First timer with some daft questions, (sorry!)

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ssk

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I'm about to make a clown out of myself but there you have it! I'm gonna start buying the parts over the next few days to build my first machine. I have a few noobish questions I hope aren't too cringe worthy :p

Firstly, can I use an Intel mobo/cpu etc with an ATI gpu? I've only ever looked into GeForce cards so I'm not sure if I need specific motherboards to use an ATI card. I'm not planning any crossfire antics any time soon, just hoping to build something that actually works after years of chopping and changing parts on older computers I've had and upgrading as I went along.

Secondly, I was looking at around a 1000w psu, but I've been told it'd be huge overkill by some mates and I won't need more than 600-650 for the spec I'm looking at. I have no idea what to aim for power wise now!

Lastly, (sorry to go on!) has anyone got a suggestion or two regarding swapping parts I've chosen so far, either because there are better ones at a similar price out there, or simply because i've picked stuff that just won't work together :D haha. Here's the stuff I'm looking at now:

Abit IP35 Pro XE Intel P35
Intel Core 2 Quad Pro Q6600
GeIL 4GB (2x2GB) PC2-8500C5 1066MHz Black Dragon EVO ONE DDR2
Powercolor ATI Radeon HD 4870 512MB
Samsung SpinPoint F1 1TB SATA-II 32MB Cache
OCZ GameXStream 600w Silent SLI Ready ATX2 Power Supply
XClio 6030 PLUS Black Midi Tower Gaming Case
Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium SP1 64-Bit

Any other bits and bobs like dvd drives/card readers etc I'll be taking our of my old PC so hopefully no need to get any of those. I'll be getting a Samsung 22" monitor too, once I've got it all up and running. Cheers for any opinions or suggestions anyone's got!
 
Yes you can use an ATI gpu with an intel mobo/cpu.

1000w will be overkill for what you've specced.

I'll leave it to someone else to comment on the actual spec as I havn't bought anything in awhile and don't know what is best at the moment.
 
Agreed 1kW PSUw would be overkill.

I would seriously look at P45 chipset over the P35 you spec'd. The P5Q series are excellent boards.

If you are predominantly gaming you could consider a C2D wolfie.

Are you intending to overclock?
 
i got a E2180, 4gb geil black dragon ram and asus p5q-e and this works really nicely. if you are only gaming then go for a dual core - saves money and is as good as quad. wait for nahlem to upgrade again.
 
Cheers for the responses! I'm almost certainly not looking to overclock any part of it, I just want something nice and stable. I'm not even fully needing it for gaming either. If it'll run Crysis and Gears of War on medium to high-ish settings with no lag then that'll do me. I need it mainly for occasional gaming and some cpu/ram heavy music recording and production. I'll have a look at some P45 chipset boards now, cheers for the advice!
 
to be honest the current chips are very easy to overclock, and you save a lot of money. however for your music production you may benefit from quad core, even 8gb of ram perhaps.
 
you can easily overclock a chip on a p5Q asus board, and have it run completely stable, just do a modest overclock and you get more performance for free!
 
Cheers everyone!

I was thinking of sticking more ram in there too. I've decided on the 64bit Vista just in case I outgrow 4gig and need to throw some more in.

Pretty much decided on a Q6600 to help handle all the different parts of the music software/various instrument interfaces and the 7 or 8 programs I need to run at once.

Looking at the Asus P5Q Pro Intel P45 now. It's actually cheaper than the board I originally picked out, so if it's quite easy to do some mild overclocking on then all the better. Seems like I'm looking at about £835ish including the basic parts listed above and the monitor. Not too bad really, just hope I don't put it all together and have it just not work at all! Haha.
 
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