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"Another guy wanting to build a computer"

Seems like this place is being completely flooded with topics about people wanting to buy computers at the moment, asking for advice etc. I'm no different I'm afraid :( Basically, I've got all of these prices from OC's and if anyone knows of any cheaper alternatives I'd be greatful if they could send the information my way (unsure know if this would be against the forum's policy).

Anyway, this is what I have so far:

AMD Athlon 64 3500+ Venice 90nm (Socket 939) - Retail (ADA3500BPBOX) (CP-119-AM)

Price: £169.95 (£199.69 Including VAT at 17.5%)

DFI LanParty UT NF4 SLI-D (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-013-DF)

Price: £102.50 (£120.44 Including VAT at 17.5%)

Corsair 1GB DDR XMS4400C25PT TwinX (2x512MB) CAS2.5 (TWINX1024-4400C25PT) (MY-068-CS)

Price: £119.95 (£140.94 Including VAT at 17.5%)

Connect3D ATI Radeon X850 XT 256MB DDR3 VIVO TV-Out/DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-028-CO)

Price: £239.95 (£281.94 Including VAT at 17.5%)

Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 10 NCQ 160GB 6B160MO SATA 8MB Cache - OEM (HD-047-MD)

Price: £49.95 (£58.69 Including VAT at 17.5%)

Antec SLK3000B Midi Tower Case - No PSU (CA-027-AN)

Price: £29.00 (£34.08 Including VAT at 17.5%)

Antec TrueBlue 2.0 480W PSU (CA-031-AN)

Price: £69.95 (£82.19 Including VAT at 17.5%)

Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS 7.1 THX Sound Card - OEM (SC-023-CL)

Price: £44.95 (£52.82 Including VAT at 17.5%)

HP dvd640i Dual Layer 16x LightScribe DVD±RW ReWriter - Retail (CD-000-HP)

Price: £42.60 (£50.06 Including VAT at 17.5%)

Vantec SF12025L Stealth 120mm fan - Retail (FG-005-VT)

Price: £7.95 (£9.34 Including VAT at 17.5%) ( x2 ) = £15.85

Hyundai ImageQuest Q995 19'' Perfectly Flat CRT Monitor - Black/Silver (MO-004-HY)

Price: £99.95 (£117.44 Including VAT at 17.5%)

Total: £1133.15

Now, I'm assuming if I ordered all of this I could build a fully functioning PC from the above parts? I'm unsure if I've missed anything obvious to be honest as I've never built a computer myself before - my brother has however and I'm sure I can get some help from him if I run into trouble.

Possible problems I can see with what I've chosen are, the price of a part being over the top for a slight permance increase to a cheaper component, the RAM not being a very good choice due to the timings of it or whatever and the GFX card not being the best choice - I want to go with an Athlon card but I expected the price of the X850 to be a bit more than that.

Ta.

Oh and spend the little bit extra and buy the 2 x 1gb PC 3200 Corsair CAS 2 ram on this week only on Overclockers £158 is a bargain. Might grab some myself and give my crucial stuff to my brother.

Ah.

Beautiful.

Wattage :' }
How much is used depends on what each component demands...
ATI recommends that Radeon X850 XTs are used with 350W+ so you might as well go for higher considering there's not that much of a premium on them.

Also, the actual quality of the PSU is extremely important. You could probably get a 550W Q-tec for £15, but it would also probably blow up within a week.

Maybe it's an obvious thing, but I don't undersatand why you'd want more or less voltage coming from a PSU. The amount it gives, assuming it's 350V+ surely can't affect performance, because it's still supplying the system with energy?

Also, wouldn't a higher voltage create heating problems?

Ignore this.

Looks good, its heartening to see someone who doesnt plonk for a cheap crap PSU off the bat.

You might be able to save a bit of cash by getting another motherboard as well. If you're getting an ATI card you don't really need SLI compatibility, unless you plan to switch to nVidia at some point in the near future.

Ah, teach me to go back to my maths revision instead of investigating further :) Will definately look into the 2gb then if the price difference is so low, will be useful for when I'm using 3d apps as well as Photoshop as well I would think.

[edit] Hard drive comment taken on board as well, I think the backup drive in this comp is a seagate, far better than the primary one :o

MJ wrote:
> Will have a look at that RAM, although 2gb? Bit excessive or a
> justifiable performance increase?

Well, I only mentioned it because 2GB of XMS3200 is only £18 more, and it would be worth spending the money on more capacity rather than on super-high speed that won't actually be used.

Yeah. DDR 3200 is fine... And, if you can afford it, the more the better.

Also, rather than Maxtors (which are fine), why not go down the route of a Seagate Barracuda 7200.8 - more information held in each platter (basically, can access more data, quicker), and (I think) cheaper. And very reliable, from the ones I've used. And from what I've heard from everyone else who've had one.

Nice rig though, especially liking the CPU.