Beginner Setup. Opinions from the experienced, please!

[Jayce]

If I get a mobo that is SATA enabled or whatever the correct terms are for it, does that mean I can still use my IDE hard drive?

If so, could I essentially use an IDE hard drive PLUS a SATA hard drive? (master/slave)

 

[PZEROFGH]

get the MSI K8N NEO4-F mobo, like 83 dollars.

i belive you can, cause my MSI mobo allows me to raid IDE drives and Sata drives. or so called i forget it was called something somethig blah blah MSI or whatever

 

[Jayce]

Someone just told me about this site, it's smksuperstore.com.

They had an option, it's like a customizing option for building a PC. For example, on the left side I went to CPU + Mobo combo. I could pick the main brand of the mobo I wanted with the designated CPU. Then they had options like what kind of ram I'd like, if I wanted windows XP, if I wanted extra fans, power supply, etc etc.

It seems like a nice site. If I just got the bare minimal, SAME CPU and Mobo I was going to get from newegg.com for 250, I could get off of smksuperstore.com for 235. 15 bucks, no biggie right? That's WITH the 3 year warranty.

This was with an ASRock mobo though. Different mobos change the price.

That NEOf-4 mobo you spoke of about MSI doesn't have SATA in the name. Does that mean I can't use SATA HDDs?

 

[PZEROFGH]

lol it has sata ports dont worry, most mobos out these days have sata ports

 

[Jayce]

Okay, last time I'm doing this, I promise.

I found a site from another forum I visit. It's not a PC forum but majority of the folks on there have experience with this stuff. www.smksuperstore.com was suggested to me.

On the left side they have these package deals.

For 229 dollars I can get an AMD Athlon 64 Venice 3200 socket 939 processor, along with an ECS nForce4-A939 (nForce 4 Chipset - 4DDR - 3PCI - 2PCI-E - 1PCI-E X16 - SATA - GB LAN - 10 USB) motherboard. Going with the Corsair Value ram (1 gig) off of newegg.com.

Still debating on the video card. But the important thing is whether that mobo is "up to par" with the processor.

For 230 bucks (this is WITH a 3 year warranty too) it's hard for me to say no...

Wanting to buy today, but since I'm new I want some reaffirming "a-okay's" from the experienced.

Thank youuuuuuuuu!

edit- the K8T8000 from ECS is listed as compatible on smksuperstore, but on newegg it's listed as "system compatibility: athlon 64 fx." Is that still compatible with athlon 64 then?

 

[PZEROFGH]

sounds good to me. but im not sure about the mobo but it seems ok.

yes its compatiblie with 64

 

[Jayce]

sounds good to me. but im not sure about the mobo but it seems ok.

yes its compatiblie with 64

Not sure?

As in...

You have no experience with it and therefore cannot comment.

Or you're not sure it's a wise idea...

 

[vaderpro]

Meaning he's never heard about it, so he/we aren't sure its any good....so, better to go with a decent brand that we DO know about, like: Msi, Gigabyte, Dfi, Asus.....

 

[Jayce]

Meaning he's never heard about it, so he/we aren't sure its any good....so, better to go with a decent brand that we DO know about, like: Msi, Gigabyte, Dfi, Asus.....

I'm thinking MSI NEO4F.

 

[vaderpro]

good choice.