advice for 1st box

Hey everyone this is my first post and im pretty new to all of this stuff so any help here would be nice. Anyways, i plan to build my own system soon and after a few weeks of research here is what i have come up with:

ASUS a7n8x (are there reliability issues here?)

xp1800+ t-bred (what heatsink/fan should i go with?)

2*256mb corsair pc3200

60gb Seagate Barracuda IV (should i get the 80gb WD?)

Enermax psu (is 350w enough?)

what video card should i get??? something around $150-180

I want to overclock to about 2.0ghz and not much over that. I wanted a motherboard that I could upgrade to a new processor with latter so I think this is the right one for me. Im trying real hard to keep the price down so if you could help me with that it would be great.
I thinks thats about all i need, did i forget anything? Thank you for any advice.

Sean

Welcome to the Forum!
The A7N8X is a good board but is 1st Gen and not to many people have them yet.For the heat sink I would recommend the SLK-800 paired with a tornado fan.The mem is good but I have yet to see a huge advantage to using two sticks compared to one 512.I'm not sure on the hard drives but I like seagate allot though.The enermax 350 should do the job but if you want a high end psu I would go with Pc Power and Cooling.For the video card I would wait for the radeon 9500 pro.Not as fast as the 9700 but still very fast.

When is the 9500 pro coming out, and how much is that going to run me? I dont play all that many high end games so a great card isnt needed, i could always get a lesser card, then upgrade later to a better one once i get some more money. Whats a good board for around $160? Thanks

Sean

The card will retail at 200 and drop into the 170 and 180 range fairly quick and I wouldnt be suprised if companies such as sapphire offer it for 150.

Great!!!
thanks a lot for all your help


Sean

No problem.If you have any more questions ask away!

i have a few sujjestions.

id get the WD special edition jb series,8mb buffer,more expensive. its gonna be faster than a seagate.

raid0 has alota good quailitys but id say hold off until u get a little more experiance.it can be alot more work/money,but well worth it.

i would also get 1-512mb of the corsair.i know the mobo has the dual channel stuff but isnt much of a boost.plus 1 stick should allow higher fsb than 2 sticks will.there is also a small issue at the moment with the nforce2 chipset and high fsb.another reason to go 1 stick.dont worry tho im confident that with a few bios revisions itll be fixed.

also id suggest a fsp made sparkle psu.your wattage is ok 350-400 but this is a better psu and cheaper.

video is a toss up with the ati 8500le and the 9500 pro.both are good.

For your first board you should look for something stable. Right now the most stable chipset is the KT33CE. Cant go wrong with the Epox 8K5A+. It doesnt have a AGP 2.0, firewire, or serial ATA so if you plan to keep a board for a long time then its probably a bad choice. If you are going to keep for a long time then the Asus A7V8X or A7N8X, but in both cases you will sacrifice stability. As for a processor if you want to go cheap then teh Tbred 1700+, if you dont mind spending a lot then the 2400+ or 2600+. As for a video card, A Geforce 4 Ti4200 probably 128 meg, or if you want to spend more the Radeon 9500 Pros will be out soon and that is a very good bargin for a top performing card. For a hsf the SLK-800 is great, but you do not want the tornado fan, the noise is ridiculous. If you really are overclocking a lot then maybe, but your gonna pay for it. I would reccomend the YS-Tech 48.5 cfm fan, it has a good balance of air flow to noise. For ram 2 256 megs stick of Corsair PC-3200 C2 or PC-3500 C2 are both good choices. Also consider the Kinston Hyper-X memory. Unless you are a sound junky use the onboard sound, otherwise an Audigy or Audigy 2 card is a good bet. As for a hard drive i bet you wont ever come close to 80 gigs, i know im using 5 gigs right now on my drive. Why not save some money and grab a 20 gig IBM 60GXP or 40 gig IBM 120GXP, both are excellent drives at a good price.

If you are going to keep for a long time then the Asus A7V8X or A7N8X, but in both cases you will sacrifice stability

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I haven't had any stability issues with my board and I've only heard of one case where a board just died. I stand by the A7N8X and I think for a rev 1 board, it's done an outstanding job.

~THT

You say you want to OC to 2 gHz+ right? Correct me if I'm wrong (which I probably am) but I don't think an 1800 can reach those speeds. I don't think I've ever seen one, and considering the low overclocking room that Tbred's allow, I don't know if you can get there with that cpu. I would reccomend more like an xp2200+ if you want to get 2 gHz.

No, I have read about many people overclocking to 2.0 ghz, so that shouldnt be a problem. Does this sound right to everyone who has a 1800 t-bred? I guess i could be wrong.

Sean

yes a 1.8 tbred can reach 2 Ghz, and I helped a friend set up his new computer with the afore mentioned asus board with a 1.8 Tbred, it can do 1.9 easy but he doesn't like to noise so 2 gig was not touch. However it DOES NOT have the option to change the FSB, only let you choose either 133, 166 or 200, but NOT in 1 mhz increment, which I thought was a bummer, hopefully EPOX or ABIT has that option but this particular ASUS does not.

Oh, I thought that you could change the FSB by 1mhz increments up to 200 then it went to somethin like 203, 207, 211. Those are not the exact numbers but something like that.

i recommend the new epox 8rda+....I'm ordering mine tonight or tommorow, havent decided yet. It looks to be very promising

And its much cheaper than the asus board