Where to begin on a new(bie) build

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payso

Geek Trainee
Have been thinking about a new (first) build for the last couple of months as i would like to get into gaming/overclocking a bit more. My parents old pc just cannot hack anything more than writing word docs nowadays.

Below is the system i would like to build. Would really appreciate any advice about cooling, noise reduction and system component compatibility etc as i am a total newbie to system builds.

Akasa Eclipse-62 Aluminum Case

Tagan TG430-U15 430W ATX2.01 Easycon SLi Compliant Modular Silent PSU

AMD Athlon 64 3500+ Venice 90nm (Socket 939) - OEM (therefore need a good heatsink and fan - was going to go for Arctic Cooling Freezer 64??)

Asus A8N-E nForce4 Ultra (not that bothered about SLI at the mo.) Can anyone reccomend a good chipset cooler?

Sapphire ATI Radeon X800 GTO² w/arctic cooler.

Corsair 1GB DDR XMS3200XL Platinum TwinX (2x512MB) - does this need additional cooling or will the heatspreaders be enough?

Hard Drive - unsure whether to go for:

Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 Plus 200GB (IDE)

or

Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 10 NCQ 250GB 6L250S0 SATA 16MB

Unsure of the benefits of SATA??

Lite-On SOHW-1635S 16X DVD±RW Dual Layer Internal IDE

Also my bro is going to give me an old SCSI drive to run my OS off of

Any comments, advice, links to other good sites, alternative system set ups (around the £800 max mark) will be gratefully accepted.

Thanks,
 
Nice parts there, That PSU will do you good (i have the TG480-U01) also go with the Seagate HDD, Maxtor use bad bearings and seagate and western digital are considered the best you can buy.
That corsair RAM is some good stuff!
And Lite-On drives are pretty good as well, looks like a good system, have thought about additional cooling like a new CPU fan if you're going to be overclocking? Zalman make some awesome ones but i like the Freezer 4 (they do an AMD version) as i have it and its great.
 
Hi

I cannot comment on AMD (I keep saying it....).
Never had one and never seen one working. However the Freezer is the dogs bollocks! most definitly!

It all looks good and from a thread I posted, the 3500+ Venice and the nForce 4 look like a hot favourites. I think you will find that most AMD users here prefer 450W PSU's (or more...).

Try and find out how OCable is your memory as you will be OCing it even if slightly. Better to be on the safe side. Can you do anything more than heatspreaders? I Was going to place an extra fan on the side pannel to blow over the memory slots but when I tried one fan over the PCI slots it was too noisy so I gave it up. I think the best solution is good air movement withing the case.

With the hard drive - most users here like WD or seagate. Do not mention maxtor.... :) they will eat you alive :confused:
Look for fastest seek time and data transfer. If you are planning to use RAID (what ever that is...) you have to use SATA. Otherwise to us humble users there will not be that much difference between the two (SATA, PATA).
I use a SATA Samsung which cannot be heard and looks like is working perfectly to me. But judging from other's comments, I could have just used an IDE one.

DVD-RW looks good....

I recon £800 will safely see you building a very good system!
 
Thanks a lot for the quick response.

Was also wondering on the thermal compound i should use.

I was talking to a bloke at work who reccomended arctic silver for the processor, but said that it should not be used for everything e.g. between northbridge chipset and heatsink/fan.

Any suggestions?
 
Arctic Silver 5 FOR EVERYTHING! well i think thats personal choice, I have it on my NB heatsink and chip and on my CPU and i may put it on my new Vid Card when i get it...
Go with Arctic Silver 5, its the greatest stuff.
Do not mention maxtor.... :) they will eat you alive :confused:
Click to expand...
Yes we will, then we will take the maxtor drive and slaughter it...mwa ha ha :P
 
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