NationStates Jolt Archive

I've got a job this summer, full-time (and a couple of part-time jobs on the side), and I'm slated to make a little over 2,000 dollars, assuming I work 40-hour weeks and such. Anyway, I've been wanting to get a new computer to replace the crappy dell dimension 4300 I'm currently using.
I also decided that I wanted to build it myself, because I know enough to do it myself. In addition, I want to use an AMD Athlon 64 processor, for 64-bit capability. Naturally, I want it to look nice, and more importantly, perform well.
Here's what I've got lined up at the moment:

Processor
1x - AMD Athlon 64 4000+ / 1MB Cache / 2000MHz FSB / Socket 939 / San Diego Core / Processor with Fan
<http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1366622&CatId=0>
$545.99

Motherboard
1x - MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce4 Ultra ATX AMD Motherboard - Retail
<http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813130484>
$129.50

RAM
2x - CORSAIR XMS 1GB (2 x 512MB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM Unbuffered DDR 400 (PC 3200) Dual Channel Kit System Memory - Retail <http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820145466>
$270

Hard Drive
1x - Western Digital Caviar SE WD1600JS 160GB 7200 RPM 8MB Cache Serial ATA II Hard Drive - OEM
<http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822144415>
$98

Case
1x - SilverStone TJ-06 Wind Tunnel With Window - Black (Dual Blue Cathode Kit)
<http://xoxide.com/silverstone-tj-06-window-black.html>
$138.98

Optical Drives
1x - LACIE Black 16X DVD+R/ 4X DVD+RW/ 4X DVD+R DL/ 16X DVD-R/ 4X DVD-RW/ 12X DVD-ROM/ 32X CD-R/ 24X CD-RW/ 40X CD-ROM/ 2M Cache IDE DVD Burner - Retail
<http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16827187038>
$89.99

2x - SAMSUNG Black 16X DVD-ROM 52X CD-R 32X CD-RW 52X CD-ROM 2M Cache IDE Combo Drive - OEM
<http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16827151061>
$59.98

Floppy Drives
2x - NEC Black 1.44MB 3.5" Internal Floppy Drive Model FD1231H-302 - OEM
<http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16821152005>
$16.98

Power Supply
1x - Xion 500 watt PowerReal ATX Power Supply <http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1337306&Tab=0&NoMapp=0>
$79.75

Cables
2x - UV Sensitive Green Round 18" Floppy Cable
<http://www.xoxide.com/uvsegr18rofl.html>
$9.98

1x - Cooler Master 18" Serial ATA Cable - UV Red
<http://www.xoxide.com/cooler-master-18inch-sata-red.html>
$4.49

1x - LED Serial ATA Power Adapter (Red LED)
<http://www.xoxide.com/serialata3.html>
$4.45

Video Card
1x - Visiontek Radeon X700 / 256MB DDR / PCI Express / DVI / VGA / TV-Out / Video Card
<http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1431265&CatId=0>
$169.99

Sound Card
1x - CREATIVE Sound Blaster Live! 24bit 70SB041000000 8 (7.1) Channels 24-bit 96KHz PCI Interface Sound Card - Retail <http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16829102176>
$39.99

Lights
1x - FireFly 4 pin Molex LED Light - UV
<http://www.xoxide.com/fireflys-uv.html>
$6.49

Keyboard
1x - Sunbeam Pro Series Illuminated Keyboard - Black
<http://www.xoxide.com/sunbeam-pro-ill-kb-black.html>
$29.99

Mouse
1x - Flexiglow xRaider Illuminated Gaming Mouse
<http://www.xoxide.com/flexiglow-xraider-illuminated-gaming-mouse.html>
$19.99

Monitor
1x - Acer AL1912 / 19Inch / 1280 x 1024 / 16ms / Black / LCD Monitor
<http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1105660&CatId=170>
$229.99

Speakers
1x - CREATIVE Inspire P7800 90 Watts 7.1 Speaker - Retail <http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16836116153>
$79.99

CPU Fans/Fans
1x - Sunbeam 4 Port Blue & Red LED 5.25" Rheobus - Black
<http://www.xoxide.com/subl4poblred.html>
$19.99

1x - Zalman CNPS7000B-Cu LED CPU Cooler
<http://www.xoxide.com/zalman-7000b-cu-led-cpu-cooler.html>
$39.99

1x - Firework 80mm LED Fan (Red)
<http://www.xoxide.com/fireworkled1.html>
$7.99

1x - Firework 80mm LED Fan (Blue)
<http://www.xoxide.com/fireworkled.html>
$7.99


Total Cost: $2080.49

Any suggestions or comments would be appreciated.

