Looking for help/suggestions for my cheap gaming machine.

[fredecker]

Hello, I'm looking for feedback on the following build list for a
semi-cheap gaming machine. I'm trying to keep it under $700 or so if
possible and will be transferring the hard drive, optical drive,
operating system, monitor, speakers and keyboard/mouse from my current
machine. I'll be adding a bigger hard drive and better optical drive
in the future as needed.
This will be my first homebuilt machine and I'm looking primarily for
confirmation that everything is compatible but would love to hear your
suggestions on better component choices as well.

BIOSTAR N4SLI-A9 Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce4 SLI ATX AMD Motherboard

FSP Group (Fortron Source) FSP400-60THN-R ATX12V 400W Power Supply
115/230 V NEMKO, TUV, CSA, IEC, UL, CE

connect3D 3038 Radeon X800GTO 256MB 256-bit GDDR3 VIVO PCI Express x16
Video Card

AMD Athlon 64 3200+ Venice 1GHz FSB 512KB L2 Cache Socket 939 Processor


Spire BlackFin SP-6190B Silver/ Black SECC ATX Mid Tower Computer Case

CORSAIR ValueSelect 1GB 184-Pin DDR SDRAM Unbuffered DDR 400 (PC 3200)
System Memory

 

[Ian D.]

Hello, I'm looking for feedback on the following build list for a
semi-cheap gaming machine. I'm trying to keep it under $700 or so if
possible and will be transferring the hard drive, optical drive,
operating system, monitor, speakers and keyboard/mouse from my current
machine. I'll be adding a bigger hard drive and better optical drive
in the future as needed.
This will be my first homebuilt machine and I'm looking primarily for
confirmation that everything is compatible but would love to hear your
suggestions on better component choices as well.

BIOSTAR N4SLI-A9 Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce4 SLI ATX AMD Motherboard

FSP Group (Fortron Source) FSP400-60THN-R ATX12V 400W Power Supply
115/230 V NEMKO, TUV, CSA, IEC, UL, CE

connect3D 3038 Radeon X800GTO 256MB 256-bit GDDR3 VIVO PCI Express x16
Video Card

AMD Athlon 64 3200+ Venice 1GHz FSB 512KB L2 Cache Socket 939 Processor


Spire BlackFin SP-6190B Silver/ Black SECC ATX Mid Tower Computer Case

CORSAIR ValueSelect 1GB 184-Pin DDR SDRAM Unbuffered DDR 400 (PC 3200)
System Memory

Everything looks fine to me. From there on, it's just to cross your
fingers. Most of the time everything goes well. If it doesn't, don't
despair. Dog at it until it works out. Seek help on internet.

When building, make sure the potential between two components gets
equalized before their connectors touch. This is easy. Just touch both
parts at the same time with the same hand. And don't touch connectors
or circuitry. Actually, in particular don't touch it FIRST, before
you've touched the component at some other place. The simple principle
is: don't equalize potential through the electronics.

FSP400-60THN is solid gold. Maybe a bit overkill, but it's nice to
have a really solid psu and some watt-margin for more harddrives and a
bigger videocard.

You don't need the SLI version of NF4. Can't use it with Radeon
anyway.

You won't get dual channel ram with only one DDR stick.

Some people report problems with some harddrives, large file transfers
and the hi perf NF4 SLI/Ultra chipsets. Maxtor, Hitachi and Raptor are
involved. There are a few threads about this on various forums.
Apparently the problem is in the harddrives. At least Maxtor and
nVidia seem to think so. Maxtor has released some firmware updates. It
has something to do with the high performance of the chipset.

It's also common that people run into some other problems when using
the nVidia firewall. So I would recommend you to not install that from
start. Good luck.