A noob-builder among you.

[rc0486]

Hello all! First post!

I'm in need of some advice...You see I've an old rig that I've recently decided to try and get running again. The motherboard, processor, and gpu were fried, and the entire thing has been sitting in my closet collecting almost 3 years worth of dust.

Recycled the mobo, processor, and gpu, which has left me with:

• ugly 'alienware' case (received for free)
• Thermaltake TR2-430W power supply (store it and upgrade to more wattage?)
• basic Sony DVD-RW
• generic 250GB Hitachi HD

I also have an old 160GB Seagate external that I want to put in, cause I'm tired of it staring at me from the corner of my desk. (IDE to SATA adapter?)

I have a nice HDMI monitor, gaming mouse/keyboard already so I just need to fill in the lacking innards.

To get started a friend of mine gave me an AMD Athlon II 3.2GHZ 2MB dual-core AM3, along with 2x1gb ddr3 for the free. Now I'm having an issue on the best mobo/gpu combo to purchase.

I would really love to maintain and upgrade this rig in the coming months/years and have about 700$ to invest into it now.


So far I've been looking at purchasing:

Gigabyte GA-880GA-UD3H Motherboard - Socket AM3, AMD 880G, ATX, USB, VGA, DVI, PCIe, RAID at TigerDirect.com

OR

MSI 890FXA-GD70 Motherboard - AMD 890FX, Socket AM3, ATX, DDR3, RAID, SATA 6.0GB/s, USB 3.0 at TigerDirect.com

Lite ON IHAP422-98 SuperAllwrite Drive - IDE, DVD+R 22X, DVD-R 22X, DVD+RW 8X, DVD-RW 6X, DVD-RAM 12X, CD-R 48X, CD-RW 32X, LightScribe at TigerDirect.com

Seagate ST31000520AS Barracuda LP Hard Drive - 1TB, 5900RPM, 32MB, SATA-3G at TigerDirect.com

EVGA GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 Video Card - 896MB GDDR3, PCI Express 2.0 x16, SLI Ready, (Dual Link) Dual DVI, HDTV, VGA Support at TigerDirect.com

Ultra LSP550 550-Watt Power Supply - ATX, SATA-Ready, SLI-Ready, 135mm Fan, Lifetime Warranty w/ Registration at TigerDirect.com - or the 650w version?

Thermaltake V3 Black Edition Mid Tower Case - ATX, Micro ATX, 120mm LED Fan, 4x 5.25 Bays, 5x 3.5 Bays at TigerDirect.com

Any advice will be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

-a noob among you (rc0486)

[glc]

You will be screaming for more ram real quick, so I'm recommending a 2x2gb kit - the below will cost you less than $600 shipped after rebates. I kept the same case and gave you better components across the board, from a much better vendor:

Newegg.com - Thermaltake V3 Black Edition VL80001W2Z Black SECC / Plastic ATX Mid Tower Computer Case

Newegg.com - CORSAIR Enthusiast Series CMPSU-650TX 650W ATX12V / EPS12V SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC Compatible with Core i7 Power Supply

Newegg.com - ASUS M4A87TD EVO AM3 AMD 870 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard

Newegg.com - CORSAIR XMS3 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model TW3X4G1333C9

Newegg.com - LITE-ON Black 24X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 12X DVD+R DL 24X DVD-R 6X DVD-RW 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-R 32X CD-RW 48X CD-ROM 2MB Cache SATA DVD Writer - Bulk - LightScribe Support - CD / DVD Burners

Newegg.com - Western Digital Caviar Black WD1002FAEX 1TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive

Newegg.com - EVGA 01G-P3-1370-TR GeForce GTX 460 (Fermi) 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card

[rc0486]

Thank you!!

Newegg.com sold out of the memory originally posted so I've opted for similar:
CORSAIR 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3

Also a co-worker of mine recommended to just get a quad-core so as to not worry about upgrading sooner than later. So I'm going to go for this little piece here:
AMD Athlon II X4 640 Propus 3.0GHz 4 x 512KB L2 Cache Socket AM3 95W Quad-Core

Unless of course if this was ill-advised, I'll stick to the dual-core I have already. I'd rather not spend the extra $ but if it'll postpone upgrading then I'm for it.

Also I'm kind of unsettled at the idea of seating the processor myself, tricky business I hear. First thought was to have a local build shop seat it and run tests for me before finishing the rig. Any other ideas as to what I can do to remedy this??

[glc]

Installing the CPU is very simple. Do it with the motherboard out of the case sitting on the table.

Follow this procedure before mounting the motherboard in the case to validate the core components:

PROBLEMS with a NEW BUILD? Try This!!

[David M]

Bondo and satin black Krylon will fix the problem with the case.