looking forward to my first homemade PC

[francist30]

Hello all,

First let me start off buy saying, thanks Rob I love your site. I've found it most informative and helpful. I am MOST certainly looking forward to the day that I complete the building of my first homemade PC.

Now comes the fun part, I haven't actually started building my PC yet, or ordered the parts....yet. What I have been doing is, doing some research and comparitive shopping on the components (using what info I've gleened so far from Build your own PC) that are needed.

What I am doing is designing a part time Gamers machine, w/ designs on becoming full time Gamer. What I'm needing to know right now is. Am I on the right track, so far, as far as compatibility of components, quality, etc?

This is what I've decided on thus far:

MOBO: EVGA 122-M2-NF59-TR Socket AM2 NVIDIA nFORCE 590
CPU: Athlon 64 x2 6000+ (or) Athlon FX-62
Graphic Card: Diamond Viper Radeon x1950 Crossfire Ready
HDD(1): Seagate Baracuda HD 750GB 7200 rpm SATA 3Gb/s w/16MB cache
HDD(2): Don't know yet.
Optical: Sony DRU-170C 18x IDE DVD Burner DVD+/-RW
(or) Sony DRU-835A 18x IDE DVD Burner 2-Tone DVD+/-RW
(or) Liteon LH-20A1H-186 20x Dual Layer DVD+/-RW Drive w/Super
Allwrite & Lightscribe
RAM: Corsair TWIN2X2048-8500c5d 2GB Kit DDR2-1066 PC2-8500
Dominator Series
PSU: 750W min (Brand ?)

As you can see, I have an idea of what I want for most of my components. What I'm not sure of is, are these the right parts for the rig I want? Or even if they'll mesh well together. Plus, there's the problem of being able to go online. There's not much (helpful) information on which is the better quality and type of modem that I'll need, or want. Any suggestions?

I also have a question on the case that I have. I have an old tower that was salvaged from an HP Pavilion 8140. I'm not all to certain whether there'll be enough room in it for whats needed. Do you think I'll have enough room in it for the above listed components plus the cooling fans I'm going to need? O r should I consider it a lost cause and dish out the green for a different one?

Speaking of cooling, just curious. Whats the general opinion on liquid cooling systems? Is it worth my time?

Any and all help will be greatly appreciated, plus any suggestions you might have on possible alternative brands etc.

Thanks for the help,
Timothy G.

[The Wise Monkey]

Ok, lot of questions there, but I'll do my best. :)

At this stage, I would not recommend buying an AMD processor. For the money you are looking at spending, you could get an E6750 Intel Core 2 Duo which will out perform any AMD on the market at the moment.

You wil also need a different mobo too if you decide to go for Intel - most ASUS mobos are very good, or Gigabyte is also a good choice.

Graphics card wise, I recommend Nvidia, although it is always down to personal preference. I'm a big fan of the 8800 GTS, which is good bang-for-buck.

For the amount of storage you have, its probably better buying two 500GB HDs and having them in RAID 0 configuration - read/write will be 25% faster.

As for the optical drive, SATA is probably the way to go as opposed to IDE. Although they have the same data thoughput, SATA drives are faster at detecting disks. This isn't a major difference, but if you use a lot of CDs then it is definitely preferable.

The RAM looks good, although you may want to switch to TWIN-XMS Corsair PC2-6400, as this is much cheaper and most motherboards only support up to 6400 speeds. If you do decide on getting the 8500, make sure that your mobo can support it, otherwise the money will be wasted.

For the power supply, any good brand such as Antec, OCZ, Hiper, Tagan etc are very good. At the moment, I suggest the Hiper 730W Type R modular PSU - great quality and reasonable price.

If you want to get into gaming, then broadband is the way to go. I would recommend getting a decent router from either Belkin or Netgear.

With all the money that is going into this PC, you should probably get a newer case with better cooling facilities. I suggest the Antec 900, which is an excellent tower case. I personally have the Thermaltake Tsunami, which is also superb, but its down to you.

Finally, liquid cooling is really only necessary if you plan on seriously overclocking your setup - don't bother otherwise.

Phew, hope this helps. :)