Comments/views invited for first system build

[MrJubbly]

Hi

I'm going to try and build my first system. My existing PC (an ageing Pentium II 450MHz) is creaking at the seams and is soon to be inherited by my young children.

I have been doing some research and have come up with the following shopping list:

Lian-Li PC-7 PLUS Aluminium Midi-Tower Case - Black £49.99
(£58.74) £49.99
(£58.74)
Creative Inspire T3100 2.1 Speakers - Retail £29.95
(£35.19) £29.95
(£35.19)
Sapphire ATI Radeon X1950 Pro ULTIMATE SILENT 256MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail £119.99
(£140.99) £119.99
(£140.99)
Asus P5B Deluxe (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £103.99
(£122.19) £103.99
(£122.19)
Intel Core 2 DUO E6300 "LGA775 Allendale" 1.86GHz (1066FSB) - Retail £101.99
(£119.84) £101.99
(£119.84)
Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Music 7.1 Soundcard - OEM £43.50
(£51.11) £43.50
(£51.11)
Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro CPU Cooler (Socket 775) £13.99
(£16.44) £13.99
(£16.44)
Akasa AK FC-03 Fan Controller Pro £24.95
(£29.32) £24.95
(£29.32)
Corsair HX 620W ATX2.2 Modular SLI Compliant PSU (CMPSU-620HXUK) £84.99
(£99.86) £84.99
(£99.86)
Samsung SpinPoint P HD160HJ 160GB SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM £34.99
(£41.11) £69.98
(£82.22)
Samsung SpinPoint T HD321KJ 320GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM £53.99
(£63.44) £53.99
(£63.44)
Sony Floppy Drive - Black £4.99
(£5.86) £4.99
(£5.86)
Samsung SH-182MRSMN 18x18 DVD±RW Dual Layer Lightscribe ReWriter (Beige,Black,Silver) - Retail £19.99
(£23.49) £19.99
(£23.49)
Akasa AK-183-L2B Amber Ultra Quiet 120mm Fan - 3 pin £9.95
(£11.69) £19.90
(£23.38)
Logitech Cordless Desktop S 510 - Black/Silver £29.99
(£35.24) £29.99
(£35.24)
Samsung SM-206BW 20" Widescreen LCD Monitor - Silver/Black £199.99
(£234.99) £199.99
(£234.99)
Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate 64-Bit Edition DVD - OEM - 1Pk (66R-00838) £104.99
(£123.36) £104.99
(£123.36)
GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC6400C4 800MHz Ultra Low Latency DDR2 Dual Channel Kit (GX22GB6400UDC) £97.99
(£115.14) £97.99
(£115.14)
Sub Total : £1,175.15
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £24.95
Vat : £210.02
Total : £1,410.12


The PC will be used primarily of general home and office use, but the above has been compiled with the following also in mind:

 Must have a reasonable amount of future growth potential.
 Decent amount of disk storage.
 Needs to be air-cooled and quiet.
 Would like the ability to play the odd game at a reasonable level of quality.
 Want to have a go at some mild over clocking with the view to having the ability to overclock more, should future growth dictate.
 Want to set up a disk array.
 Want to bite the bullet and go with Vista.

As I say this is going to be my fist build, I would really appreciate it if you guys could give my component list a once over and see if I have made any glaring mistakes, or there are any areas for improvement. I wouldn't necessarily want to spend anymore, but I'm not sure if I could/should reduce spend in some areas to spend more on others. For example would I be better off downgrading/removing the soundcard and spending a bit more on the processor?

Given this is my first build, is there anything else I need to include? I know I'll need some thermal paste for the HSF, but will I need anything else (besides blood, sweat and tears) i.e. screws, cables, etc?

Finally will the PC7 house all this kit (or should I ask this on the Case forum) and be suitably cool?

Cheers,

Jubbly

 

[MrJubbly]

Thanks for the replies so far guys.

Also i think the akasa eclipse atx case would be a better choice for the future if like me looks arent as important as useability and performance. God knows how big the cards will be in 2 years time i think the gtx cards just about fit in the lian li correct me if im wrong.And the eclipse has bags more room to manouvre.

The Eclipse was my second choice, but the PC-7 is just that bit better looking personally. Still may change my mind and go with the Eclipse.

I would personally ditch the soundcard and use the money saved to upgrade the graphics to the 8800GS.

Wasn't sure that my day to day usage would really warrant me spending to much on the gfx card. Open to persuasion though.

BTW, you don't need the floppy drive as AFAIK SATA drivers etc are native with Vista.

Can you explain more please (I'm such a noob). I thought a lot of drivers etc still came on floppies, and that at least this would be useful to have in the early stages of the build?

When you say disk array, am I correct in saying you mean RAID, if so you need to look at at least 2 identical disks, size, manufacturer etc.

Yes, RAID is what I meant. I've gone for two Samsung Spinpoint 120s, which I was going to run as RAID 0? Is that right?

Thanks again guys. Keep your views coming. Much appreciated.

Jubbly

 

[MrJubbly]

Okay, I may condsider dropping the sounds card in favour of better gfx card. I'll do a bit more digging around, but from what I recall there's not a great deal of choice in the 8800's for around the £200 mark, which is effectively the figure i'd be looking at.

If the new Sammy's don't come in soon then the Dell was my second choice. I had looked at the Belinea, but the 102030W. Completely overlooked the 2225S1W. On my search I was looking DVI only so that was another reason I ruled out Belinea. A lot of people do seem to be raving about the 2225S1W though, so perhaps VGA isn't that bad after all?

Just to clear things up re the RAID thang. I was going to order two Samsung SpinPoint P HD160HJ 160GB's to be used in a RAID 0 set up, and a further standalone Samsung SpinPoint T HD321KJ 320GB. My current thinking is that the two 160s will be used for data and the 320 will be used for O/S, progs, games, etc.

Cheers,

Jubbly