Questions for a first build; plz help a newbie

[nlawalker]

Hey everyone! I'm about to get to serious business picking out parts for my very first build. Very excited! I just had a few questions, and I wanted to run a list of parts by everybody to see if they'll work OK. Anyways, first for the questions:

If I buy a speedy AMD in Retail box, is the fan in the box enough? I do NOT plan on overclocking the processor or the system bus (if I OC anything it'll be the vid card). I won't settle for anything less than arctic silver to grease it with, with all the great stuff I've heard about it, but I just wanted to make sure a stock fan is enough, or if I should go with a Thermaltake. I watched those videos of melting AMD's on Tom's Hardware and.... scary. 700 Fahrenheit is psycho, and it took less than half a second!

I read about "lapping" heatsinks/fans. Do I really need to?

I really like the look of the Soyo Dragon Ultra KT333 mobo, and found a great price on it. First of all, is this a good buy? Choosing a board is tough: I've heard performance is so-so, but lots of extra goodies. This particular build doesn't have to absolutely blaze, it just has to not get outdated for a few years. Also, is on board sound on this particular Soyo hard to turn off or anything?

How much is enough for a power supply? Will 300 or 350 watts be good enough for the specs below? (BTW, I've already heard lots of warnings about getting the right power supply. I'll almost definitely spring for a Sparkle, Enermax, Antec, or Heroichi. Dont' wanna risk stupid decisions!) I know NOTHING about power or electricity, so I don't understand what people mean when they say "rails" or what +5 or +3.3 or anything like that is. Speaking of power, what are people talking about when they talk about overclocking by raising the voltage to the processor and the memory?

I really like the look of the Antec mini tower cases on newegg, but everything from Antec says "for Pentium 4." Will they not work with AMD's? I'm having a hard time finding a case that will "work" and work well, as I have no prior experience. I don't want something monsterous, just a small tower with two or three bays and room for a floppy. The measurements for the case fit the mobo exactly, so I dunno...

That's all the questions. Now for my system list. Tell me what you think!

Case: ANTEC Mini Tower ATX SX630 or SX635 (if they work with AMD...see question above).
Mobo: Soyo Dragon Ultra KT333
Processor: AMD Athlon XP (Probably around 1800 or 2000)
Video: Gainward Geforce4 4200, OCed
Memory: 1 stick Crucial 512 MB PC2100 DDR CL 2.5 (went with the KT333 mobo so I can maybe bump up to PC2700 later)
HD: Maxtor Quiet Drive 40 gig 7200rpm
Sound: Who knows. Probably a decent Creative.
Monitor: NEC/Mitsubishi MultiSync FE750+ 17"
CDR: ASUS CRW-2410-A 24x10x40
CDrom: Sony 52X
Printer: Epson Stylus C60
Natural Keyboard, Intellimouse explorer

Whew... I know that's a LOT to digest in one message. I've asked TONS of questions before here, because everyone's so friendly, but still haven't built yet... just a nervous newb who's done months of research but still is a little bit in the dark =) Thanks in advance for all your help, I really appreciate it!

[morriswindgate]

1. The retail Box CPU Fan is fine if you do not plan on overclocking. Amd uses Coolermasters and the only problem that I have had with them is that the Fans RPM sensor was all over the place, so you need to disable the RPM alarm in the BIOS.
2. You do not need to lap a heatsink, and I personally think that is is a waste of time. The Artic Silver will fill any imperfections in the heatsink and CPU slug to get the maximum heat transfer.
3. The Soyo is a fine board, although I am not a big fan of them, as are the Asus, Soltek, and Shuttle boards. It is very easyto disable the onboard sound as it is just a BIOS setting.
4, On almost any modern system 300watts is the minimum. And this is plenty for the CPU, Floppy, CD-Rom or DVD, CD-RW, two case fans, and two hard drives.
5. When they say that they are P4 ready they mean that they have two additional power connectors that are used with P4 Boards. It will work fine with AMD processors. You just do not need those connectors. I always suggest that you get a case with some expansion room as far as the number of drive bays.
As to your list let me suggest that you get the Lite-On CD-RW drive. Great drive and at a value price. For the sound card on the low end the Sound Blaster 5.1 is really good and on the higher end the Hercules Game Theater XP is a fantastic unit.

[nlawalker]

Thanks a lot! I've heard good things about Lite-On, I'll look into that.

Also, I did research that Soltek KT333 board and heard nothing but rave reviews. It's up on the list with the Soyo now: now i have a decision! Thanks for all your help.

[RobH]

I agree with Morriswindgate-the Retail package CPU has a fan that works quite well with the processor that is comes with-and I do perfer to use the Retail package when building ,it has a much longer warrantee than does the OEM.
I never seen a reason to lap (sand would be a better word)a processor-seems like too much of a hassle and very possibly damage the processor,get rid of the thermal pad on the heatsink make sure it is clean,and use a good quality heat sink compound.

[LawyerRon]

Looks like a very nice system. The Asus burners are good but so are LiteOn burners. The Dragon's a very nice board if you're going to take advantage of all the onboard components. Otherwise, I'd probably go with an Epox or Soltek and save some $$.

[glc]

It doesn't hurt to lap the heatsink if you want to spend the time - the stock heatsink does have a pronounced grain. However, don't even think of lapping the CPU core, that's dangerous and totally unnecessary unless you are trying for the highest overclock you can get - and if you are doing that, you won't be using a stock HSF anyway.

[Cricket]

Hi nlawalker,

Welcome to the world of the home built PC...you'll never want to leave.

The Antec SX630 and SX635 are both really good cases (they are basically a cut down SX830). The 300 watt PSU in the SX630 should be more than enough power for most home systems. But if you want to get the SX635 for the 350 watt PSU, go ahead...it'll give you a little more head room if you plan to load up your system with lots of drives.

The SOYO Dragon series motherboards are really nice boards if you need all the built in stuff, but I would also suggest looking at EPoX and Soltek for good solid motherboards to build your system upon.

On-board sound isn't hard to disable. Check the motherboard manual, it's usually disabled in BIOS or with a jumper on the motherboard somewhere.

Cricket

[bigpuma]

soyo also makes the dragon ultra333 light which is the same board w/o the onboard RAID and LAN and costs similar to the Epox board. I agree with Cricket don't get the Ultra unless you will use the RAID and LAN features because it's not worth the extra money. I have used both Soyo and Epox and have been very happy with both.

BP

[nlawalker]

Thanks to everyone so much for all the help. After some deciding, I think I'm going to go with a SOLTEK SL-75DRV5 (Purple Ray) VIA KT333. Newegg says they'll have it in July 1. At 90 bucks, a good deal.

I had one more single, solitary question for you all... since it sounds like I'm going to go with the stock fan included with the retail processor, do I really need to spring for arctic silver, or can I just use the grease it comes with?

Nick

[Cricket]

Hi nlawalker,

As long as you use some kind of thermal transfer material between the heatsink and the CPU core, you'll be fine...although thermal paste is preferred over a thermal pad.

Artic Silver is more like an option for those who plan to overclock (to help the heatsink work as efficiently as possible to get those few extra MHz's) or folks who are always upgrading their systems. Once you buy a tube, it lasts for many, many builds.

Cricket

[RobH]

I use the greasy kids stuff-thermal compund from Radio Shack,and never had a problem-compound is recommended above a thermal pad for sure!IMHO