opterontom
03-24-2006, 04:10 PM
*Mods, please let me know if this belongs elsewhere. Forums are new to me...and no, I'm not kidding.*
Hi,
As this is my first post, I'd like to say hi to all you folks on this forum! It looks like their is a lot of intelligent discussion going on among informed people and I'm hoping in time I can be a part of it.
Just so you all know where I'm coming from, I am basically diving headfirst into an empty pool in regard to computer building. For the last six years, I have only bought Dell computers and have never ONCE taken them apart or upgraded a single component due to a combination of ineptness and utter fear. However, I finally decided to sell my Dell, and build my own computer! I've already sold my Dell and am working on getting the best bang for the buck while spending less than $1000 (not including monitor.)
Here are the parts which I already have and/or are on their way:
<ul>
<li>Piano Sonata II Case with included 450 psu.
<li>Asus A8N5X Motherboard.
<li>Opteron 146 OEM.
<li>Corsair XMS 2GB (2X1GB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM.
<li>Sapphire Radeon X850XT.
</ul>
<b>Note: I am going to use this computer exclusively for gaming. I'd greatly 'prefer' a quieter rig, so please keep this in mind. </b>
Here are my concerns...
1) Is that motherboard a good fit with the Opteron 146. I want to use it to do 'moderate overclocking'. (I did a forum search and only found one person who had used it.)
2) I want to make sure the heatsink/fan will fit my Sonata II case easily and again, I'd prefer quiet, but not so much that it's useless. ;) I've read a lot of heatsink/fan reviews and am leading towards one of the following fans.
Thermaltake VENUS 12 80mm Ball Cooling Fan/Heatsink.
Thermaltake Big Typhoon 120mm Cooling Fan/Heatsink.(<--I know this is not quiet.)
Arctic Cooling Freezer 64 Pro.
Any recommendations on the list or others?
3) According to newegg reivews, my motherboard supports SATA II.. What is the best Seagate hard-drive to get on the cheap? It really doesn't need to be bigger than 80 gigs as I won't be storing anything other than a couple games.
4) My brother, father, room-mate, and little dog have a DvD burner so I only need a good quality dvd/cd player. Any recommendations?
I really appreciate any input as I am looking to build this computer asap. In addition to the questions above, any tips or suggestions are more than welcome. Thanks all. :)
Regards,
O.Tom
Hi,
As this is my first post, I'd like to say hi to all you folks on this forum! It looks like their is a lot of intelligent discussion going on among informed people and I'm hoping in time I can be a part of it.
Just so you all know where I'm coming from, I am basically diving headfirst into an empty pool in regard to computer building. For the last six years, I have only bought Dell computers and have never ONCE taken them apart or upgraded a single component due to a combination of ineptness and utter fear. However, I finally decided to sell my Dell, and build my own computer! I've already sold my Dell and am working on getting the best bang for the buck while spending less than $1000 (not including monitor.)
Here are the parts which I already have and/or are on their way:
<ul>
<li>Piano Sonata II Case with included 450 psu.
<li>Asus A8N5X Motherboard.
<li>Opteron 146 OEM.
<li>Corsair XMS 2GB (2X1GB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM.
<li>Sapphire Radeon X850XT.
</ul>
<b>Note: I am going to use this computer exclusively for gaming. I'd greatly 'prefer' a quieter rig, so please keep this in mind. </b>
Here are my concerns...
1) Is that motherboard a good fit with the Opteron 146. I want to use it to do 'moderate overclocking'. (I did a forum search and only found one person who had used it.)
2) I want to make sure the heatsink/fan will fit my Sonata II case easily and again, I'd prefer quiet, but not so much that it's useless. ;) I've read a lot of heatsink/fan reviews and am leading towards one of the following fans.
Thermaltake VENUS 12 80mm Ball Cooling Fan/Heatsink.
Thermaltake Big Typhoon 120mm Cooling Fan/Heatsink.(<--I know this is not quiet.)
Arctic Cooling Freezer 64 Pro.
Any recommendations on the list or others?
3) According to newegg reivews, my motherboard supports SATA II.. What is the best Seagate hard-drive to get on the cheap? It really doesn't need to be bigger than 80 gigs as I won't be storing anything other than a couple games.
4) My brother, father, room-mate, and little dog have a DvD burner so I only need a good quality dvd/cd player. Any recommendations?
I really appreciate any input as I am looking to build this computer asap. In addition to the questions above, any tips or suggestions are more than welcome. Thanks all. :)
Regards,
O.Tom