so i am selling my little bros pc for 300 and ganna give him mine. and a reciver for 80. my friend owns me 200 and another one 100. i am ganna make me one. i dont want to spend a lot of money or any money for a matter of fact. its ganna be the first one i make from the ground up. so yea i need help. this is what i got so far.

AMD Athlon 64 X2 4600+
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819103751
ASUS M2N-SLI Deluxe
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813131013
CORSAIR 512MB DDR2 800
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820145567
APEVIA ATX 680W Power Supply
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817148022

I am at about 500. all i need now is a case. the rest of the stuff i am ganan get later or use some i got already.

 

you will want at least a gig if not 2 of ram

 

Why are you getting such a large power supply? 680W is a lot, unless you plan on running 2 huge graphics cards.
I just built my first PC from the ground up, and I used all name brand stuff. It cost me right at $1k for the parts and OS.
I got a Pentium Dual Core 2.8GHz processor w/ a Pentim motherboard, a Cooler Master CPU fan, a BFG 6800GTE graphics card, a Plextor DVD/CD burner, and a 550W power supply. I got all my stuff from Tiger Direct.
The hardest part for me was getting the processor to work. Your processor should come with some heat-sinking compound that you have to apply to the processor before you mount the cooling fan. If you don't apply that stuff at the right thickness, you'll fry the processor.
Also, remember NOT to work on carpet, and always ground yourself to the case frame before touching any other parts... static electricity will fry it in a snap. Take your time, and you'll be fine! I had fun building mine, so I hope you do too!

 

ahhahahaha yes yes i am. muuuuhahahhahahhahahhahahah



i guess i will go with a gig or ram if u guyz say so.

 

680W is not an overkill for a powersupply even with two graphics cards. I might even bump that up to a 750 if you plan to add some more drives in the future. That MB you have will support if I remember correctly 8 SATA drives right? And considering its RAID capable (if you chose to do so) 750W would be a wise investment at this point. I personally prefer thermaltake cases/fans/powersupplies just because they are extremely effective, quiet, controllable, and last forever.

I have to agree that 2 GB of memory is probably what you need, its so cheap for what it does and the performance upgrade you see is undeniable.

I personally dont like the BFG cards even though they are nVidia, but if you do get one make sure and run the Omega drives so you can boost its speed to where you need it to be.

 

The MB list Dual channel memory architecture 4 x 240-pin DIMM, support max. 8GB DDR2 800/667/533 ECC and non-ECC, un-buffered memory.

Your best bet would be to buy 2 sticks of 1gb. I agree starting with 2gb. You picked out a power supply that supports SLI, so that was good and it's big enough to power two SLI cards.

I've built hundreds of AMD PCs and you always buy the retail version of the CPU (which is what you listed). It comes with the fan and heat sink already matched up for you and it has the heat conductive pad already applied. So you don't have to worry about what TennesseeCBRF2 said. He's right, but AMD makes it easy.


What video cards are you going with? Hard drives? Are you doing the RAID for the hard drive set up? Come on... you start talking about toys... we wanna play.

 

I agree that you're going to need AT LEAST 2GB ram especially if you're going to be running 2 graphics cards. Memory is relatively cheap, so I would just go with 4GB running 4 sticks of 1GB each in dual channel.
What hard drive are you going to run? I don't understand why some people use massive hard drives for everyday computing. I bought a Western Digital 120GB SATAfor mine, and I think it's more than enough even with all my music and games installed.
I like the BFG graphics card I got. It's a PCI express, and it produces awesome graphics. I bought it because it's HD, and I use my 37" LCD HD TV as a monitor. Playing games on it is awesome. It's the lower end of graphics cards, I know, but I didn't want to spend $500 or $750 on just graphics. I'm not that much of a gamer!

 

I have to disagree that 120GB is enough storage, espeically if you are going to be doing any kind of storage. I convert my old HI8 tapes to DVD and those recorded typically take about 8-9GB per tape, and if I am doing any kind of mix DVD for someone (several x-mas or vacations on one DVD) I burn about 80GB of hard drive space up without batting an eye. Add 75GB or MP3's and all of a sudden you dont have a hard drive left. Storage is cheap considering you can go from a 120GB to 300 or 500 for 30-50 extra bucks its a very wise decision.

 

4GB of DDR2 ram is going to be expensive. i would say as a standard system you will want a minimum of 1GB DDR, you are running DDR2 which is 2x as fast, if you go with 1GB you will be fine, of course 2GB would be 'better' but not necessary. most systems today only come with 512MB anyhow. 4GB of RAM would be overkill depending on what you are trying to do, but its always nice to max your board out on RAM. I still need to get 1GB more of RAM since i just got a free copy of Vista Business and Office 07 on its way to me.

what are you going to be doing you need 2 graphics cards?

my home compy has 2 Seagate 160GB drives and I love having all the space!

as for the cpu, its not difficult at all to apply thermal paste and a heatsink. the thickness is not that crucial, of course it has to be thick enough to disperse the heat, but its not like its rocket science. just dab some on there and apply heatsink. although i have not looked at prices lately and it might be cheaper to get the retail instead of OEM.

as for video cards, i think they all suck. it seems the higher end card you get the more you have to fight to get it to work right with everyting. ATIs catylist drivers just plain suck. i have an ATI Radeon 256MB X850XT Pro right now. and I also have horrible luck with Nvidia as well. luckily I know someone who works at AMD and they just bought ATI this year. he does R&D on products so next time i will get the skinny on what works with what.