[Icdblc13]

Howdy

I'm building my first pc (a budget gamer). I want to build a pc that works well now, but is also a sturdy foundation for upgrades in the future. Being that this is my first time, I'd like to make sure that all of the parts I've selected are compatable and will give me good performance. If you have any suggestions about alternative parts or something I may have missed, I'd be happy to hear them. Here is my tentative parts list

Processor: AMD Athlon 64 X2 7750 Kuma 2.7GHz Black Edition = $65
Motherboard: GIGABYTE GA-MA790X-UD4P = $110
Graphics Card: XFX GeForce 9800 GTX+ 512MB (with free copy of FarCry2!) = $115
Memory: OCZ Fatal1ty Edition 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1066 (PC2 8500) = $37
Hard Drive(s): Western Digital Caviar WD2500BB 250GB 7200 RPM 2MB Cache (will get two and set to RAID 0) = $70
Rom Drive: LITE-ON 22x DVD Burner = $22
Case w/ 480w Power Supply: $32

And that's that. I supplied the links to the parts, and you may notice that they are all from newegg.com. I'm not opposed to going to other sites, they just had the best deals that I found. So I would love to hear any feedback that you could give me. Thanks much!

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One suggestion I would give.
Either buy a better PSU or a case with a better PSU.
If you want to be able to upgrade for the future that 480 watt will not do it. I would suggest a 650 watt or better. Graphic cards are more energy consuming and if you have any plans of going sli in the future with 2 or more graphics cards then you will need the wattage. I hope this helps
What OS System are you going to be installing? If you want more then 3 gigs of memory a word of advice. You will need to go to XP Pro 64 bit or Vista 64 bit in order for OS to see more then 3 gigs and utilize it correctly

[rshaffer61]

One suggestion I would give.
Either buy a better PSU or a case with a better PSU.
If you want to be able to upgrade for the future that 480 watt will not do it. I would suggest a 650 watt or better. Graphic cards are more energy consuming and if you have any plans of going sli in the future with 2 or more graphics cards then you will need the wattage. I hope this helps
What OS System are you going to be installing? If you want more then 3 gigs of memory a word of advice. You will need to go to XP Pro 64 bit or Vista 64 bit in order for OS to see more then 3 gigs and utilize it correctly

[Icdblc13]

Okay, so I found this case with a 600w power supply, otherwise I found this power supply for $50 and could find a cheaper case for around $25. For an OS, I plan to load the Vista 32bit that came with my laptop, but want to upgrade to Windows 7 64bit when the release candidate is out (had some issues with the beta). I had considered ordering 4 of the ram chips instead of 2 but figured that it would be an easy upgrade later.

EDITED

Just found a 750w for $34. Guess that's a winner.

Edited by Icdblc13, 14 April 2009 - 12:48 PM.

[stettybet0]

That $34 PSU is not a winner. You don't want to cheap out on a PSU, because if it goes it could take your whole computer with it. I recommend this 650W from Corsair.

For a hard drive, this 640GB WD Black will outperform the two you've selected, give you more than double the storage space, and is cheaper.

Also, you probably will not be able to use the copy of Vista that came with your laptop. It is most likely an OEM version that is bound to the hardware it came with. It will not work on another system.

[Icdblc13]

Thanks much for your suggestion, I didn't realize that it was so important, but is there a good PSU closer to the $50 range? I can't afford a PSU that expensive. That was a good call with Vista, i didn't even think about it. I have a burned copy of the 7 beta I can install until the release candidate is out. Thanks again

EDITED

I found this OCZ GameXStream 700-Watt Power Supply
and a 600w OCZ StealthXStream. I could use either one of these right?

Edited by Icdblc13, 14 April 2009 - 05:25 PM.

[stettybet0]

Yes, you could use either of those, but the Corsair PSU I recommended is cheaper than both of those (when including shipping and rebates), and of a much higher quality.

At the $50 price point, I'm not really comfortable recommending any PSU. It makes much more sense to spend $25 more and ensure your system gets clean, stable power.

[Icdblc13]

Well thanks much everyone. With your help and a little hard work, I've ordered the parts and will be working on it next week. Take care!