Building Comp, Newbie need Advices

[vietvietster]

Hi guys, I'm new to the forum.. I've been looking around all day, reading people advices and other's specs. So I've decided to build a computer myself because I need one for college anyway.

My budget is a little tight, I only want to spend around 800-1000 on it, hopefully, it'll be enough for a nice little computer. I will be using it for a some gaming (WoW), listening to musics, watch movies, and doing school works (hopefully).

So I have been looking around all day, and I think I get a hang of some things, but still need helps. Also, I'm not sure if I got all the stuffs I need. But here are my specs so far:

Case: COOLER MASTER Centurion $44
Motherboard: ECS P965T-A $95
Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo E6400 $235
Video Card: SAPPHIRE Radeon X850XT $116
Ram: OCZ DDR2 2GB $185
Power Supply: Antect 550W $93
Cooling Devices: Rosewill RCX-Z2 $25

My concerns are the power supply and temperatures.. I want to learn how to do a little bit of overclocking, so I hope the power supply is enough and the temperatures will be ok. I don't want to fry the computer.

Do I need anything else to improve or change anything? Any helps or tips will be appreciates.


EDIT: OK, I realize I need a Hard drive too. Any suggestion? such as the size, speed? Do big hard drives slow the computer down once I put too much stuffs in there? Am I better off with just a small hard drive and use external one if I need more space?

 

[Reaver]

Hey you college bound too? I was in much the same boat, with the limited budget and such, but what you are looking at is a good machine for the price.

A few things though:

1. NO SLI:
this board doesn't support the use of multiple video cards. Not really a huge deal, but if you plan to OC, I figure you are gonna run apps that need a good deal of Graphics support. but it is by NO MEANS required. You may want to look into that, however. and if you do, make sure the board supports full 16x SLI.

2. 550w is more than enough for your power needs, even with an OC. And hey, it even says it supports SLI.

3. Do you already have a monitor?

4. Make sure you PS has a Video card connection point on it, since the Sapphire card requires it.

5. Before i comment on the CPU, how much do you know about dual core. ALSO: WHAT APPS WILL YOU BE RUNNING ON THIS MACHINE?

let me know if i missed anything or you think of any other questions...

 

[vietvietster]

Thanks for replying.

I don't mind that it don't have SLI because I don't really want to do that either, it cost too much and I heard it doesn't improve your graphics that much. But maybe I'll do that another time if this one work out nicely (and when I have more money).

That's good that 550W is enough, I didn't want to go to 600W and spend another 30-40 bucks on it.

I have another monitor so I don't to worry about that for now.

Thanks for pointing that out, I just looked at the PS and it say "1 x 12V (P4)" so I think that is it.

To be honest, I don't know that much about dual core, I just learned about it couple of days ago. As for apps, I don't think I'll run many on this machine, maybe Adobe Photoshop once in a while, Microsoft Office's apps for school work, games such as World of Warcraft.. ect.. just casual stuffs.

Also, I got keyboard and mouse, so no worry there. And I was thinking of buying this NEC 16x DVD Burner and a Sony DVD-ROM as a secondary.

Also, another question: on the Processor, it say "Heatsink and Fan included", does that mean I don't need to buy the Rosewill Cooling Device?

 

[Vybuni]

You don't really need the Rosewill HSF. If you buy a new HSF, you should either get a good one or don't bother at all.

As for a hard drive, it really depends on how much space you need and are going to fill.
I have this one and I really like it.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822144701

I have that power supply, and it does have a PCI-E power connector (Two actually).

Dual cores really only help if you are into heavy multitasking. If you plan on using, say, photoshop during a WOW session, then a dual core would be beneficial. If you only plan on having one of such programs open at a time, you could get a more powerful single core CPU and be better off.