Building my First Computer. I need some reassurance!

[VarLordahl]

Hey guys I'm building my first computer. It will be fairly high performance, althought it's nothing too special. First, if someone could review my list of components below and be srue that everything checks out that would be great:

Asus A8N-Sli Socket 939 Mobo
AMD 3800+ X2 processor
1GB (2x512) Corsair Select Ram DDR400
Western Digital 250GB 7200rpm 8mb cache SATA 300 harddrive
EVGA refurbished OEM 256mb 6800GT Video Card w/dual DVIs
NEC DVD+-R
Antec Case w/Antec TruPower 450w PS
Acer Digital 20.1" Widescreen 1680x1080 (I think) res


Do these parts seem to complement each other? I do VERY LITTLE gaming, but lots of picture editing and spread-sheeting. I basically just want a fast machine that can handle anything I throw at it - but I don't need a ridiculous gaming machine.

That said,

When I assemble it, I basically just play "Legos" and fit everything together,right? Well, my question then is, since my mobo has no video card built onboard, when I first set the bios to boot from a CD and load Windows on it, how it does output anything to the monitor through the vid card if there is no vid card driver installed yet?

I've reformatted computers 100's of times, and done lots of minor hardware upgrades. I've jsut never built a puter from scratch. I just want to be sure it's not a whole lot harder to build one fromscratch.

Also,how much time shoudl I give myself to assemble the thing?

Thanks guys!

 

[talldude123]

first look at the PSU, 450 watts isnt alot for the processor. I dont know AMD's, but thats a 3.8 Ghz processor, alot of PSU.

http://www.jscustompcs.com/power_supply/


using the specs you told me, your PSU is going to be 395 watts used, thats only 55 watts leftover, i would highly recommend getting a 500 watt power supply, and one extra stick of RAM.

When you set up Windows thru the bios, just use the motherboards video chipset.

Spend some time assembling the PC, dont just snap it together, be careful, and do a quality job.

 

[aliasaid]

thats not a 3.8ghz cpu...

its dual 2.0ghz.. (consume less than two 2ghz cpus since its not 2 cpus, just 2 cores on the cpu..)

i haven't come across any 450watt true power powrsupplies.. its either 430 or 480.. unless you mean the smartpower line. either way.. that powersupply in my opinioni s good enough.

as for video cards.. since you do VERY LITTLE gaming, that graphics card is really powerful.. i recommend downgrading the video card, and get 2 X 1gb ram. and using the same logic, no need to get an SLI motherboard if you're not doing gaming.. the video card you mentioned doesn't say if its agp or pci-express.. make sure its pci-express if you get that motherboard..

 

[VarLordahl]

revised

Ok, thank you for the info. I have revised my parts list.

Also, you were correct, the power supply is the smartpower, not the truepower line. Here is my updated list of components that come in at right around $1,270. I think it's a pretty sweet system for that $.


ASUS A8N-SLI Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce4 SLI ATX AMD Motherboard - Retail
Model #: A8N-SLI

Antec LifeStyle SONATA II Piano Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case 450Watt SmartPower 2.0 ATX 12V V2.0 for AMD & Intel systems Power Supply - Retail $94.99

NEC 16X DVD±R DVD Burner Black IDE/ATAPI Model ND-3550A - OEM
Model #: ND-3550A BK OEM $38.88

Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD2500KS 250GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM
Model #: WD2500KS
$96.00

Update CORSAIR ValueSelect 2GB (2 x 1GB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM DDR 400 (PC 3200) Unbuffered System Memory Model VS2GBKIT400C3 - Retail
Model #: VS2GBKIT400C3 $136.00

Acer AL2032wd Black 20" 16 ms(8GTG) Widescreen LCD Monitor - Retail
Model #: ET.L380B.005
$359.99 $359.99

AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ Manchester 1GHz HT Socket 939 Dual Core Processor Model ADA3800BVBOX - Retail
Model #: ADA3800BVBOX $295.00 $295.00

ASUS EN6600/TD/256 Geforce 6600 256MB DDR PCI Express x16 Video Card - Retail
Model #: EN6600/TD/256 $99.00

I will be ordering tomorrow, so please let me know how all of this sounds!

 

[VarLordahl]

Oh, and since the SLI motherboard is only like $12 more, I think I'm going to stick with it just in case I want to get into gaming or do dual video cards later in this computer's life.

 

[arctic388]

looks good to me. although my card choice is

http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16814130283

7600 gt 256mb

 

[VarLordahl]

Yeah, but that's $90 more.

I think what I'm going to do for the time being is stick with the 6600.

If I feel it's bottlenecking anything I do, I'll dump it on ebay and get a hot card like a 7800GT or something.

But for the time being, I'm going to give the 6600 a test run.

My gut feeling is that it will do anything I ask it to do, especially since I am not an avid gamer.

 

[Kadahaf]

a 6600 and 2 gigs of ram..something I'm missing? atleast get a decent videocard and one gig of ram.


also 450 watts is more than enough

 

[VarLordahl]

a 6600 and 2 gigs of ram..something I'm missing? atleast get a decent videocard and one gig of ram.


also 450 watts is more than enough

So you then would go back to what I had with the 256MB 6800GT w/1GB of ram? That was my original configuration, but the first told me that since I'm not a gamer I didn't need that powerful of a card.

I may do this anyway, and then just add the extra 1GB of ram at some point down the road.

 

[arctic388]

that is the direction everyone told me. "they" said 1gb is plenty. if not for you then you could always put more easily.