Building my own pc... compatible parts?

A

a_hammer13

Geek Trainee
Hi everybody, let me start by saying that your site has given me a lot of great answers to some of my most troubling questions.

I am currently saving up to buy a new pc. I want to build the thing myself and have been researching parts etc... pretty thoroughly. I think I have come up with the sytem I want, but I need to know whether the parts are compatible or not, and whether this is actually a good system for gaming, and other tasks. Here's the system:

-Intel P4 550 3.4 Ghz LGA 775 (might overclock this, so would get a better heatsink)
-ASUS P5AD2 PREMIUM LGA775
-CORSAIR VS1GBKIT533D2 DUAL CHANNEL KIT 1024MB 2X512MB DDR2 MEMORY PC2-4200 240PIN DIMM
-SEAGATE BARRACUDA 7200.7 200GB SATA HARD DRIVE 8MB 7200RPM 8.5MS
-Antec 1080 Performance Plus case w/ 430 w truepower psu
- Ati Radeon X850 XT PE PCI-E Graphics card :D
- NEC ND-3500A DVD+-RW 16X4X16 DUAL LAYER+R 4X INT IDE
- LG 16X BLACK DVD-ROM 48X CD-ROM IDE UDMA33 INT
- VANTEC HDC-502A ALUMINUM HARD DRIVE COOLER

I think that is all comes together pretty nicely, but I need an expert to tell me whether the parts are compatible or not, or whether I should be trying another configuration. Thanks for all your help.
 
Yeh thats all compatible :good:

However, your only downfall perhaps, maybe your powersupply, 430W even with a good quality brand like Antec is going to be cutting it abit short..

Especially if you're running a PCI-E card such as the X850, and a 200GB Sata drive, i would seriously think about purchasing another powersupply to put in your case, or buy a case without a powersupply and then buy a power supply as another part, i would highly recommend the Thermal Take 480W Silent PurePower psu, it's fantastic, and comes with fan control.

As for the pc its self, it is a very nice pc, however for the price you could get a AMD64Bit, and there has always been a debate about which is better AMD or Intel.. but AMD out performs Intel in everything except video encoding, but bare in mind when encoding that the AMD is better at encoding in DivX and XviD (the two most popular video codecs).

Personally for that sort of money i would buy a 939Pin AMD64 motherboard and cpu with a good powersupply.

Look into either the:
MSI K8N Neo4 Diamond nForce4 SLi (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-047-MS)
Or the:
MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum nForce4 Ultra (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-046-MS)

and processor wise look into:
AMD Athlon 64 3200+ Winchester 90nm (Socket 939) - Retail (CP-097-AM) (CP-097-AM)
or
AMD Athlon 64 3500+ Winchester 90nm (Socket 939) - Retail (CP-101-AM)
or
AMD Athlon 64 3800 Winchester 90nm (Socket 939) - Retail (CP-088-AM)

PowerSupply wise i would look into:
OCZ PowerStream 520w Power Supply (CA-011-OC)
Tagan TG480-U01 480W Silent PSU (CA-000-TG)
and for a REALLY nice psu:
Antec NeoPower 480W PSU (CA-022-AN)

Everything else you have mentioned (graphics / hard drive / cd / dvd roms and re-writers, memory e.t.c) will all work with the CPU / PSU / Motherboard i have shown, obviously it's upto you, but AMD is the way to go as it utilises more of the pc as a whole than the Intel does. it's proven factually and statistically all over the net, and AMD runs alot cooler.

Hope this helps..
 
Good point.
Intel only truly outperforms AMD in most media encoding so unless you want to do some serious video editting then you may as well get better performance in other areas with AMD and have future upgradability.
Also note that the Winchester AMD processors have a much lower heat output and so will be easier to cool and overclock.
 
well, even though it says that i need to spread some reputation around before i give it to procalx, i wanted to thanks procalz for the great response. it was both quick and extremely thorough. THanks procalx.
 
I just ran into another problem though. I am now looking into the Amd Chipsets and am wondering which is faster. Everyone says Amd. Ok, fine. But, when an Intel chipset runs at 3.4Ghz the equivalent Amd chipset runs at only 2.4Ghz. Why is Amd better then? Also, are Amd's able to overclock easily? Thanks again.
 
When you compare a 2.4GHz Athlon 64 to a 3.4GHz Pentium 4, you're comparing two very different CPU's. AMD has designed their CPU's to do more work per clock cycle than Intel. This in part is one reason Athlons don't need to run at ultra high clock speeds to stay competitive. This is also one reason they don't scale as high, because it's harder on the CPU. Conversely, even a relatively meager overclock can render some decent gain, depending on the situation. Read my lips: Clock speed doesn't matter. Performance does. We're not biased, unless you count biased toward getting more for our money. It's nothing personal against Intel, but when it comes down to it, AMD tends to do more with less.

Overclocking is luck, so don't think that you'll for sure get the same OC everyone else has, even if you get the exact same hardware.
 
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