need some advice on a new build

[brx]

We understand what parts we need, but will it work together. This may be a silly question but from past experience upgrading our existing machines not everything fits. Last time i upgraded a vid card it barely fit into the mobo due to capacitors sitting directly behind the pci-e slot.
We got the build your own pdf and it is great but how do I know what card actually fits into what mobo's, some are longer some are wider and so on.
Needless to say it has me worried that i will buy parts that will not go together.
We would like to build tower that will cost about $ 1000.
Windows XP Pro.
775 mobo upto 8 gig ram FSB 1333 we think, on board 5.1 sound
duocore maybe extreme, not necessary though
2 x 2 gig ram dual channel
nvidia 8800
SATA 2 around 160 is plenty
700-1000W psu
dvd writer
no floppy necessary
case with lots of room and fans
If it costs more to get parts with better manuals we will just buy it as we can afford it.
This pc is intended for work and play. MS Office, WoW, whatever else comes in next few years.
We are not being lazy just concerned .
If anyone has any ideas we would greatly appreciat it thank you.

[Cricket]

Look over some of the other threads in this forum and you'll get a better idea of what works together. There are many Intel build threads to look over and you should be able to get an idea of what parts you want to use. Once you've got a list of parts, post it in this thread so we can look it over.

Cricket

[brx]

Thank You I will

[brx]

while looking for a motherboard I couldn't help noticing that there are ones that support DDR3 and PCIe 2.0 should I consider this.

[shadowpr]

DDR3 is still pretty expensive. Not really worth it yet in my opinion.

[freakitchen]

You can't go far wrong with something from the ASUS P5K series - pick the features you want, although the standard P5K is more than adequate for most. It supports the latest 1333fsb dual/quad cores.

Regarding processors, the E6750 Core2duo sits in the 'sweet spot' of price vs performance, although if you think you'll be doing a LOT of multitasking, the Q6600 is another to consider.

RAM is cheap at the moment, so 4GB isn't a bad idea. Keep in mind, though, that you'll need a 64-bit Operating System to fully address that much memory - and that pretty much means Vista x64. If you want to stick with XP, I'd go for 2GB of RAM now, and add the same again when you need to.

An eVGA 8800GTS would be a good choice on the video card front.

A 160GB might be plenty, but you'd get much better value from a 320GB hard drive. Look at the Seagate 7200.10 series, or the equivalent Western Digitals.

For a single video card setup, you don't need 700-1000w of power. the Corsair HX 520w power supply would be more than fine.

For a roomy case, look at a full tower from someone like Coolermaster. You don't *need* lots of fans, two 120mm fans - one intake, one exhaust - will be fine.