Decided on Building My Own PC - Take a Look

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NathanM

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Hello! This is my first post here, but I've been lurking a lot lately. After tons and tons of research and browsing all of the custom PC building sites such as CyberPower, iBuyPower, and Monarch, I've decided to build my own PC. The price difference of building your own PC vs. buying from CyberPower or iBuyPower is negligible at best, which made me at first not want to build my own. However, after much research, not only do some of their nightmarish negative reviews about customer service and bad parts scare me away, but they're known to use low quality parts as well. Monarch was a different story. Excellent site, customer service, www.resellerratings.com rating, and decent priced computers.

Since CyberPower and iBuyPower obviously are so terrible, Monarch was my only safe choice left. There was a ~$150-200 price difference between the other two companies, which was bothering me. Then I went back and compared building my own vs. buying from Monarch. It was a fair price difference and lately I've been getting more and more into the hardware side of PCs and actually wanting to build my own computer. So that's the route I've decided on.

This will be my first time to build a computer, however, I've done plenty of hardware installations such as hard drives, video cards, RAM, and optical drives. I've read and saved guides on building PCs and I think I'm ready. Now all that's left to do is order all of the parts (preferrably through Newegg, god they rock).

Basically, I'd just like some personal opinions on the PC I'm going to build. It's not "top of the line", but intended to play most games with good quality and frame rate. Here are the specs that I have in mind:

Item | Type | Price

Updated and Finalized Unless Quick Input is Given

Case: NZXT Nemesis Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case $80.99
Power Supply: Antec SmartPower 2.0 SP-500 500W Power Supply $68.99
(Updated) Motherboard: MSI K8N Neo4-F Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce4 ATX AMD Motherboard $80.00
(I made the switch from X2 to Opteron! Thanks :))
Processor:
AMD Opteron 165 Dual-Core 1.8GHz Processor
$316.00
(Updated) CPU Fan & Heatsink: ZALMAN CNPS7000B-Cu LED 2 Ball Blue LED Light Cooling Fan $38.99
(Updated) RAM: gigaram 2GB (2 x 1GB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM
$162.00
Video Card: eVGA GeForce 6800GS 256-P2-N386 Video Card Already Purchased (not included in final price) $199.00
(Updated) Hard Drive: Maxtor DiamondMax 10 160GB 3.5" SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive $80.50
Optical Drive: NEC Black IDE/ATAPI DVD Burner Model ND-3550A $39.75
Speakers: Logitech X-230 2.1 Speaker $34.89
Floppy Drive: NEC Black Internal Floppy Drive Model FD1231H-302 $8.89
Operating System: Microsoft Windows XP Home With SP2 $93.95
Thermal Compound: Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound $5.99

Subtotal: $1,008.17
Shipping: $58.29
Total: $1,066.46

All products on this list are from Newegg minus the CPU, which is from ZipZoomFly (good price on the Opteron).

That covers just about everything. The video card's price isn't included in the final price because that's the one piece of hardware I already have.

If anyone has any comments or suggestions for improvement (but not drastic improvement, price-wise), go ahead and let me know.

Edit: Oh yes, I forgot to mention, I already have a 17" CRT monitor from the computer I'm currently using (selling the tower) and an Ethernet card.

Update Edit #1: Thanks so much for the help guys. Several improvements for minor price change so far! If there's any compatibility issues I missed, let me know, although I think as far as compatibility goes, I haven't messed up.

Update Edit #2: Took the PCI-E video card power cable off the list. The PSU comes with one, and I forgot about the person telling me that in an earlier post. Thanks again.

Update Edit #3: This is a list of what I have changed to my list from suggestions from tech-forums users:

-Motherboard
-Processor
-CPU Fan & Heatsink
-RAM
-Hard Drive

Thank you very much for all the help! If there's any last suggestions, hurry up because I'm ordering later tonight :).

Update #4: The RAM went out of stock, so I changed to gigaram. I also decided to order the Opteron 165 from ZipZoomFly instead of Newegg due to the price difference and free 2-day shipping.

Update #5: I didn't order tonight due to some parental problems. I'm paying for most of the computer, but over time. They're the one with the credit cards, and they just didn't feel like it last night :\. Hopefully tonight.
 
Not a big fan of Foxconn, and unless you really need the extra space in your case you might be better off getting a full atx motherboard.

Your power supply should have a pci-e power connecter. In fact provided I'm looking at the right one on newegg it is listed as one of the features.
 
I have all the URLs to all of those products on hand. This is the power supply: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817103937

I think I will try and find a good full ATX motherboard. Most of the ones listed that had the features I wanted were micro ATX, so that's why I picked that one. I will try and find an ATX that will suit my needs. Any motherboard company recommendations?

Edit: Thanks for mobo recommendations above poster.

Edit #2: If anyone has a better PSU recommendation, please let me know. That's the one I picked out from my own comparisons.
 
motherboard, MSI K8N Neo4F

I'm biased to it, because I'm using one right now. Works like a dream and not too complicated with very nice overclocking features.

Ryan
 
Dude, do you know how much a good Lian Li case costs? That case is perfect as is.

Good build, but a few minor improvements, only abut $20 or so more overall.

Motherboard - MSI K8N Neo4-F - $80.

Processor - AMD Opteron 165 - $345. A much better overclocker than the 3800+, plus $20 for twice the L2 cache seems fair.

Cooler - Zalman Copper CPU cooler - $39.

Oh yea, sure you don't want more RAM?
 
FghtinIrshNvrDi said:
motherboard, MSI K8N Neo4F

I'm biased to it, because I'm using one right now. Works like a dream and not too complicated with very nice overclocking features.

Ryan

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813130491

That? If so, I'll check it out :). It's cheaper than the LANParty one I just looked at.

Originally posted by Kitire
Try and get 140$ 1gbx2.

I will get the link for it if you'd like.

Sure, but I can probably find it if you don't want to go to the trouble.

Originally posted by PanzerKammander
Get a Lian Li Case..

I have had issues with NZXT.

I'll look into that also.

Thanks for all the suggestions so far, keep them coming if necessary!
 
Flanker said:
Dude, do you know how much a good Lian Li case costs? That case is perfect as is.

Good build, but a few minor improvements, only abut $20 or so more overall.

Motherboard - MSI K8N Neo4-F - $80.

Processor - AMD Opteron 165 - $345. A much better overclocker than the 3800+, plus $20 for twice the L2 cache seems fair.

Cooler - Zalman Copper CPU cooler - $39.

Oh yea, sure you don't want more RAM?

Already checking out the motherboard.

I'll have to research on the Opteron as I haven't looked into them much to see if that's what I'd like.

Checking out the cooler.

And yeah, I just may get more RAM :).
 
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