Please check out my choices

[sp855]

Ok everyone, please feel free to pick this apart, I am a first time builder. I have an HP bought from best buy 4 years ago. I am having problems and was told it is my motherboard and need a new one. Also having trouble getting some of the new games to run because of graphics so i decided to build my own from scratch. I have read many many posts in these forums on what to buy and have made my choices. Let me know if i made some mistakes. I dont play any of those first person shooter games, mostly stuff like command and conquer, warcraft 2 and 3. I bought a new game a couple months ago and it require shading which my current computer doesn't support. This is why i went with the 6600gt graphics card, thought about the 6800 but i believe the 6600 will do what i want for now. With my choice of motherboard i think i could upgrade later if need be and have to buy only a graphics card. I think anyway.

Here is my choices. Would someone please check the specs on what i have chosen to make sure they are compatible....PLEASE.

MSI K8N Neo4-F Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce4 ATX AMD Motherboard
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813130491#DetailSpecs

AMD Athlon 64 3200+ Venice 1GHz FSB 512KB L2 Cache Socket 939 Processor
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16819103535


eVGA 128-P2-N368-TX Geforce 6600GT 128MB 128-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16 Video Card
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814130214


2 OF THESE FOR A TOTAL OF 1024 MB'S........CORSAIR ValueSelect 512MB 184-Pin DDR SDRAM Unbuffered DDR 400 (PC 3200) System Memory
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820145026

Seagate Barracuda 7200.9 ST3808110AS 80GB 7200 RPM 8MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822148107

Antec SmartPower 2.0 SP-500 500W Power Supply
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16817103937

XION XION _ Solaris XON-412 Silver/Black Computer Case With Side Panel Window
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16811208010


Total price $620.47 before taxes.

I know i dont actually need the 500w power supply but i dont know how to figure how much i need but i do know the graphics card needs 350w.

I have plenty of optical drives laying around that work just fine, 1 dvd burner, 2 cd-r's, as well as a 3.5 floppy. The only question i have on that is...will ide drives work with this motherboard?

 

[sp855]

One other thing.......i plan on using windows XP home edition

 

[KryptoKnight]

for 20 dollars more, you could get a 250 gig hard drive (SATA). Otherwise, it's perfect. Good luck!

 

[schulz269]

It looks fine. Its always better to have more watts if you decide to add stuff later in time.

 

[FghtinIrshNvrDi]

Good choices. That power supply should take you a lot farther than everyone on here whoops and hollars about. When the video card companies recommend certain wattage, they know that no one knows about power supplies and are saying that the crappiest 350W one should do fine. If we're on the scale of "Crappy PSU watts", then yours would be worth about 750.

Ryan

 

[wxt38]

for a little bit more you can get a 6800 and you can unlock some piplines too.

 

[sp855]

I really don't understand what you were saying about opening up some pipelines. I'm assuming you're talking about overclocking or something like that that's over my head. All in all this is my first attempt at building a computer and it's an eye opening experience. I went to best buy yesterday to see what it would cost to buy something comparable off the shelf and boy was i surprised. Not to mention the prices of parts which newegg had best buy beat hands down. They had PNY ddr 400 512mb memory sticks for $140, a 500 watt antec psu for $120, OUTRAGEOUS PRICES TO SAY THE LEAST.

Anyway, i really appreciate your help! I have learned a lot in the last 2 weeks and i'm sure i'm just getting started. I plan on ordering the parts i listed on friday feb 17 and hopefully in a day or two i will be posting what good results i had.

Till then.............

 

[bonehelm]

we're talking about unlocking pixel pipelines

those pipes are in your graphic card, its kinda like the idea of a water pipe with water running through

the more pipes you have, the more water can run at the same time, and of course the graphic card would become faster

but theres also another factor that affects a graphic card's performance a lot, and thats the core clock speed and memory clock speed. its basically how fast the water runs.

so there you go, the more pipes you have, more water can run at the same time, and with high clock speeds, your water can run so fast at a time coz you have a lot of pipelines.

hope that makes sense for everyone

 

[royalk4]

Unlocking pixels is cake and increases performances pretty significantly. There are guides all over google and hear on how to do it. I recommend getting a 6800gs and doing that.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814130271

Sick deal on it

 

[FghtinIrshNvrDi]

There's no pipes to unlock on the PCI Express version. And the AGP unlocking is a pretty rare thing from what I've heard.

Ryan