yet another "what kind of computer should i build"

[glockjs]

yeah yeah i know, but i needs me some poh fessional opinions

this is what i have so far:

(fry's) $185 Intel Pentium 4 2.8GHz E , 1MB 800 FSB
Socket 478 Prescott Hyper Threading Boxed Processor

(legendmicro)$122 Intel D875PBZLK P4 SK478 DDR 800FSB SATA GBL OEM

(legendmicro)$179 Maxtor 200GB Serial ATA 7200rpm 8MB Hard Drive

(tigerdirect) $130 Western Digital Raptor 36GB
Serial ATA 10K / 8MB / S-ATA-150 Hard Drive

(legendmicro)$119 Kingston 512MB PC3200 400MHz DDR Non-ECC

(???)$100 mid tower case 400-450w(maybe higher)

(tigerdirect)$100 Diamond Stealth S100 Radeon 9600se Video Card /
128MB DDR / AGP 8X / TV-Out & DVI


have a friend of a friend(you know how that goes) that can get almost everything at cost, so all this added up is at $935 take the standard 20-30% off and im about at $748-655... looking to build something pretty basic that has alot of potential to upgrade, 4 dimm on the this mother board im figureing not to far down the road fill em all with 512's and way farther down 1gig's when the become reasonable yadda yadda so on and so on.

in that, anything i need to tweak a little? spend a little more on one thing or the other? or is this pretty good for a start that can be upgraded?

[808smokey]

I like that setup but i'm more of a Nvidia fan. I would also get XP Pro vs. the Home edition.

[glockjs]

cool, thanks... already got xp pro so no need to worry bout that... with the video card i dont really care, im not too much of a game person so it can go either way. just anything around that price range....

[808smokey]

Oh, I forgot to say that www.newegg.com might have better prices than tigerdirect.

[budz]

Get a ANTEC TRUE BLUE POWER SUPPLY. I like ANTEC CASES & POWER SUPPLIES. I have the ANTEC CASE MODEL #SLK2600AMB. I have 2 of them one with a 430 watt power supply & 300 watt one that came with the case. It's easy to swap out from the bay drives because it's a sliding mechanism, no screws to remove.

[glockjs]

thanks budz, i'll definately keep antec in mind...same thing, case im not all that worried about. even though my friend keeps buggin me to get an enlight case, according to him god never made anything more perfect haha.. i'll shop through the antec's and see what i like though

[Hardcoreruss]

Get a ANTEC TRUE BLUE POWER SUPPLY. I like ANTEC CASES & POWER SUPPLIES. I have the ANTEC CASE MODEL #SLK2600AMB. I have 2 of them one with a 430 watt power supply & 300 watt one that came with the case. It's easy to swap out from the bay drives because it's a sliding mechanism, no screws to remove.

I have the same case, quality, same psu also I have the 430w though, highly recommended.

[rallynavvie]

Don't get the baby Raptor. If you're going to get a Raptor spend the cash and get the 74GB model. The 36GB has an older drivetrain and makes a lot more noise than the other one. The 74GB has their new fluid-dynamic-something so it's a lot quieter.

I'm also a fan of the Antec TruePower series PSUs. I've got a 550w in both machines. I also got an Antec P160 case for my new rig. I liked the features of the case so much that I got it even though I know the board won't fit in it without making some modifications. I love the use of 120mm fans, they should be a lot quieter than the twin 80mm srews in the front of my Lian Li.

Also look into getting aftermarket HSF. I got Swiftechs for my new Xeons, I'd suggest the same. Even if you won't be overclocking the processor it's still a good thing to have.

RAM is pretty expensive now. There was an accident at one of the chip manufacturers that resulted in a lot of wafers being destroyed. Memory prices are going to be high probably into the summer. I got Mushkin dual packs of 512MB sticks for only $199 just a couple months ago, now they're $300 for the same set