I've got a job this summer, full-time (and a couple of part-time jobs on the side), and I'm slated to make a little over 2,000 dollars, assuming I work 40-hour weeks and such. Anyway, I've been wanting to get a new computer to replace the crappy dell dimension 4300 I'm currently using.
I also decided that I wanted to build it myself, because I know enough to do it myself. In addition, I want to use an AMD Athlon 64 processor, for 64-bit capability. Naturally, I want it to look nice, and more importantly, perform well.
Here's what I've got lined up at the moment:

Processor
1x - AMD Athlon 64 4000+ / 1MB Cache / 2000MHz FSB / Socket 939 / San Diego Core / Processor with Fan
<http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1366622&CatId=0>
$545.99

Motherboard
1x - MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce4 Ultra ATX AMD Motherboard - Retail
<http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813130484>
$129.50

RAM
2x - CORSAIR XMS 1GB (2 x 512MB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM Unbuffered DDR 400 (PC 3200) Dual Channel Kit System Memory - Retail <http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820145466>
$270

Hard Drive
1x - Western Digital Caviar SE WD1600JS 160GB 7200 RPM 8MB Cache Serial ATA II Hard Drive - OEM
<http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822144415>
$98

Case
1x - SilverStone TJ-06 Wind Tunnel With Window - Black (Dual Blue Cathode Kit)
<http://xoxide.com/silverstone-tj-06-window-black.html>
$138.98

Optical Drives
1x - LACIE Black 16X DVD+R/ 4X DVD+RW/ 4X DVD+R DL/ 16X DVD-R/ 4X DVD-RW/ 12X DVD-ROM/ 32X CD-R/ 24X CD-RW/ 40X CD-ROM/ 2M Cache IDE DVD Burner - Retail
<http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16827187038>
$89.99

2x - SAMSUNG Black 16X DVD-ROM 52X CD-R 32X CD-RW 52X CD-ROM 2M Cache IDE Combo Drive - OEM
<http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16827151061>
$59.98

Floppy Drives
2x - NEC Black 1.44MB 3.5" Internal Floppy Drive Model FD1231H-302 - OEM
<http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16821152005>
$16.98

Power Supply
1x - Xion 500 watt PowerReal ATX Power Supply <http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1337306&Tab=0&NoMapp=0>
$79.75

Cables
2x - UV Sensitive Green Round 18" Floppy Cable
<http://www.xoxide.com/uvsegr18rofl.html>
$9.98

1x - Cooler Master 18" Serial ATA Cable - UV Red
<http://www.xoxide.com/cooler-master-18inch-sata-red.html>
$4.49

1x - LED Serial ATA Power Adapter (Red LED)
<http://www.xoxide.com/serialata3.html>
$4.45

Video Card
1x - Visiontek Radeon X700 / 256MB DDR / PCI Express / DVI / VGA / TV-Out / Video Card
<http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1431265&CatId=0>
$169.99

Sound Card
1x - CREATIVE Sound Blaster Live! 24bit 70SB041000000 8 (7.1) Channels 24-bit 96KHz PCI Interface Sound Card - Retail <http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16829102176>
$39.99

Lights
1x - FireFly 4 pin Molex LED Light - UV
<http://www.xoxide.com/fireflys-uv.html>
$6.49

Keyboard
1x - Sunbeam Pro Series Illuminated Keyboard - Black
<http://www.xoxide.com/sunbeam-pro-ill-kb-black.html>
$29.99

Mouse
1x - Flexiglow xRaider Illuminated Gaming Mouse
<http://www.xoxide.com/flexiglow-xraider-illuminated-gaming-mouse.html>
$19.99

Monitor
1x - Acer AL1912 / 19Inch / 1280 x 1024 / 16ms / Black / LCD Monitor
<http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1105660&CatId=170>
$229.99

Speakers
1x - CREATIVE Inspire P7800 90 Watts 7.1 Speaker - Retail <http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16836116153>
$79.99

CPU Fans/Fans
1x - Sunbeam 4 Port Blue & Red LED 5.25" Rheobus - Black
<http://www.xoxide.com/subl4poblred.html>
$19.99

1x - Zalman CNPS7000B-Cu LED CPU Cooler
<http://www.xoxide.com/zalman-7000b-cu-led-cpu-cooler.html>
$39.99

1x - Firework 80mm LED Fan (Red)
<http://www.xoxide.com/fireworkled1.html>
$7.99

1x - Firework 80mm LED Fan (Blue)
<http://www.xoxide.com/fireworkled.html>
$7.99


Total Cost: $2080.49

Any suggestions or comments would be appreciated.

