Will this build work?

[Redocsa]

I'm new to this and was wondering if this build will work. I have already bought several components and yes i do want to stay with the ide.

So far the components i havae are

WD 320 gb har drive
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822144392

Lite on dvd burner
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16827106055

Thermaltake armor series case.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811133154

And the psu which is a thermaltake 550w
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817153029

Now thats what i have so far and hereis a list of what i am planning on buying.
The mobo is
http://www.newegg.com/product/produc...82E16813123018

The graphics card
http://www.newegg.com/product/produc...82E16814130061

the processor socket type am2 amd
http://www.newegg.com/product/produc...82E16819103759

the ram
http://www.newegg.com/product/produc...82E16820145153

and the cpu fan
http://www.newegg.com/product/produc...2E16835702001R

I was wondering if there were some suggestions or if this would even work oh and yes i am sold on amd. My current budget is about 2000 and since i already bought about $560 in parts including monitor my current budget is roughly about 1300. I was wondering if this would be good for gaming and some video editing along with 3d modeling i know that eventually i wil need to go with some more ram. And i also know that my motherboard already has a video port on it, i'm planning on buying the video card later so that i don't have to buy it all at once.

[juppy]

And i also know that my motherboard already has a video port on it....

If you're talking about that motherboard that you linked to, uh, no it doesn't have onboard video. And while we're on the subject of the motherboard, are you planning on getting a second video card in order to actually use it in an SLi setup? If not, there's no reason to spend the extra money for an SLi motherboard, and in that case (if you're wanting to stay with Epox) this motherboard should work with what else you've got listed.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813123019

The memory is another thing. You should go for a dual channel kit instead of just one big stick of memory. That way you can run it in dual channel mode AND if your memory goes bad, you can always weed out the bad one by running each of your 2 sticks 1 at a time to see which one's bad. Here's a link to the same memory basically, just in two smaller sticks in a dual channel kit.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820145566

One last thing is that cpu fan. Are you planning on trying to overclock? If not, the fan that comes with the retail cpu will work fine for normal conditions (not overclocked). Plus, using that one gives you the 3 year warranty too. That's negated with an aftermarket fan.

Otherwise, everything else looks okay to me, unless I missed something. Somebody else will probably come along and tell you if that's the case though.

[Redocsa]

Looks like you are right about my selection of a mobo, however I am eventually planning on buying a second video card however i don't really know if it will fit well with the one that i have picked out( meaning size restraints). also can you explain the use of using a dual stick card instead of just one. Right now since i need to do it in installments i figured a one gig stick would do just fine until i wanted to upgrade to more ram i think eventually i plan on doing up to four gigs. However, do oyu have a better recomendation for a video card that will be easy for an sli setup. Oh and i will be planning on over clocking. Also if i am planniing on installing a tv tuner card later will i need to connect it to my monitor as well or will i only need to connect the video card

[juppy]

Well, I'm not real sure what you mean on the video card about size restraints.....if the motherboard is capable of SLi, it'll have the two slots necessary to accomodate two cards. One thing about doing an SLi build in stages though, you don't want to wait too long in between buying the cards for it, because as far as I know they both have to be the same base chipset. In other words you wouldn't be able to put that 7950 video card in now, and then later on put a different card in for the second one, like say a 8800. Wouldn't work. They would both have to be either 7950's or 8800's. Like I said though, this problem only comes up if you wait a really long time and for some reason the card you've got in your machine isn't produced any more. But as fast as video card technology is changing nowadays, that will happen sooner than you expect.

Using the dual stick memory kits instead of just one single stick just allows you to use the dual channel feature that most motherboards have now. It's just a way of making your memory a little bit faster than just one single stick, because it basically reads from both sticks of memory simultaneously. If you're going to get more memory pretty soon though, it wouldn't be absolutely necessary to go with the dual stick setup.

That video card should work fine, I would think. As long as it says it supports SLi, it should be good to go.

