Might as well get a 400W. That way you won't be wondering if
you've got enough power to upgrade. You can probably manage with
as little as 300W if there is any advantage in going with a lower
power rating.
If I understand this correctly, seem like 300W is the minimum, 350W is
the "suggested" that gives me some head room, and 400W is a
"no-regret" choice. Thanks for info.
Why not go a little faster on the CPU? At least a 3200+. The price
has come way down.
Actually, there is no particular reason why I choose 3000+ instead of
3200+. My current PC is a 1.4GHz P4. I like to at least double the
speed of what I current have whenever I get a new PC. This means a 2.8
GHz rating is the minimum that I should get. I think I may get a
little bit more just to play safe, and 3000+ is a nice rounded number.
There is really not much of a science in coming up with this choice.
I have a feeling that a 3000+ and a 3200+ probably doesn't really have
much of a difference, at least not something that I can tell.
Therefore, I am better off staying with something a tiny bit slower.
Hopefully, the CPU will run a bit cooler. This should help especially
the case that I am going to put it in is a HTPC style case. HTPC style
case tends to be small and have less cooling.
This will come with the CPU if you buy retail, but it is noisy at
high RPMs. You will probably want an after-market heatsink and fan
for your processor.
You are exactly right. I will get an OEM CPU that probably doesn't
have heatsink nor CPU-fan, and I will get a good after-market heatsink
and CPU fan.
Mount it in the back, up near the power supply, so that it sucks
the air out of the case.
The case that I am looking at from Cooler Master is like what you have
described. It also has another fan in the front to blow cool air in.
I count that there will be totally 6 fans inside the case (power
supply, CPU, video card fan, two fans in the rear, and one fan in the
front). I am just wondering whether there are more fans than I really
need. I probably need to play around with some CPU/video intensive
application (such as games) and check the temperature inside the case
to see if I can turn off one or two fans.
The fan is bolted to the card. If you can get a decent card
without a fan, that might be a good choice, but most faster cards
have got fans these days.
The video card that I was looking at doesn't need a fan. But I have
decided to get ATI Radeon 9600-XT instead of 9550. And 9600-XT
definitely comes with a fan.
Get a multi-format, dual layer DVD burner, which will also burn
CDs. Why limit yourself?
Actually I made a mistake. I intend to put a DVD burner in the new PC.
I will be moving that DVD burner from my current PC to the new PC. I
haven't used it as a DVD-burner before; therefore, I didn't remember
that it is actually a DVD burner. My mistake.
Why go with a SATA drive? It has no practical advantages, and some
disadvantages. Go regular old IDE. Seagate is a good choice, though.
I am under the impression that the cable for SATA is narrow and
doesn't block as much air flow as IDE cable does. This is the primary
reason of getting a SATA. Secondarily, I like to have an option to get
another 160GB in the future and make a RAID-0 to improve I/O speed.
Nice to talk with you.
Jay Chan
