Ok im building a new rig. Ive been waiting years to do this. I am very excited. But i dont have much knowledge in the subject compared to most of you. Ive been doing research and trying to make informed decisions. Here we go.


The Goal:

A gaming rig primarily. Everquest 2, other MMORPGs, FEAR, Doom 3, etc... all maxed out, max eye candy. Also i do alot of web surfing and research so its internet connectivity is important (i have cable broadband). I have no overclocking experiance, so i do not want to count on it, but i may o/c after i become familiar with it and do more research. Cost is a factor, but not at the expense of performance. I will be buying 2 or 3 components at a time, until all is compiled.

The Rough Draft:

CPU - AMD Athlon 64 X2 4600+ Manchester 1GHz 2x512KB L2 Cache Sckt 939 - $546.00
MOBO - Asus A8N-SLI Premium Sckt 939 NVIDIA nforce4 SLI ATX AMD - $164.99
GPU - eVGA 256-P2-N563-AX Geforce 7900GT CO 256MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16 - $309.00
Memory - Mushkin eXtreme Performance 2GB (2x1GB) 184-pin DDR SDRAM Unbuffered DDR500 (PC4000) dual channel kit - $209.50
Hard drive - ???
PSU - ???
Heatsink/Fan - ???
Case - Aspire X-Cruise - $69.00
Optical - Lite-On DVD+-R Burner - $42.99
Optical - Asus DVD/CD-ROM - $22.99
Floppy - Sony floppy - $9.99
Sound card - Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeMusic 7.1 channel 24-bit 96KHz PCI interface - $121.99
Monitor - Rosewill R912E Black 19" 8ms LCD Monitor 270 cd/m2 500:1 0.294mm Pixel Pitch - $259.99
Keyboard - Logitech G15 2-tone 104 normal keys USB wired standard - $69.95
Mouse - Logitech G5 Laser 931376-0403 2-tone 6 buttons 1x wheel USB laser - $46.89
Speakers - Creative Inspire P7800 90 Watts 7.1 speakers - $86.00

The Questions:

1. I would liek to use two hard drives. A 10,000 rpm smaller one (for operating system and game installations) and a 7800 rpm large one (250-300GB) for everything else. I dont know much about Hard drives, can you recommend them to me?

2. How powerful of a PSU do i need for this rig?

3. Do i need to purchase a heatsink/fan, if so, any recomendations?

4. Im still rather unclear about my memory. Im certain that i want 2GB. But my motherboards standard ram is PC3200. The memory i chose is PC4000. Is that going to hinder performance or just not matter?

5. The monitor i chose is a brand im unfamiliar with, but the price was appealing. Does my setup call for a better monitor than this, or will this suffice?

6. I am worried about compatability issues, do all these components get along?

The Conclusion:

I am ordering a couple of the cheaper items in a couple days. Most likely the case and an optical drive or two. This way i have time to discuss the rest with you and make any necessary changes before i order the important components.

I am a little skeptical about the high priced cpu. So much more expensive than everything else. But if its worth the extra cash then so be it.

I appreciate any and all advice, and help with this. Dont know what id do without you guys, thanks again.

1)You mentioned two hard drives but do you want them in a raid configuration or two seperate ones?

2) Since we are talking about a gaming rig I would go with a 500W this baby will run all the LEDs the processor and SLI easily.

3) Often the heatsink and fan that comes with the processor is good the reason that alot of people upgrade it is for OCing.

4) All it means is that the PC4000 RAM will run like it was PC3200

5) I don't reconize the brand but if you ever go looking for anything else stick with the 19 inch or go with a 21 inch and try to get it 8ms or lower. I have seen a 21 inch samsung 2ms response for about 500$ canadian (http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=17715&vpn=LS19HADKBE/XAA&manufacture=Samsung)

6) Parts these days get along pretty good with each other and taking a quick look at what you got there seems good.

Good Luck with this rig I am a gamer myself and I want to build a SFF (Small Form Factor) PC next year.

BTW I noticed that your mouse is wired but there are some nice wireless gaming mice out there that get minimal interference and no lag... you might want to look into that in the future.

And did you think about a TV Tuner card this little guy is about 100$ canadian but can be a nice addon for recording tv and watching it on your pc. Nice if you have a laptop you can bring TV Shows around with you.

I am not sure what is best as far as hard drive performance so im not sure. What are the benefits to RAID? should i bother? I only said two drives because someone told me that if i install my OS and my games on a smaller 10,000 RPM drive then loading times will be cut way down. Then my pics, videos, saved games, etc... can all go on a larger 7200 PRM drive.

I am entertaining the idea of a tuner card but wont make that decision until a later date.

I will look around for better deals on monitors.

Yes, the mouse is wired but i just dig the 6 button setup and look.

Thanks for your response.

Well if you got a 10000 RPM Drive tehre aren't many benefits to raid.

You'll probably loose some performance (and money) with the DDR500 RAM if you're not going to overclock the computer, which is what that RAM is for. You might want to go for some DDR400 RAM with better timings. Something like Twinx2048-3200c2pt

I agree, some quality 500W power supply is what you need. A must read for prospective PSU buyers.

As for the hard-drives, to get 10,000 rpm drive Western Digital's Raptor is you're only choice. They come in three sizes 36 GB, 74 GB, 150 GB. As for the other drive, Seagate is good.

I've never heard of Rosewill monitors so on that I can't comment.

Thank you Mr. Alpha.

I will go with your suggestions. I will modify and repost system componants this afternoon.

I appreciate your help again.