YANBT (Yet Another Noobie Build Thread)

[jman19]

Trying to put together a mid-range system that'll play some games moderately well, and this is what I have so far...

Processor: AMD Athlon 64 3000+ Venice Socket 939
Motherboard: Chaintech VNF4 Ultra
Memory: Corsair Value Select 1 GB
Case: Antec SLK3000-B
Video Card: Chaintech Geforce 6600GT 128 MB PCI-E
Hard Drive: Seagate Barracuda 120 GB 7200 RPM
PSU: Antec SmartPower 2.0 SP-400 ATX12V 400W Power Supply - Retail
Optical Drive: NEC Black IDE DVD Burner 16x DVD+R Model ND-3520A
Floppy: Sony floppy drive

The main items I have been unsure about are the video card and PSU... Will that PSU provide enough power, and is chaintech a reliable brand for video cards? I saw that there were some other good brands that are only a few bucks more for the same card (Leadtek, ASUS, etc). BTW, I would be getting most of these items from Newegg, the MB from mwave most likely. Suggestions?

EDIT: Already have a 19'' LCD display, keyboard, and mouse, in case anyone brings up these items.

 

[bob4432]

looks good to me, if you are unsure about the video, you could get a 6800GT... or maybe wait as the new cards will be coming out shortly and the "older" cards may go down in price

 

[indianduddawg47]

geforce 6600 gt's will hold their own. I played half life 2 with the following settings: 16x anisotropic filtering, 6x anti aliasing, 1600x1200, all detail settings maxed out. My framerate never dropped below 30... i even had to enable vsync because i kept getting tearing (my refresh rate is 65 hz, so the framerates were higher than 65).

 

[MobiusPizza]

You don't look like a n00b to me. You from the ATOT department?
looks good to me. The PSU would be sufficient

 

[jman19]

Originally posted by: AnnihilatorX
You don't look like a n00b to me. You from the ATOT department?
looks good to me. The PSU would be sufficient

Yeah, I'm from ATOT But I'm a n00b at comp building

 

[airfoil]

Looks good, but there's room for improvement. You could consider buying faster RAM, the Corsair XMS 1GB kit for example.

 

[The Pentium Guy]

Are you planning to OC? If you are then you'll benifit from faster RAM. I doubt that chaintech can OC anyways. If you're not planning to OC then stick with the ValueSelect

 

[fatty4ksu]

:thumbsdown:

 

[jman19]

Originally posted by: The Pentium Guy
Are you planning to OC? If you are then you'll benifit from faster RAM. I doubt that chaintech can OC anyways. If you're not planning to OC then stick with the ValueSelect

I doubt I'm going to OC, I'm a n00b at that also!

 

[jman19]

Originally posted by: fatty4ksu
:thumbsdown:

I don't read General Hardware to often, but I bet a search for your name reveals that you are nothing more than a troll and a thread crapper.

 

[MobiusPizza]

Originally posted by: jman19

Originally posted by: fatty4ksu
:thumbsdown:

I don't read General Hardware to often, but I bet a search for your name reveals that you are nothing more than a troll and a thread crapper.

lol

Anyway if you aren't overclocking these Venice babes it's a waste
It's easy, using stock voltage you can go up few hundred Mhz pretty easily without any danger. There should be options to lock RAM frequency so your RAM can handle

 

[jman19]

Originally posted by: AnnihilatorX

Originally posted by: jman19

Originally posted by: fatty4ksu
:thumbsdown:

I don't read General Hardware to often, but I bet a search for your name reveals that you are nothing more than a troll and a thread crapper.

lol

Anyway if you aren't overclocking these Venice babes it's a waste
It's easy, using stock voltage you can go up few hundred Mhz pretty easily without any danger. There should be options to lock RAM frequency so your RAM can handle

Well, if I were to experiment with overclocking, should I be looking at a different Mobo and different memory? Also, was wondering if there is much variation in quality of 6600GTs between different manufacturers. Thanks!

 

[MobiusPizza]

The best overclocking and very highly rated mobo is the DFi LanParty UT Ultra-D, which uses nForce 4 Ultra chipset
If paired with the OCZ Gold VX Memoery, which takes 3.2V, it can achieve fastest timing at 250 Mhz fsb, a 25% overclock; 25% performance increase very easily.
(OCZ Gold VX is garantee to achieve 250FSB at 2-2-2-5 timing at 3.2V)

The fact that only the DFi motherboard can provide that high RAM voltage is the reason why the board and the OCZ Gold VX Ram so popular.
If you are tight on budget and cannot buy the $180 2*512MB OCZ Gold VX, you can get the $100 Value VX which is basically the same RAM but untested. The point is then you may not achieve such a higher overclock; (but most people can still go that high with them; element of luck) but moderate overclocking should be easy

 

[KoolDrew]

I don't know how good that Chaintech board is for overclocking, but even if you do overclock I see no reasdon to go with expensive RAM. Just stick with the RAM you chose and use a divider. It won't affect your CPU OC at all.

 

[theMan]

corsair value select is very good for overclocking, just run a divider and you should be fine, see Zebos' memory tests in the oc forum. get an msi neo4 plat. the best oc board is the dfi ultra d but you arent really into overclocking so thats ok. for the video card, get asus, msi, or leadtek. psu- you want seasonic s12 or ocz modstream