what do you guys think about this?

I need to build a cheap system thats for rare/occasional gaming but fast and ok for usual stuff. Not some slow junk. Anyways i peiced together this and at 446$ its not bad...
REFURBISHED: Raidmax Model 172(BEIGE) 7-bay Case $15.00
Sparkle Power 300 Watt Switching Power Supply for P4 Processors, FSP300-60ATVS OEM $27.00
ASUS A7V8X LAN, Firewire IEEE1394, Serial ATA w/ RAID DDR400 AMD Athlon/Athlon XP/Duron Socket A, Processor Mother Board $99.00
AMD ATHLON XP 2000+/266 FSB PROCESSOR CPU $69.00
Samsung Original DDR400 PC-3200 256MB CAS 3 - OEM Version $93.00
REFURBISHED: WESTERN DIGITAL WD600BB CAVIAR 60GB - OEM $59.00
Lite On 32x12x40 CDRW Model LTR-32123S $35.00
Abit Siluro Geforce4 MX 440 64MB with TV-OUT $49.00
Total = 446$

what do you guys think, most of the stuff is newegg refurbs (nice and cheap)?

oh yea the sys will not be overclocked either. Its just for a speedy workstation but no gaming.

I would get a bigger Power Supply. 300w is a little small for what you want to put together.

Also if you plan on folding or Seti or just leaving the computer on 24/7 I'd get a cheep hard drive cooler.
$.02
Rob

I dont know Robbie I think the sparkle 300 will do fine for a non oced system. Everthing sounds good to me.

The Sparkle 300w should be fine. I don't know why people always want power supplies with such high wattage when it's not necessary.

I have a p4 2.53 533fsb with 512 pc1066 rdram, geforce 3 ti500, cd-rw, dvd, 40gb HD, and a turtle beach pci card all running at stock speed on a Enermax Whisper 350w PSU.

oh yea I cahgned i am getting the 69$ version of the mobo...

That's a damn good system for that Price.

FYI - Here's a chart of the Power Consumption of a High-Power PC

www17.tomshardware.com/howto/02q4/021021/powersupplies-02.html

The system profiled pulls 355.45 watts

Using the values listed, You can estimate about how much Power your system will draw.

but make sure you order fast cause one day is there and the next is gone...

HardwareJedi said:

That's a damn good system for that Price.

FYI - Here's a chart of the Power Consumption of a High-Power PC

www17.tomshardware.com/howto/02q4/021021/powersupplies-02.html

The system profiled pulls 355.45 watts

Using the values listed, You can estimate about how much Power your system will draw.

Click to expand...

So I guess I was right!!!
Rob

Not exactly, Rob. The system at THG that was sucking down 355 watts was set up for a PSU stress test. It was running four hard drives, three sticks of RAM and something on every peripheral port.

The power requirements of the components similar to those dxiw is using would be under 250w according to the amperage draw cited on the Tom's chart. A 300w PSU would be fine.


BHD

Oh, yeah, the list!

I would choose DDR300/333 CAS2 over DDR400 CAS3 every day of the week, even if the customer says they have no interest in overclocking. High latency memory sets off alarms for me because I've seen those sticks fail far more often after a few months of service than those cerified at low latency.

And what kind of games is this person going to play on this rig? If its The Sims or one of the golf games I wouldn't be nervous about using a 440MX. But those games are it. Shooters, racing games and flight sims will all demand more than the 440MX can give.


BHD

That's a nice system, but some if not most of the stuff you picked from the refurbs are already gone! Next time just do it!

cas 3 DDR 400 sounds a bit off. if your not overclocking than that board may do better with PC 2700. since your not going to run up the FSB and stick at OE levels you may as well save some money and get the pc 2700.

there was a review at tom's hardware about the new kt400 boards doing just as well on pc 2700 or even better than they did with pc3200.