First time PC builder, please review my list

[ellessone]

First time doing this, the PC will be for gaming, ACAD, and internet usage, and I will attempt to OC. I'm totally a newb to all of this and need a little help with the buying decisions. TIA

Case-Rosewill 400W
bought it when it was 39.00

CPU-on the fence between 2.4C or 3.0C. Does the 3.0C justify cost, is it a much better OC?? (Also, replace stck heatsink w/ Zalmann)

Motherboard-Abit IS7 (or ASUSP4P800E-Deluxe) 865PE board

Video Card- between 9800 128MB or 9800 pro 256MB or 9600XT 256MB

Hard Drive-Seagate 120 or 160GB SATA drive

Memory- 2x512 of PQI turbo 3200 (I'm kind of lost with this one)

Sound card-?????

Should I replace the power supply with the case I bought??? Thanks for all of your help

 

[ps2cho]

what do u mean by ur lost with the RAM ?
if i think what u mean is...
the 3200 means it can transfer 3.2GB of data.

 

[ellessone]

I mean I'm lost as to what brand to buy and how much of a difference will I notice between PC3200 vs 3500.

 

[David]

Hi, welcome to the forums

A 2.4C should overclock to around the 3.0-3.2GHz mark (up to 3.6GHz) with luck; a 3.0C would probably be reaching 3.4 up to 4.0GHz (over 3.6GHz may be tricky).

With the RAM: PC3200 is fine for running it at stock. However, as you overclock FSB, you are also pushing up the RAM speed. With PC3200 RAM you will need to drop to a 5:4 ratio once you get past about 215 to 220MHz FSB, which has lower bandwidth between CPU and RAM compared to say, PC3500 RAM which is good for 233MHz and could run 1:1 at 233MHz, where PC3200 would probably only run 5:4.