4 Qs

[laracroftlover]

I have four questions and if you could answer them I would be so happy! They are a bit long so you don’t need to answer them all in the same sitting; I won’t get mad if one post has only one answer .

(Q 1) I am getting an EVGA 122-CK-NF68-TR LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 680i SLI ATX Intel Motherboard and I wanted to know if it was picky about the kind of memory that went in it, if it is not picky about the kind of memory that gets put in to it then I was thinking about the G.SKILL 4GB(2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory but I don’t know if G.SKILL is a good company or not. If it is not a good company then what would you recommend for the price? range of 400.00 dollars, but still as fast, and has 4GB of room.

(Q 2) OK, I want to record TV on my PC so I wanted to know what your thoughts where about that. Should I get a TV tuner card That’s gets put right in to the Motherboard or should I get an external USB kind that sits on the desk. Now I found the Hauppauge WINTV-PVR-USB2 USB 2.0 Interface WinTV-PVR-usb2 and is this a good external TV tuner.

(Q 3) I bought a Lite-On SATA DVD drive and a Western Digital Caviar RE2 WD5000YS 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive, both OEM and they did not come with cords to connect them, so what cords do I need and where can I buy them or do they come with other hardware like the motherboard or some thing like that.

(Q 4) this is less of a question and more of a build check, so I am getting-

EVGA 122-CK-NF68-TR LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 680i SLI ATX Intel Motherboard

Thermaltake Armor Series VA8000BWS Black Aluminum / Steel ATX Full Tower Computer Case

G.SKILL 4GB(2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory
( MAY CHANGE )

Thermaltake toughpower W0104RU ATX12V / EPS12V 650W Power Supply 100 - 240 V CE, CB, TUV, FCC, UL, CUL, and BSMI certified

CHAINTECH VGA512C-SE76GS GeForce 7600GS 512MB 128-bit GDDR2 PCI Express x16 Video Card

Western Digital Caviar RE2 WD5000YS 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive

Creative 70SB046A00000 7.1 Channels 24-bit 192KHz PCI Interface Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeGamer

Fatal1ty Professional Series

Creative Inspire P7800 90 Watts 7.1 Speaker

Intel Core 2 Duo E6700 Conroe 2.66GHz 4M shared L2 Cache LGA 775 Processor

ARCTIC COOLING Freezer 7 Pro 92mm CPU Cooler

Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005

LITE-ON Black 16X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 8X DVD+R DL 16X DVD-R 6X DVD-RW 12X DVD-RAM 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-R 32X CD-RW 48X CD-ROM 2MB Cache SATA DVD Burner

Thank you for all of your help.

[Staren]

Well I can get your first three questions out of the way. My own opinions on them anyway. I'll let everyone else critique the build.

(Q 1) I am getting an EVGA 122-CK-NF68-TR LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 680i SLI ATX Intel Motherboard and I wanted to know if it was picky about the kind of memory that went in it, if it is not picky about the kind of memory that gets put in to it then I was thinking about the G.SKILL 4GB(2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory but I don’t know if G.SKILL is a good company or not. If it is not a good company then what would you recommend for the price? range of 400.00 dollars, but still as fast, and has 4GB of room.

That board isn't nesesarally picky about ram, but we have had some problems with it. Once one is up and working they seem to be fine, but EVGA seems to be having some quality control issues with their motherboards. Great compony for video cards, but I'd get another brand for motherboard. SLI and Intel chips don't seem to get along all that well to begin with. The general feeling is that with the new DX10 cards SLI is not needed or even practical unless you're going for pure bragging rights.

(Q 2) OK, I want to record TV on my PC so I wanted to know what your thoughts where about that. Should I get a TV tuner card That’s gets put right in to the Motherboard or should I get an external USB kind that sits on the desk. Now I found the Hauppauge WINTV-PVR-USB2 USB 2.0 Interface WinTV-PVR-usb2 and is this a good external TV tuner.

Internal card always if possible. The USB devices are ok for short term temporary use, but long term a PCI card will work much better. Hauppauge is the standard, and the WinTV-PVR 150 is what most people use and love. I personally have an ATI Theater 550 Pro and I've had no problems or issues.

The nice thing about that one is that there is a version which uses a PCI-E x1 slot. That way it's taking up one of those expansion slots that so far are rarely used and it's not taking a PCI slot that you might like to use for something else.

(Q 3) I bought a Lite-On SATA DVD drive and a Western Digital Caviar RE2 WD5000YS 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive, both OEM and they did not come with cords to connect them, so what cords do I need and where can I buy them or do they come with other hardware like the motherboard or some thing like that.

Nice quick anwser for this one. Don't worry about it. All that stuff comes with a retail motherboard.

[chuck4456]

You don't really need a lot of that to run Media Center. Get an ASUS P5B Deluxe and an E6600. Unless you're planning on overclocking, the INTEL HSF is all that you need to cool the CPU. Get 2 Gigs of CORSAIR VALUE SELECT pc5300. There's no rush on DX10 video cards either. Save your money. The best DX9 card available (dollar-for-dollar) is the SAPPHIRE X1950XT. It will do all that you need, and is MC compatable. It's also only 220.00 right now at Newegg. Deal of the day. Check our PSU STICKY and shop for Power Supplies highlited in bold blue. TV Tuner-wise, I'm not the world's leading authority on that, so hopefully one of our other comrades can assist you on that one. Good luck.