Building a PC for my church!

[DarrenE]

Hello all,

Thanks in advance to anyone that responds. Great group of helpful people at this site - amazing how much support the tech community is ready and willing to lend!

I'm the tech. director at my church, and I need to build a PC for our projector system. I'm pretty strong on the sound system - but just a newbie on the pc side.

We are planning on running a program called Media shout - here's the specs from the manufacture:

Recommended System Specifications

CPU
3GHz Pentium 4 or equiv.

512 MB

Drive Space
500 MB

graphics card
dual head card/adapter, full Directs 9 hardware support

video RAM
256 MB

Other
DVD Drive, Sound Card, Video input for video feed, INTERNET access

We're not going to be using the video feed any time soon - so we're going to wait on the video capture card. We have the keyboard and mouse from the old system.

Here's what I'm looking at so far:

Cooler Master Centurion 534 Black TAX Mid-Tower Case with Freon SUB and Audio
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...&sku=C283-1123

Power Up / 550-Watt / TAX / MM Fan / SAT-Ready / Power Supply
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...2&sku=GEN-2004

Mach Speed MST-890 Motherboard CPU Bundle - Intel Pentium D 925 Processor 3.Hz OEM
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...=MBM-P4MST-925

ZERO therm / CF / Socket 775 / Copper Base / Heat pipes / CPU Cooler
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...&sku=M333-3004

US Modular M PC DR MHz Memory
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...6&sku=U93-5002

FA Ge Force 7200 GS Video Card - M DR, Supporting M with Turbo cache, PIC Express, DIV, VGA, TV Out, Low Profile, Video Card
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...&sku=G458-1018

Hitachi Desk star K GB Hard Drive - 7200, MB, SAT-300, OEM
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...7&sku=TSD-80H5

Cables Unlimited 18-Inch Serial-AT Translucent Cable - Red
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...&sku=C250-2186

Open X DVD-ROM L Pro Chameleon w/SW Retail
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...&sku=A457-4026

Sam sung SH-SD OEM DVD Burner - X DVD±RE, X DVD±R Double, X DVD RAM, Cox CD-R, X CD-RE, Black
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...&sku=S203-8506

Cables Unlimited 18-Inch 2-Drive Traditional ODE Cable - Gray
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...TC1-10000I%20B

Microsoft Windows PX Pro Edition OEM Version & Service Pack 2

Famous Brand Refurbished 17" LCD Monitor - MS, 400:1, SXGA 1280x1024, VGA, Black, Off-Lease
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...&sku=J156-1738


Our priorities are 1. Absolute reliablitly. 2. Cost

Do you see any glarring errors? Any obvious upgrades? Something I'm missing.

BTW - sorry for the TD links rather than NewEgg - I know the local preferance her for NE. My pc guru on staff already had all of this laid out before I got involved.

Darren

[flanzig1]

1: Don't get that CPU/motherboard bundle. Cheap motherboard and old tech CPU.
2: Don't get a video card with TurboCache. Turbocache uses system memory along with what is on-board the video card.
3: Would look for a better quailty PSU, check here for good brands: http://forum.pcmech.com/showthread.php?t=131195
4: Never heard of the brand of ram you listed; would look to Corsair or Crucial.

[Kov-Ice]

Agreed. Also, I'd skip the cpu cooler, as unless you plan on overclocking this box, the stock cooler that comes with whatever processor you choose will be fine. I might lean toward Western Digital or Seagate over Hitachi drives. Maybe compare prices at newegg.com as well.

[DarrenE]

Originally Posted by flanzig1 1: Don't get that CPU/motherboard bundle. Cheap motherboard and old tech CPU.

Thanks for the advice...regarding the above - what CPU/MB would you suggest?

[shadowpr]

The basics could be a p5k and e6750. Depending on your budget you could drop that to a 6550.