I'm not real "up" on tv tuner cards, but I don't think there's any connections to be made with them other than hooking the tv input to the card (and installing the drivers/software of course). I think the video goes through the PCI bus to your video card, and if that's the case, there would be no other cabling needed. Again, I'm not real sure on those cards though, so hopefully someone else that knows for sure or has one in their machine will come along and comment on this part.

[phatphoeater]

the tv card will take whatever input from your cable/sat source. usually tv cards will have coax, svid, or analog (yellow/red/white) as possible inputs. using set-top boxes makes the loop more complicated if you want to control channel switching with just one remote.

make sure your tv card is supported by whatever pvr app you use and that it has hardware encoding (encoding on the card).

BYOPVR.com is a great resource for do it yourselfers.

while i'm here...as i have read here in these forums, SLI is only worth it unless you can afford 2 high end cards, otherwise a single high end card supposedly outperforms 2 mid range cards. otherwise the money savings of getting an SLI mobo, beefy PSU, and 2 mid range cards is negligible over a single pcix16 slot mobo/1xhigh end card.

and while i'm at it...why not core 2 duo? there is no clear reason to not go intel now if you're building from scratch.

edit: looking at your ram choice, i think a xms2 2gb pc800 kit will benefit you in the long run, and right now its only $180 after rebate ($58 more than your selected 1 stick of ram). you want to run dual channel as stated above.

[Redocsa]

But is xms2 a good brand f memory to use? I always hear that corsair is really good so i thought i would go with it.

[newbuilder14]

Yes, XMS2 is good memory, go for the CAS5 latency.

If you wanted to stick to AMD, that is fine, but I'd go for an Asus SLI motherboard. Some people here do not recommend an AM2 build right now do to memory controller issues, so are you willing to consider an Intel Core 2 Duo build? Ultimately, it is your choice.

[Redocsa]

Alright well i hve finally ordered everything right now i did decide to go with the xms2 with cas5 latency 2x1 gig memory. i decide not to buy the nce fan and instead went with a simple rocket cooler from gigabyte i still decided to stick with the am socket hope it works and now everything will be arriving tomorrow. I was wondering what are the most common problemas are when putting all the peices together. Oh and i downloaded xp64trial form microsoft and was wondering if i could install it as the os on the new build or if it needed a previous copy of xp?

[glc]

XP64 is loaded with driver issues. Don't bother.

[doubledragon5]

For a dollare cheaper you can get this dual channel kit. same as what you have posted, but 2 sticks of 515

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820145566

If you still want a MB that supports the sli set up try this one from ASUS.. It shold support that CPU you have listed...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813131568

You could save a bundle, by getting a difference case.. A Antec Sonata II which come with a good 450 watt psu...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811129155

[Khalil]

I would definately go with an Asus motherboard over anything else out there.
They are generaly headache free and if anything goes wrong their RMA service is unmatched.

[Redocsa]

Well i didn't go with asus and overall everything has booted up and is running except with my dvd drive.

On My mobo i have two ide channels



I have my hard drive connected to one of them with the jumper on cs i beleive and then i have my optical on the the one labeled IDE2 with its jumper on cs

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16827106055

when i try to insert windows nothing comes up and when i entered BIOS It pretty much looked like there was no drive attached there. I was wondering if i have my jumpers wrong or if my drive just doesn't read cds. I mean it opens and closes and spins but my mobo doesn't see it. HELP

[flanzig1]

check in the motherboard manual to see if there is anything special that needs to be done to use/activate the IDE channels.

[Redocsa]

Yeah i just got home and tested the cables and what not nd it appears the the second ide connector needs to have something done to it since the mobo would not pick up anything on it and on the other it would pickup the lite-on.

[glc]

IDE2 is not native to the Nvidia chipset - it's controlled by a 3rd party JMB363 controller and there are known issues with opticals on that controller. Slave the optical to the hard drive to get Windows installed, then install the JMB drivers and move the optical to IDE2 and it MAY work.