Thread: Desktop Building

Well ALMOST everythings will go together very nice but -
For the RAM get some OCZ or Corsair modules.
If your primarily into gaming upgrade the X800XL to a X800XT or something of equivelence.
Considering the sound card your getting is 7.1 channel i'd consider getting 5.1 or 7.1 speakers instead of the 2.1.
LG burners are more of a 'bang for buck' product but have served me well in the past, but something more reliable consider a Plextor or SONY burner.
And last of all i'm guessing BULK is just excess stock!

Any other questions be sure to post them

but soon you'll be able to use crossfire, but you'll need a crossfire-compatible motherboard though.

no crossfire is ATI's Graphics card setup, you can use either 2 of the same card or 2 different ones, nVidias technology is SLI, you need 2 identical cards for that

Get a better power supply. While that CoolerMaster may have one of their own power supplies in it, there's really no power supply (well maybe by PC Power & Cooling...maybe) that's sufficient for an Athlon 64 or LGA775 Pentium build. The detailed thread about power supplies is in my signature, but quickly: wattage doesn't mean a whole lot. Buy something by Enermax, Sparkle or Fortron, Antec, OCZ or Tagan of at least 450-500W and that has a combined amperage of 25 amps or better across the 12V rails. This information will be listed on the power supply's sticker. If you're thinking of going SLI, the power supply link has the link of nVidia SLI certified units. About the cheapest one is the Enermax EG565P-VE, and can be had for around $80-100 depending on where you look on-line. I love mine, btw.

If you're not going for SLI, the A8N-E is fine, but if you want SLI, the A8N-SLI is what you need to have if you'll stick with Asus. Actually, the A8N-SLI is probably the most mature SLI motherboard out there, so that's a very good bet for you.

For optical drives, Lite-On and Samsung make great inexpensive burners. Another good brand is Pioneer, but they're a little more expensive than the other two.

RAM-wise, I pretty much agree, but I'll also plug Patriot RAM. Corsair's XMS stuff is pretty affordable, like the Patriot +XBL stuff and some of OCZ's RAM (depends on which sticks you get). You'll pay a little extra depending on which modules you look at, but you'll be getting some known tweakable RAM--if that's what you want. This isn't to say the Samsung is bad---they make some of the best RAM chips on the market, but you may find it worth it to purchase the premium RAM.

Generally, CRT's are still better for gaming that flat panels. I hear Dell makes some nice ones, but the better ones still aren't cheap. You can snag a 19" flat screen for under $200 if you look around a little.

Unless you have piss-poor airflow through your case, you're probably not going to end up finding those hard drive coolers to be all that great.

Bulk (also applies to OEM labels) is simply saying you get the product and the very basics to get it going. No fancy box, just a plain white or brown cardboard one and the drivers. You may get some cables, but that's it. The retail box comes with a nice display box, a manual, more accessories (what you get depends on the particular product). There's also typically a longer warranty (30-90 days vs 1-3 years for Bulk/OEM vs Retail).

I have one of those hard drives coolers, not the exact same one but a Akasa one, it has 2 noisy 50mm fans in it and although it cools my HDD by 10*C by blowing air directly onto it its too loud for my liking.
I'd rather just get an 80mm fan and try and mount that at the front (i cant on my case so i'm going to attempt to mount it under the HDD somewhere to do the same job as the HDD cooler whilst being quieter, you could try that using some sticks of dowl/plastic and a hot melt glue gun)

Corsair's higher-end memory is the XMS line. Patriot is a newer company on the market, and their +XBL stuff is in a similar class to Corsair's XMS. The +XBL happens to use the best RAM chips that Samsung makes while not costing a fortune. OCZ has various lines, but some of their better stuff can get rather expensive. I'm not saying it's not good stuff, but you don't have to spend $300 on 1GB of RAM anymore.

The Abit may be more desireable if you're looking for heavy overclocking. That's if you're getting the AN8 SLI. The AN8 Ultra seems to be a piece of junk right now, but that could be due to an immature set of BIOS releases.

Do I need ATX2 or ATX for power supply?
sUnshine X-Blade (8511) - BLACK - 480w, will this case psu do? there's also a 530w one of the same

You should have a power supply with a native 24-pin ATX connector. I'm not sure if that's what the ATX2 is referring to or not. By native 24-pin, I mean there is not a 20-pin ATX connector from the power supply and a 20->24-pin adapter in use.

As for that power supply, I've never heard of that brand before, so I'd be cautious. It may be a very good brand, but I've not seen any reviews on that brand or heard any user feedback over the web anywhere.

Recommended units:

-Fortron BlueStorm 500
-Enermax EG565P-VE FMA 2.0
-Tagan 480W
-OCZ PowerStream 520
-Antec NeoPower 480

Those are all units that will run from $80-120 depending on where you look on-line. These are all known to be solid power supplies and are recommended. If you want a black power supply, the Antec NeoPower 480 has a black chassis and is known to be a pretty good unit.

Now you may want to go cheap on the power supply, but if you want to cut costs, the power supply is a very poor choice to go cheap on. I'm not saying to spend $300 on a power supply from PC Power & Cooling, but I am saying that you'll want to get a unit that's guts are able to stand up. I'm only recommending parts that I've found to be solid or have enough evidence from reading around that they're solid units. I won't recommend something I don't have knowledge on.

Yeah I have the Tagan TG480-U01 unit (480W) and its awesome, go with a trusted named brand, you wont regret it.