Building a new PC, Comments/suggestions welcome!

[Darkimitation]

Hi hi . .

Well, Without going into to much personal history . . . Im insaine, I have a wife that loves me, I dont work ( becuase Im insiane ) but Im Mr.Mom and take care of our 9 month old little girl.

That said, I have alot of free time on my hands, and playing Online games is one of them . . . ANYWAY, its tax time, and the little lady loves me, and its close to my birthday, and she is letting me build my own P.C to Spec . .

So I had a little fun.

Before I get into the rundown of what I figured I would get, you may notice there is ALOT of heatsink and crap I dotn need. This is becuase last year it got so hot in my house ( over 107F ) that the fan inside my old heatsink ( on an AMD Athlon XP 1700 ) MELTED!

So I am not taking any chances this time around . .

This PC is being built for almost only gaming.

Anyway here is what I been thinking is end result. Tell me what ya think. ALl honesty is apprectiated

SYSTEM SPECS :

Mother baord = 800 MHz FSB: ECS 648FX-A, 648FX, DDR400, AGP 8X w/Audio,LAN

Proccesor = 800 MHz FSB: Intel P4, 3.0 GHz, 512K Cache, Hyper Threading

Memory = 512MB PC3200 DDR400 184PIN DIMM C3 (KINGSTON) ( x2 total 1024 megs )

Hard Drive = IDE: Maxtor 80GB, 7200 RPM, ATA100

Video Card = MSI FX5700-VTD256, 256MB nVidia FX-5700 w/DVI / VIVO& TV out

Sound Card = Creative Labs Sound Blaster Live! 5.1 Digital Sound Card

CD-ROM Drive = DVDRW/CDRW, DVD-RW 2X TOSHIBA

Power Supply = SPI Ball Bearing 400 Watts XP / P4 Power Supply


CASE, MONITOR AND COOLING :

Monitor = KDS Xtreme Flat XF-9i 19" CRT Monitor

Computer case = Raidmax 868WBP Scorpio Black Case w/ Window

Processor Cooling = Thermaltake AquariusII Liquid Cooling

Thermal Paste = Artic Silver 5 Thermal Paste

Hard Drive cooling = CF-602 HDD Cooler Dual Fan

System Cooling ( System blower Air Out ) = UV reactive Blue Exhaust System Blower

Ram cooling ( Ram heat Spreader ) = Vantec ICEBERQ DDR memory heat spreader Copper DDR-A1C ( x2 )


ADDITIONAL COMPONENTS :

Extension for T.V Out on Video Card to reach the converter box = 25FT TV OUT S-VIDEO CABLE (MALE/MALE)

Power Extension 1 to 2 for video card Power = Power Y 4 Pin to 4Pin 3inch adapter UV Blue

Monitor Extension Cable so Dual Monitor can reach tower on other side = Belkin VGA Monitor Extension Cable M/F 6Ft

Fancy Stuff ( hehe :P ) = UV Light Kit : 24" IDE (3 Connectors) + 18" IDE (2 Connectors) + 12" Floppy + UV Light ( IDE UV Reactive )


Note : This System will be duel monitored on a secondary Video Card. Secondary card is a GeForce2 MMX 400 64meg PCI.
Secondary Monitor is a few year old Compaq Presario 14 Inch POS ( but hey it works :P )

This system will be running a registered version of Windows XP Pro ( of course I will update ) and a RoadRunner cable connection.


So what do you think? I cant wait to put it togther . . but I wanted to ask TRUE Techies ( I have built systems before, but just BUILT, like this, you know what I mean? ) thier opinions on the specs.

Also a Tech Question I was wondering about . . . With the Liquid cooling system I will be installing for processor, can I ( and or should I ) put the Arctic Silver on that pad? Here is a link to a site that has the system :

http://www.thermaltake.com/products/...aquariusII.htm
Please let me know, if I can, and it would help cut down on heat ANY, then I would want to, but I dont want to mess up anything by putting the thermal paste on it and having not been suppose to.

Look forward to your replies!


* EDIT * I forgot to add, case comes with 2 fans in back, and I have one already to mount in the front. Didnt want ya to think I forgot :P

[Mead]

ALWAYS use a thermal interface on your heatsink even if its water cooled.

