Building a new PC

[ColdWinter]

Hi there everyone. I'm thinking of putting together a new PC for myself and wanted to ask for thoughts on it. This will be my 1st attempt at building a PC myself and this what I came up with after lurking around various forums for several weeks: Note about CHF, that's swiss francs and conversion rates are somewhere around 1$ = 1.25CHF


CPU: What I would like is a X2 3600+ or X2 4000+. I'm not sure if any vendors over here will be getting them any time soon though. Worst case scenario I'll be getting the X2 3800+ EE for CHF 202.-

MB: MSI K9A Platinum, ATI Xpress 3200 for CHF 172.-

RAM: 2x1 GB sticks of Super Talent T6UB1GC5 DDR2 RAM, DDR2-667 for CHF 250.-

HD: Seagate Barracuda 7200.10, 7200rpm, 320GB, 16MB, SATA-II for CHF 148.-

GFX: SAPPHIRE Atlantis Radeon X1950 Pro, 256MB for CHF 250.-

DVD-Writer: Samsung WriteMaster SH-S183A for CHF 51.-

Floppy: generic el cheapo, cheapest I find if at all

PSU: I have a choice of two at CHF 160.-
Choice 1: Enermax ELT500AWT, Liberty, 500 Watts
Choice 2: Silverstone SST-ST50EF-Plus, 500 Watts (prefer this one after reading JonnyGuru)

CPU Cooler: Arctic Freezer 64 Pro for CHF 20.-

Case: NZXT ZERO Tower for CHF 225.- (I like the looks)

Monitor: Once again I'm dithering on 2 for CHF 450.-
Choice 1: Asus MW201U, 20.1", 1680x1050
Choice 2: BenQ FP202W V2, 20", 1680x1050

Should I maybe get a 1440x900 instead and save some cash or are there better monitors around?

Speakers: no idea, I'll probably go for the cheapest 2.1 speakers around since I'll be using onboard sound.

Reasons I decided on this build:
I'm a light to medium gamer but the games I like don't need the latest and greatest in gfx cards. I'm hoping the 1950pro will hold me out in the eye candy department for 2-3 years.

I'm not planning to overclock heavily. I'll probably start very tentatively since I'm new to it. I think I read that the MSI board doesn't offer a lot of voltage options but I'm hoping it'll be enough for me. Due to not planning to overclock too much (~300-500mhz) I'm hoping that the RAM will do well enough for me at 1:1

Yes, I know I've gone the AMD route I know that's almost blasphemy at the moment considering the performance difference, but what I figured was that I wouldn't notice it anyway I've been living with a 6.5 year old system till now and my little AMD Duron 750 Mhz has been chugging along all this time like a real champion and hasn't ever let me down. (Micro*insert random curse word* is another story) So I have a soft spot in my heart for AMDs and also I'm hoping to plop in a dual core Kuma in around 1-1.5 years time into the am2 board.


So that's it, my build. Any and all comments and tips will be very welcome.

 

[Yensen]

Nice setup.

For a 20" widescreen I'd go with the LG L204WT.

Logitech makes good 2.1 PC speakers.

 

[deRusett]

I'd liketo put another vote in for LG as a monitor choice, I picked up a L203WTN in the summer and now my 21" CRT looks so dark and gloomy beside it, very bright and vibrant, and so far Zero complaint with both movie watching and games.

as for your build, don't know anything about AMD, my last AMD system was a Xp 1700+ and I've had a few systems between that.

if you are not much of a gamer I would really consider checking out a Nvidia 6800 or 7600 GT's or Ultra's the prices on them have come down considerably and they are solid cards.

though you wont be upset what so ever with a x1950, it is a great card. and I did like the software bundle with ATI better then nVidia back 3 years ago. I'm sure ATI still have a great mediaplayer. I use Power DVD now since I have Nvidia cards.


Might I suggest getting a Floppy/Card reader drive, a floppy drive will run ya 10 bucks, the 7in1 floppy/card reader will run ya 20 bucks, but proves quite useful espeically if you have a digi cam, PDA, cellphone, mp3 player, that uses flashmedia.