, I know my way round a system - but not quite a technical enough to bed advanced... Anyway, probably be best I tell you why I'm doing this.

I've had my current system for around 4 years now, but have upgraded just about everything apart from the case and processor. I decided to get a new graphics card, well my second for this machine, and got a ATi Radeon X800 GTO 256 MB. The problem though is I got a pci express card, and my motherboard doesn't support pci express - terrible research I know.... So I've finally decided to build a mid range gaming rig I can run alonsgide my old machine, and swap over the monitor, keyboard, mouse etc each time.

After some research this is what I came up with, although I have a feeling it isn't all compatible....

Motherboard - Asustek S775 Intel P965 ATX Audio Lan
Processor - Intel Pentium D 820 2MB Socket 775 800FSB Box
Case and PSU - Antec Sonata II UK Piano Black Quiet Midi Tower
Sound card - Creative SoundBlaster Audigy SE 7.1 OEM
Drive - Sony 18x DVD+/-RW 12X RAM blk drive
FDD - Sony standard
RAM - Corsair Memory VS1GB400C3 PC3200 1GB CAS3
Speakers - Trust SP 3600A 2.1 Speakerset
HDD - Seagate Barracuda 7200.9 160GB PATA

Will need to source a copy of XP too. Around £450 in total. What do people think?

[Cricket]

Which ASUS motherboard is that? What's the model number?

Try the on-board sound before you buy a sound card.

Why are you using a PATA hard drive? Why don't you get a SATA HDD?

Are you sure the RAM is compatible with the motherboard? Most of the current Intel motherboards are using DDR2 RAM. I don't think a motherboard with a 965 chipset is gonna use regular DDR RAM.

Cricket

[dogdude16]

for a mid range gaming rig you might want to think about core2duo E6300 if the budget allows if not then a pentium D will do

[Estavez]

I believe its a P5B.. http://www.dabs.com/productview.aspx...1&v=2#infoarea

A friend of mine looked at it and said it isn't comptabile with SATA (although he may have meant SATA-2) One of my concerns was the HDD and what ones I could go for.

[Cricket]

The motherboard information on that web site isn't correct. The P5B does support SATA 3.0 Gb/s hard drives. Change that PATA HDD to a SATA and leave the 1 IDE channel for your optical drives.

And you'll need to change the RAM to DDR2...PC5400 or PC6400. Select the RAM with a CAS latency of 5 instead of 4 to avoid instability issues.

Cricket

[Estavez]

So after a rethink, I've come up with this.

Motherboard - Asustek S775 Intel P965 ATX Audio Lan
Processor - Intel Pentium D 820 2MB Socket 775 800FSB Box
Case and PSU - Antec Sonata II UK Piano Black Quiet Midi Tower
Drive - Sony 18x DVD+/-RW 12X RAM blk drive
FDD - Sony standard
RAM - Corsair Memory 1GB DDR2 533MHz
Speakers - Trust SP 3600A 2.1 Speakerset
HDD - Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 200GB S300