[Darkimitation]

Thank you mead,as I wasnt sure if I could, but of course if it was alright to do so I would! Nothing like buying stuff like this and ruining it becuase of ONE STEP lol.

Thanks for the help. This is by far the best thing I have ever been able to build, and I wouldnt want to mess it up

[f1oored]

I wish I was insaine

I would go with an ATI video card. They seem to be leading the market right now. That's just me though!

[Jeordiewhite]

Well not only just going with ati, but your buying a video card with 256mb of ram, video cards dont even use the full 128mb of ram, so going with 256mb would be a waste since by the time you may need it except for heavy graphic rendering(not video games) would bennefit.
You could spend a little more on maybe a geforce fx 5900 and over clock it to an ultra, preferably you buy msi, mainly you can buy the card for 200 and under, great deal imo. If not a radeon if you feel spending the extra money, you wont be disatisfied, go with ati or asus for this, saphire and others aren't all that great.
However, nice thing about decent video cards today, you don't need a second one for dual monitors as most nice video cards come with support.
That way you can afford a much better video card that will last longer so you wont need to upgrade,
http://www.ati.com/designpartners/me...t_board-lg.jpg
They even come with a dvi to vga connector, so instead get just a single video card.
That is going to be a great system by the way good luck

[zen]

I would scrap the 7200rpm hard drive and go with a WD Raptor. Those things are screamers. 10,000rpm makes a difference believe me. Built a P4 based system similar to yours with the raptor and performance was spectacular.

[brian0555]

I would think about a different motherboard also. putting a $220+ chip into a $50 board just doesn't sound right IMO, of course! I've searched around for reviews, benchmarks or anything on the board, and I've found close to nothing, except Newegg's 8 reviews. I believe ECS would be a good inexpensive stable board, just not a performance powerhouse which a gaming system should have.
If it were me, I would definately go with a board using the 875p chipset, even though its over double the cost of the current board. At newegg, the Gigabyte GA-8IK1100 looks quite tempting with its 40 positive reviews.
Ultimately, its up to you, and what your budget allows. I might have even substituted the 3.0C for a 2.8C processor to balance the price of the board.
I know you'll have a good time putting it together, and if you dont, you know where to come if you got a problem!

later!!

[cysus]

I'd go with the gigabyte mobo listed above or the asus P4C800-E Deluxe, it benchmarks the best. Also could you please post the prices of all of your components so we can see if they are acually good deals also if you could post a total of how much $ you have to work with.

[Darkimitation]

Hey thanks for the great feedback guys! A couple of problems though . .

I am buying all these parts online, no parts are being part in person. The nearest computer store is pretty far away, and the nearest GOOD one ( heh ) is really far ( about a 2and a half - 3 hour drive ) . . .Problem is, certian sites only offered certain parts, so I had to pick what I wanted carefully. You may not realizr it, but although one part might be a little better buy for about $25.00 - $50.00 more . . . you start to add in the shiping and handling costs for all these sites and it REALLY starts to add up.

The Motherboard, processor, Case, hard drive, and video card, will all come pre - assembled and have a 1 year warrenty
on parts and labour ( would have aswmebles them myself but I wouldnt have gotten the warrenty on them ) . . . . everything else I decided to get came from another shop. . . .

I guess if I had shopped around abit more I may have found more sites, and or ONE sight that offered all this stuff, but to be honest we where kinda in a hurry. I know that sounds odd, but the wifes old computer is about to die. 800 mhz compaq POS . . . chugs and hangs when running any 3d application. Not good. I have tried to trouble shoot it, and I just belive its the entire computer about to go ( switched out video card, still does it, ram, still does it, reformatted drive, still does it, unless it is the proccessor, in witch case, just getting a new one anyway ) . . so she will get this computer here. Since she likes to play games as much as I do ( but doesnt require as much from them as me hehe ) we wanted the new parts to get ehre ASAP. As of yesterday I already order all the parts. Ah well . . . I do appreciate your thoughts ( only one person had answered me by the time it was time to order them ) . .

BTW, total amount spent was alittle over $1k ( some of the parts listed above I already had, as you may have guessed, but will be using them in this new system, Ex : my monitor ) . . .

[Optimus Prime]

You tried Newegg.com? I heard that it's really good for American buyers.