I wanna try to keep it under $1000. How am I doing so far. AMD Athlon 64 4000+ $334.00 ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe $159.99 Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce4 SLI ATX AMD Motherboard JPAC 411 Black Steel $36.50 ATX Mid Tower NEC Black DVD Burner $38.99 eVGA Geforce 7800GT $295.00 256MB This system is gonna be strictly for gaming. How long will this last me before I need a new system. Im gonna use the hard drives and 2x512s from my old pc. Is there anything else I need? Any recommendations? Thanks in advance.
Ok, let's go over this. AMD Athlon 64 4000+ seems like a very good choice. That will last you a long while considering the idea that the second you buy a computer part, it's outdated Seriously though, it seems good. Motherboard seems good. Tower and DVD burner = standard fare. Ahhh..good choice of a video card. I promise that it'll last you a long time indeed. Games should be no problem with that. The hard drives from your old computer, eh? How big are they? And the RAM seems ok...but I suggest you buy 512 more, perhaps? All your other specs are great, why not have a good deal of RAM? Altogether, a great computer.
A new PSU would be suggested Thermaltake or Antec are good brands try a 430-550watt psu. You definitly dont wanna burn out your new system possibly rendering your parts useless with a generic PSU that comes with the case trust I've had it happen to me. Newegg has a thermaltake 430watt power supply (black) for 39.99 subtract a 10.00 mail-in reabte. Matches your new case too and has sleeves on cables (a tidy case is a good case) Looks exactly like my case accept it doesnt have the temp display and it has a design on the sid window. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817153023
Also what speed is the RAM from your old computer? If it's PC3200 (DDR400) then that's fine, anything slower seriously consider getting some decent RAM otherwise you'll be limiting your system's performance with slower RAM.
Actually, I'm gonna have to disagree on the Thermaltake unit. It's amperage isn't that great, and these days, that unit won't cut it. For under $100, you can have the Antec TruePower TPII-550, the Enermax EG565P-VE, or the Tagan T480-U22, all of which provide sufficient amperage for a power rig. If you were building a basic rig for grandma, that Thermaltake would work fine, but for what you're building, it won't cut it in the long run. Don't skimp on the power supply. For the RAM, Matt is right: if it's not PC3200 (DDR400), then you're best off to purchase new RAM. The Athlon64 differs from the old Athlon XP's in that the memory controller is integrated into the CPU itself, and runs at a divider to start with. You can run slower RAM and not take a huge performance hit like with the AXP's, but you still will not have full potential.
