My New Build Help???

[tlcurtis]

I started collecting parts and have purchased the case, memory, hard drive and would like you too look at my list and see what you think. I am concerned about the video cards that Rob has listed and would like to know if they will work or not. I was looking at the 9600GT 512MB but with the 450w power supply not sure if this will work either. Please let me know what you think.My old Asus P2B and Win98SE is ready to be retired and or my daughter is ready to chuck it out the window with the next blue screen that comes up.
I want to use it for some light gaming and mostly for office applications, photo and video editing and capture. Thanks


CPU INTEL Core 2 Duo E8400 3.00 GHz 1333 MHz 775 6MB
CPU Cooling Artic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro
Motherboard ASUS P5K-Deluxe/WiFi-AP S775 P35 Chipset
Case Antec Sonata-2 450W Quite Case
Hard Drive Western Digital GP 500GB 16MB Cache SATA 2
Floppy Mitsumi 3.5" Floppy Drive w/ 7 in 1 Card Reader (Black)
Video ????
Optical Drive LITEON LH-20A1L-06 20X SATA DVD Burner Black DVD±RW
Memory OCZ Gold XTC OCZ2G8002GK 2X1G DDR2 800Mhz
Memory OCZ Gold XTC OCZ2G8002GK 2X1G DDR2 800Mhz
Sound Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Extreme Audio
Keyboard Microsoft Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000
Monitor Veiwsonic VX2235WM 22" HD Widescreen (DVI/VGA)
Mouse Microsoft Intellimouse Explorer
0S Vista HOME Premium 32-bit English Single-Pack DVD

[RickyTick]

Hey tlcurtis. Welcome

The Sonata III case is an improvement over the Sonata II, and comes with a better power supply.

Western Digital hard drives are great. Check out the Caviar SE series. They are top notch.

If you're wanting to use 4gb of ram, you would be better served with the 64 bit version of Vista.

Otherwise it looks great.

[The Wise Monkey]

Moved to BYOC section.

[shyster]

I believe that the 9600GT has a list power requirement of 400 so you should be safe with 450. Especially if you were considering it versus the 8800 which as I understand it actually eat more power on the whole than the 9XXX series.

I do not however know how efficient the sonata's PSU actually is because I have not used it.

Other than that as Ricky mentioned you would need Vista 64 for your computer to run efficiently. Using 4 gigs in a 32 bit system actually slows it down and can cause other operating errors.

But all in all, it looks good and welcome.

[RickyTick]

The Sonata III comes with the Antec 500 watt Earthworks which has an 80% efficiency rating.

[tlcurtis]

I have already purchased the Sonta II w/450 and not the newer Sonta III w/500 watt power supply.
So what are your thoughts then with the Memory just go with 2GB Vista Premium and or load the Vista Ultimate 64 with the 4GB?
I could use the extra 2GB on another build possibly. I thank you for your insight with this, I started all this last year and need to get this up and running.

[shyster]

Well if they are two sticks of 2gb RAM then you would want to keep them together for maximum efficiency.

Although ddr sticks can work solo they are much better suited to working in matched pairs.

However if you already bought the OEM vista 32 then most places do not allow returns or exchanges, so you could just go with the ram. The best option to hope for would be that you bought vista 32 retail, then you could just do a straight exchange for 64.

[tlcurtis]

I have purchased the 4 X 1GB sticks already, I haven't purchased the Vista Home Premium 32bit. I am still on the fence with Vista and or XP but I am coming from 98SE. I have XP Pro on my work laptop and no issues. I have read some horror stories on Vista and I have some older software, printer and scanner they both have usb connectivity and they both have drivers for Vista. Let me know what you think, I also plan to buy a couple laptop's soon and might want to go with the Vista Business thank for your help. :confused: