Having worn out a store bought computer,knowing now how I use a computer,the bug has bit to build my own.

Browsing Tiger Direct,looking at barebones' kits,I found two socket 939 kits,within my price range,that will do what I want a computer to do.(Once I add the other stuff.)

The two are comparably equipped,with similar features,within ten dollars of each other. One has a MSI motherboard,the other a Mach Speed motherboard.

Does anyone have anything bad or good to say about either option,or can I select based upon price?

Thank you.

**This is subject to revision;I can take advice.**

-Case,power supply,Athelon 64 4000+ chip,heatsink/fan.(Hence the question above.)
-1 gb DDR memory(PC 3200)
-Nvidia,Pci express,16 card
-Sound Blaster sound card
-Western Digital Sata Drive 120gb
-Logitek Wireless Keyboard/Mouse
-Three piece speakers
-plain vanilla printer/USB cable
-Sony DVD-RW optical drive
-17" LED monitor
-Windows Home


Any obvious mistakes so far?

Thanks.

browsing tigerdirect, i think i picked out the two kits you had in mind. but if you could link to the two you were considering just in case we could give you better commentary.

with the machspeed motherboard the one thing that concerns me is how close the pci-e 16 slot is to the ram slots. some of the larger videocards that are out now extend far past the end of the slot and with it being so close to the ram, you may have a hard time seating them correctly.

the msi motherboard looks like it has better placement of the pci-e 16 slot relative to the ram.

also, you may want to consider more than a 400w power supply if you're wanting to get a very powerful videocard. if you want to go relatively high end on the graphics i'd recommend a 500w psu, at least.

sight unseen, I would go with the MSI board. I agree with dogslikeus, a bigger power supply would be better.

Go for a 500 to 550

suggestion; get two 80 gig SATA Drives if this MB has more sata ports, and set up a RAID 0

MSI - they've got a better reputation than Mach Speed.

All three above,thank you!

Perhaps I'm browsing too much,getting too raw information before I digest it,but I'm curious.

Do the Shuttle Computer Barebones Kits require heat sinks/fans on the CPUs or is the cooling built into the design?

Ed

i'd need to see the specific product you were looking at, but they generally either say fan/heatsink included or not included. unless i'm misinterpreting your question. yes, cpus do need cooling of some sort, regardless of case design.