Building newbie needs help with first try

[Ravesky]

Ok I'm pretty sure I will be going 3200 AMD with 754 socket. I am gonna get some non-value good ram (1GB) and probably a 6800 GT. I have heard that Raid 0 ing 2 80 gb sata drives might be worth it? How much work does this entail? Is it hard?

I might want to OC that proc then, will I need additional cooling?

 

[RangerX]

You got a top of the line video card, plenty of ram,a decent proc, and serial ATA that setup will last you through college I'm sure.

You'l have to ask others about overclocking and Raid.

 

[Nvidia fan boy]

Ok youll want watercooling for OCing the 64 bit cpu's and working w/ raid isnt hard. Plus i recommend going w/ a socket 939 because you cant upgrade anymore on 754. Plus if you get watercooling then get a Video card block for the 6800gt so you dont have heat issues in you room. Now where as performance is concerned im pretty sure you wont see the diff. youll only notice how much faster your computer is now than before. Now get the Plextor DVD drive instead and i would recommend the Thermaltake Aquarius III external watercooling. Also Dual Channel DDR is much better than standard DDR, to put it simple it doubles performance. On that HD the couple thousand rpm's will not be much of a diff. As long as its sata and 7200 rpm you should be happy.

 

[Ravesky]

Total- 1218Â…This is a good price I guess, I wouldnÂ’t mind going lower, but its alright. So the few questions I have left are if I need to purchase any additional cables and such in order to construct this thing. Also, I would like to OC if necessary, not a whole lot, but do I have enough cooling with this set up?
Or if I get a 3200 or 3000 and OC it, will the performance be comparable to this set up normally? Sorry for all these questions..iÂ’m just trying to save some money =D

Case- http://www.newegg.com/app/viewProductDesc.asp?description=11-156-018&depa=0
RAIDMAX Black 10-bay Case – 26.00
Mobo- http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=13-130-468&depa=0
MSI "K8N Neo2 Platinum" NVIDIA nForce3 ULTRA Chipset Motherboard – 131.00 (BACKORDER)
Processor- http://www.newegg.com/app/viewProductDesc.asp?description=19-103-463&depa=0
AMD Athlon 64 3500+, 512K, L2 Cache, Windows Compatible 64-bit Processor 939 Pin – 287.00
Vid Card- http://www.newegg.com/app/viewProductDesc.asp?description=14-130-202&depa=0
eVGA nVIDIA GeForce 6800 Video Card, 128MB GDDR, 256-bit, DVI/TV-Out, 8X AGP – 285.00
RAM – http://www.newegg.com/app/viewProductDesc.asp?description=20-145-450&depa=0
Corsair XMS Extreme Memory Speed Series, (Twin Pack) 184 Pin 1GB(512MBx2) DDR PC-3200
-Will this run in Dual Channel? – 220.00
Floppy - http://www.newegg.com/app/viewProductDesc.asp?description=21-104-101&depa=0
Mitsumi Black 1.44MB 3.5inch Floppy Disk Drive 11.00
Hard Drive - http://www.newegg.com/app/viewProductDesc.asp?description=22-148-019&depa=0
Seagate 80GB 7200RPM SATA Hard Drive OEM – 72.00
-Do I need to purchase SATA cables?
DVD-Rom – http://www.newegg.com/app/viewProductDesc.asp?description=27-101-124&depa=0
SONY Black 16X DVD-ROM Drive – 25.00
OS- http://www.newegg.com/app/viewProductDesc.asp?description=37-102-151&depa=0
Windows XP home
Power Supply - http://www.newegg.com/app/viewProductDesc.asp?description=17-153-009&depa=0
Thermaltake W0010 Silent Purepower 480W with Black housing - Xaser Edition ATX 2-Fan

 

[Leonidas]

i would not suggest oc'ing with your 64 unless you find your games are suffering from it... "if it aint broke dont fix it" the country people around me say... as far as your DDR PC-3200 goes it should run in dual channel if your mobo supports it(which yours does),as far as your harddrive i like it for the price your getting it. secondly your gonna need fans... you should be able to steal some from your old system but you might wanna buy some extras now before you buy it all and have to run out to buy more... and very last- the video card you are getting is not the one everyone suggested you got regular 6800 not the GT, everyone says there is a major difference, you may want to check it out...

tomshardware has some good benchmarks of shitloads of cards from ATI and nvidia on alot of games software... definitely research before you buy

 

[Ravesky]

I know I picked the regular 6800...the GT is +$100 than the regular and I can't throw around anymore money.

I've been looking for good prices for that card and the best I can find is around $400.

 

[Nubius]

Yup, same price I see it for...although with the ability to get it up to the speed of a card that is $200 more expensive than it, then that extra $100 for the GT doesn't seem so bad, but you gotta go eVGA brand for good OC results.

 

[Nvidia fan boy]

Yea that ram is really good, look i have the same thing! No the sata cables will come w/ the HD. And I realllllyyyyy recomend a 6800GT. I stress that so much because it is so much better. Oh and i would suggest a watercooled system if ur gonna OC that beast.

 

[Ravesky]

Well I have decided to not bother with OCing or anything crazy. In order to get a better vid card, I am going to get a 3200 AMD 64 bit 754 pin Proc, this http://www.newegg.com/app/viewproduct.asp?description=13-130-434 mobo, 3 extra sunon case fans, this case http://www.newegg.com/app/viewproduct.asp?description=11-156-135, and probably a 120 GB hitachi sata HD because the seagate is out of stock. The Case I picked has a 420W power supply, is that going to be enough? I probably won't OC anything.

Also, I am gonna get that 6800 GT, trouble is I gotta find one, everything is out of stock (at most I will pay $415). I have heard that cheaper Asus one is bad so I am trying to get a EVGA

 

[Nubius]

eVGA is the one you want if you plan on OC'ing the 6800GT as they put on the same heatsink across all the cards meaning you'll have the top heatsink for the card that's not top....so it's like having a free aftermarket heatsink on it!