Advice on purchasing for a homebuild

[Will]

Hi,

I've been out of touch with the computing world for quite a while, so am
feeling a bit lost when looking at the options available to me for upgrading
my 4 year old Athlon 1.4GHz machine...

I'm looking to get a whole new computer, purchasing the bits through a mate
who works for a component distributer - parts almost at cost price

So, am thinking:

Athlon 64 processor
A good motherboard with onboard LAN and sound. SATA capable. USB2 + Firewire
onboard. Should I look at a PCI-express board?
1Gb RAM
1x 80Gb HD for OS
2x160Gb HD for all the other crap I have...
DVD +-RW drive - do I want dual layer capability?
Fast CD-RW drive
Obviously a case to fit all the above, with a suitable PSU.

Any recommendations would be welcomed. Please note I'm in the UK, so pricing
and places to look at for over here would be welcomed.

Thanks very much

 

[Xiccarph]

Asus K8V Deluxe K8T800 Athlon 64 Mainboard or MSI K8T Neo-FIS2R K8T800
Mainboard. Just suggestions...find name brand, web supported models
that fit most of your requirements. Unless you plan on adding specific
PCI-E cards for some heavy-traffic use, that u know exist, I wouldnt
worry about it. Most of what u want is already in the board and doesnt
need PCI-E bandwidth. It also may be harder to find a PCI-E board that
has all what u want otherwise.

Go with 2 gig RAM at least. Not that much more $$ (or pounds in ur
case), and good if u plan to do gaming/multimedia.

Use the SATA RAID capability, dont want to loose any of that 160gb of
"crap", lol.

Didnt mention a video card......

Everything else looks OK...depends on your desires and budget.

Get a good cool case, with plenty of existing or options for, 80 or
120mm fans. For all ur putting in this, 500 watt minimum PSU, Fully
rectified and filtered...not a cheapie.

 

[Will]

Oh Yeah,

Looking at a 128MB graphics card at the least - quite fond of ATI based
cards. Any recommendations for what to go for? Not much of a PC gamer (got
an xbox) but do the odd bit of video editing and gaming.

]Thanks so far...

 

[Xiccarph]

You will get hammered from many on choosing ATI or Nvidia based cards;
both have their following, and mostly that is based on what they got
first in their PC dablings. They'll throw all kinds of specs and
numbers, but mostly it comes down to familiarity and "tradition", and in
some cases, a bad experience or two with a particular brand at some time
or another. I've had both and used both; never had any problems and
liked what I bought. Most of my high end stuff nowadays uses ATI...just
my preference; doesnt imply my UT2k4 or Unreal'99 would look noticably
any better in one vs the other.

If you want to stick with just basic video needs, Nvidia based cards
have a wider range of options as to prices and features from its use by
many manufacturers compared to ATI's...just seems to be more out there.
You can get a decent 128meg Nvidia for US$60-80 that is not a screamer
by any means, but has all the basic digital inputs and connectors for
multimiedia. As a gamer, I cant see spending less than $300 for any
video card, and usually go with the 4 or 5-hundred "got everythings";
your requirements, tho, may make a decent high-quality $200-300 model
perfect.

That aside, if you plan any video or gaming, go for 256mb video RAM; in
the long run you'll be glad u did. Get as fast a card as ur budget allows.

If you really get into PC gaming, you'll be amazed at the graphics
compared to the TV-based X-boxes and PS's; a whole different world of
realistic play.