My new machine

Hi have read these forums for a few days now after buying parts for my new system and decided to post as i need a bit of help with what buy to improve my machine.

This is the case I have just got:
http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/prod...2hvd19wcm9kdWN0X2dhbGxlcnk=&product_uid=72996

I have fitted a standard 500watt psu to this with dual fans:
http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/prod...2hvd19wcm9kdWN0X292ZXJ2aWV3&product_uid=61307

I have also bought three case fans with blue leds and a cheap floppy drive.

I purchased the following graphics card as it has a large inbuilt memory and was fairly cheap:
http://www.buy.com/prod/XFX_GeForce...ter_GF_FX_5200_256_MB/q/loc/101/10356554.html

Finally I have bought the following motherboard and processor:
http://www.hothardware.com/viewarticle.cfm?articleid=96&catid=3#
http://www.cpu-world.com/sspec/SL/SL6WG.html

I have a DVD-RW drive and a 163.9Gb Hard drive which is a Maxtor and uses ATA that i will swap from my existing machine :
http://www.newegg.com/app/viewproductdesc.asp?description=22-137-132&DEPA=0

I will post some pics as soon as i find an image hosting site and get my digital camera charged.

I just wanted to know if there is a thread on here that explains the basics of overclocking and how to perform it. I have no clue how to do it but want to make my system to perform better.

Also if people could suggest what heatsinks and possible fan combinations to use on my CPU,GPU and also posssibly hard disks(I am thinking of getting a small maybe 40gb one for an OS)
And also any other possible parts to buy to improve the looks or performance of my system.

Thanks a lot
Aaron

Oh nearly forgot also need to know how much RAM to buy and which type

Before you think about overclocking you need to replace that power supply with something good like a Fortron, Antec, or Seasonic. In terms of CPU heatsink I would consider a Thermalright XP-120 if it fits your motherboard. Mount whichever heatsink you use with Arctic Silver 5. Are you sensitive to noise? That will play a large role in the fans you use. I'm not sure why you want to get another hard drive if you're already got a 160GB, but if you do need another one don't buy anything less than 160GB because those are good deals.

I really dont care about how loud it is as my current PSU(not the one just bought one in my 1Ghz duron system) is a behemoth and makes a racket.

What sort of wattage does the PSU need to be around? is 500w okay?

I read that it was good to have two hard drives one for the system and one for applications and other junk. And also to put the pagefile at the start of the second drive in a partition to decrease time it takes to access.
Also is SATA worth upgrading to as i dont know what sort of difference it will make to system performance

Welcome to the forums!

What will you be using the PC for?

If you are a gamer, you will want a better VGA first. 256MB of VGA RAM sound snice, but that FX5200 chip is way too weak to perform any serious rendering. For nice cheap game cards, look into the radeon 9600 / 9800 or nvidia 4x00 series, those are still decent cards and will allow you to run any game or 3d app. with alot more detail for about the same price. (tho all of those cards mostly come in only 128MB...but 256 will only help when you are running over 1280*1024 with heavy detail and anti-aliasing)

The chip and mobo, provided with the right cooling, should allow for about 3.6 - 3.7Ghz. For RAM, pick some DDR400 (get at least 512mb!), those are fairly cheap nowadays and if you go with samsung or twinmos, they will allow for a bit of overclocking, too.

Yeh it will be used for gaming.

Damn my stupidity I wondered why the card was cheap

but thanks at least now I can get a decent one ill have a look at the models suggested and probably try an pick one up cheap of ebay if i can.

What sort of size of RAM would you recommend i was thinking of 512mb but not sure if this is enough.

Thanks for help sjaak and radical
Aaron

5200's suck..i too was lured

look at a 6600gt if it's in your price range. also if you game a lot at high settings, 512mb ram isn't enough. go for 1gb and get a cheaper cpu if necessary

I have already bought the CPU so will just have to pay the extra for the RAM. Was just wondering whether it is best to buy two 512Mb sticks or one 1Gb stick?

manutdfan2005 said:

I have already bought the CPU so will just have to pay the extra for the RAM. Was just wondering whether it is best to buy two 512Mb sticks or one 1Gb stick?

Click to expand...

Generally, 2x512 MB will be cheaper.

Also, it is more versatile..if one goes KIA, you still have the other, and its easier swapping them out in case you want to eliminate an error. Your current motherboard does not support dual channel, but if you upgrade later on, 2x512 may also allow for it and 1x1024 does not.

(uhoh another manutd nut)

firstly, whats your budget? Do you want it all cheap as possible or are you willing to dish out a little extra for what you want? I checked out your motherboard reviews and what i saw wasn't all that good. If you get around to overclocking then your board will not do at all (the guys testing it couldn't get past 204mhz fsb!). it has very crude options to oc in the bios, it has no cmos reset pins, no LAN, no SATA or anything. I would strongly suggest getting a slightly better board. depends on your budget but you could probably pic up an abit IC7 max2/3 board for a good price on ebay since they are getting dated but work great for socket 478. or gigabyte 8knxp, dfi lanparty etc. you'll be better off with a board that uses the intel 875 chipset. sorry to just throw all this stuff at you but hope it helps.

when you do want to read up on overclocking then go here for some basics and here for the rest

Thanks a lot everyone for your suggestions, to upgrade my stuff i am thinking of now buying the following:-
An Antec Neopower 480w PSU
A GIGABYTE 8KNXP Motherboard
An Ati Radeon 9800
And two modules of DDR400 512Mb RAM
and was also wondering whether the Swiftech MCX478V is a good heatsink to use with my processor and whether the VANTEC iCEBERQ4 is a good GPU cooler.

Thanks for the links blt111 they are both really useful even though at the moment they are a bit over my head but im sure i'll be able to figure out what to do when I have the thing assembled.

Once again thanks for all your help
Aaron