Sounds SWEET! Gonna get any OEM software with that? Make sure you have the latest version of XP that can actually use the 64-bit potential. That is also important for your SATA drive. I had hell getting mine installed - the first version of XP did not have drivers for the SATA drive, so I had to find it and put it on a floppy before I could finally get XP installed correctly.

Sounds SWEET! Gonna get any OEM software with that? Make sure you have the latest version of XP that can actually use the 64-bit potential. That is also important for your SATA drive. I had hell getting mine installed - the first version of XP did not have drivers for the SATA drive, so I had to find it and put it on a floppy before I could finally get XP installed correctly.
Yeah, I learned that the hard way at the computer place where I work yesterday. I'm going to check out the 64-bit Windows, see if there are any disadvantages first.
And to be honest, I've no idea what kind of OEM software to get.

AMD...good choice. I should rebuild mine soon. Hope to put in the AMD 64 and get a shitload of RAM. Wait! you're getting a DVD burner for $90!? Sweet!

Yeah, I learned that the hard way at the computer place where I work yesterday. I'm going to check out the 64-bit Windows, see if there are any disadvantages first.
And to be honest, I've no idea what kind of OEM software to get.

The disadvantage is that you need 64 bit drivers for all your hardware. Depending on who the vendors are, they may or may not release updated 64 bit drivers as quickly as youd like. So, since you have the advantage of building your entire PC with that in mind, make sure you check out how good the 64 bit driver support from your hardware vendors is before you select a certain piece of hardware.

Yeah, I learned that the hard way at the computer place where I work yesterday. I'm going to check out the 64-bit Windows, see if there are any disadvantages first.
And to be honest, I've no idea what kind of OEM software to get.
I don't know how popular Microsoft is with you - some folks swear by them, and not in a nice way - but I got Office XP (OEM) when I built mine, from newegg. It has come down in price, but it's still not cheap. I don't like to use pirated software, so I paid the money for it. It's nice to have Word and Excel especially, and, if you are a teacher, or work in sales, or anything that requires good presentations, Powerpoint and Publisher are also nice to have. These are all in the Professional version, along with Access and Frontpage.

I'm probably going to go with regular Windows XP SP2, dual booting into a linux flavor of the month. (Right now, Red Hat Shrike). I'll probably go with OpenOffice for my office suite, and I'll see what I can do about just copying (with Symantec Ghost) my current hard drives over to my new one.

AMD...good choice. I should rebuild mine soon. Hope to put in the AMD 64 and get a shitload of RAM. Wait! you're getting a DVD burner for $90!? Sweet!
The burner I'm getting kinda sucks, but I'm not going to use it for much, so I'll upgrade when I get more cash.

*bump for suggestions*

change your motherboard to a gigabyte or epox mobo as they are better for gaming. If you can get a mobo with a Nforce chip all the better.

Secondly, the new Geforce FX7000 series of cards are much much better than the old ATi ones, it depends on how much money you have, but if you want to play games you need a decent card which at the moment frankly you don't have as it is a bit outdated now. I would therefore suggest you look into the FX6800 series, or the brand new FX7000 series from XFX. If you are deadset on ATi, the X800 is a good card but no where near as good as Nvidia (especially if the GPU is the same make as the northbridge on the mobo!)

But apart from that, the system looks good, nice choice of RAM Corsair are fantastic, low latency :) The PSU should be OK for this system, but if you get stability problems, this maybe the cause as 500W maybe too low for this system with all its peripherals, but the only way to find out is to try, it SHOULD be ok.

Good luck

Don't forget to add a ESD strap to your list, don't want your $2000 to go up in a charge of static!

It's faster than one I recently got.

Not going for a dual-core Athlon64?

It's nice, but IMO you'd be better off downgrading the processor a little and upping the video card. My current machine is similar, but only an AMD 64 3000 (venice core) processor. But then, I was on a limited budget... I get perfect performance in any game i've tried so far, though. :)

I would highly recomend getting a cheaper processor. You could probably cut the price in half and make up the difference by overclocking if you get the right motherboard. I don't know what MB's are the best for 939 right now but Asus is always good and DFI is nice too. I have an Epox w/ my socket 754 and am very happy with it. Also, newegg has a number of cheaper DVD burners. I just ordered an NEC one for 40 bucks that does everything but lightscribe. I wouldn't spend that much on a case just to chuck the PS, but I'm cheap, if you haven't noticed.

Finally, why 3 total optical drives and 2 floppy drives?