Hello, This is my first post here. I've already ordered and received most of the components to build my 1st system, wish me luck, haha. I have most of the components that I need to complete the system, at least enough to get it up and running. My goal with this system is to build a good system at the lowest cost possible that would also permit me to upgrade in the future. My budget is tight so I've ordered as I go. Not my 1st choice of a way to build a system but It's what I've done. OK, now to get this up and running I need a MB and CPU. The CPU I've decided on. I'm going with the AMD Venice 939, 3000 or the 3200 depending on the price at time of ordering. I almost sure, but would like some input on the MB. I'm still am not 100% Positive, although I have been and still am leaning toward the Chaintech VNF4/Ultra. A few other nforce4/ultra boards have came into my price range also. The Foxconn NF4UK8AA-8EKRS and the ECS KN1 Extreme. Only $12 separates these 3 boards. I've just about ruled out the Foxconn but I like the ECS due to the extra rear fan for pulling air off the CPU. Also the Chaintech when first released had passive cooling on the chipset but reviews I've read now says they have changed it to active, that's kind of got me wondering, which will I receive? I don't plan on overclocking so I'm thinking passive or active would not be an issue for me, also the stock cpu fan and heatsink should be ok, if not I can always add later. Anyway if anyone has any experience or thoughts on these three boards I would appreciate it. I've listed the system below. If you have any comments on any other component, I would appreciate those also. Thanks. Premium 2526 Silver ATX supporting 120mm Fan Front and Rear, 80MM Side $ 39.95 SEASONIC S12-500 ATX12V 500W Power Supply $ 111.95 2 - Antec Pro 120mm DBB Fan $ 10.15 X 2 = $20.30 1 - Antec 80mm DBB Fan $ 5.99 Corsair Value Select 512MB DDR 400 PC 3200 CAS 2.5, 512 to be added later $ 41.90 ASUS EN6200TC256/TD/64M Geforce 6200TC Supporting 256MB* DDR $ 64.95 Onboard Audio for now $ 0.00 Western Digital Caviar SE WD1600JS 160GB 7200 RPM Serial ATA II Hard Drive $ 97.96 Pioneer DVR-A09XL Dual Layer DVD±RW Writer - Silver $ 49.00 Mitsumi 1.44 Floppy Drive - Silver $ 12.00 Acer AL1703SM 17" LCD Monitor $ 214.99 Keyboard & Speakers $ 0.00 Already Have $ 658.99 Total
good dvd burner, and nice jump to SATAII mobo- no comment floppy- i think you are giving too much you can probably get away with spending less for a PSU seasonic is pretty good i guess good luck
Yeah the floppy seems overpriced to me to. I found beige, black and white cheaper but to keep the color the same for the drives and case I'll choke the extra few bucks. As for gaming I haven't done any so far but I've never had the machine for it. That's why I went with the 6200TC. Everything I've read in reviews says it's a good entry level gaiming card and with it's price now just about the $50 range I figured I could upgrade if I wanted later when the others come down with no loss of $$ on this card. I'm just starting to see reviews on the 6700s and they look SWEET. So if I use this one for a while and find out I need to upgrade the prices on those should have come down some. Thanks.
If you plan to do any gaming in the future you've gone the right path with PCI-E as AGP slots are now dead. So you're very good as far as future upgrades go as well as socket 939. Your setup looks very good, have fun with your system
Good choices, I can wholehearedly recommend any motherboard from Gigabyte, the nForce 4 boards will be great, ASUS is also a good company too. Not to say that the ones you were looking at are bad, just maybe not quite as well know for rock solid dependability and scads of features. I suggest going with the 3200 Venice as if you don't plan on overclocking 1.8GHz for the 3000 will hurt after awhile. Heck $12 for any computer component seems pretty cheap for me, so yeah it is a floppy drive but at least it will look nice. I imagine that's a nice monitor but the price worries me a little, generally speaking when it reaches near the $200 mark some quality is often sacrificed, I reckon that the pixel responce time is kind of high, like 25ms. Which, so long as your not into gaming or are a DVD buff you probably wont notice but I can't help but recommend a cheaper, but bigger CRT myself, super fast responce times, great color, better viewing angel, and no worries of the cat jumping up and knocking it over. But if sleek looks and space saving technologies are you fortay than go for it dude.
Oh, one more thing, I might suggest saving up a little bit more and ordering a dual-channel kit of similar ram as your 6200TC will suck away half of what you were planning on getting and windows uses between 100-200MB's anyway depending on what processes you have running, so that'll leave you with 56Mb's floating around and belive me that won't hold out long. A few extra bucks will do you well, I get bogged down with 512Mb's and I don't even have a TC card.
I've already ordered 512mb and received it. I'm just trying to get the comp up and running right now with quality components. I'll make another 512mb of the same memory my 1st upgrade because of the video cards memory usage. I don't plan on doing anything with it though besides surin things like that till I get the extra memory. Thanks.
Oh I see, no prob dude, good plan though, make sure everything checks out and is stable then work on improving what already works.:good:
