Noob Questions

[zenblue92]

Alright im just starting to get into computers and and now beginning to build my own. Ive gotten a seagate 160gb H.D., BFG Nvidia 6600 gt oc pci-e,and case. Im looking into motherboards now and i have a few questions. The case i bought has a power supply already and it has a 20-pin ATX P/S connectors at least i think thats what it is. Now will this work with motherboards that have the 24 pin ATX p/s connectors? and if so which motherboard would you suggest?

[-=CrAnSwIcK=-]

uh, are you gonna be overclocking?? cause most PSU's that come with a case aren't great overclocking power supplies...

and for motherboard get something that is socket 939 nf4 chipset...

by the way, everyone...what is a good overclocking PSU??

[gokusimpson]

You gotta get something that's over 450 watts. I would suggest the Antec Neopower 480 or an Enermax 485. Dump that power supply.

You will either need the nforce4 chipset or 915/925 chipset to run that 6600gt. What is your budget? AMD or Intel? Overclock or no?

[Ginsu543]

zenblue, welcome to PCStats!!! :D

Goku's right, get a good name-brand PSU, because it will really save a lot of headache later (nothing sucks as an untrustworthy PSU that can not only die on you but take other components with it). I've used both Antec and Enermax PSUs and they are really great. I suggest you go for an AMD A64 Winchester 3200+ or 3500+ based system with a good nForce4 chipset motherboard. Most people here like the DFI LanParty nForce4 Ultra-D. That way you jump on the PCI-e bandwagon right off the bat. If you have the budget, I would also get a Western Digital 74GB 10,000 rpm Raptor SATA hard drive. It's the fastest hard drive you can buy. Putting the OS and games on the Raptor and using your 160GB Seagate for data storage would maximize your storage solution. You also need to invest in a set of good overclockable ram. Look for ram that uses TCCD modules. They can do 2-2-2-5 timings at 400 MHz. They also overclock really well.

[zenblue92]

You will either need the nforce4 chipset or 915/925 chipset to run that 6600gt. What is your budget? AMD or Intel? Overclock or no?


Well the ps that the case came with is a 480 watt. And im prob. going with AMD 64. Im at a budget of 500 but i only need RAM, Motherboard, CD/DVD rom, and of course the processor.

[zenblue92]

and as for the overclocking, im not really sure how to do that. Im still reading up on it so right off the bat i probably wont be overclocking. And will the 20 pin power supply work on 24 pin motherboards?

[Avid6eek]

People tend to go very overboard when it comes to power supplies. In all honesty, a quality 300w PSU would be more than good enough to run your rig. Just to have a little extra room for future upgrades, I would go with this one:

http://www.newegg.com/app/viewProductdesc.asp?description=17-103-445&depa=0

It's a great PSU, very quiet, and looks pretty nice as well :)

[Rudegar]

yeah a quality 300W is better then a noname 550W imho

[gokusimpson]

Well the ps that the case came with is a 480 watt. And im prob. going with AMD 64. Im at a budget of 500 but i only need RAM, Motherboard, CD/DVD rom, and of course the processor.

That budget is a little low for a move to nforce4 so budget might be a little tight. An SLi mobo will cost you about 150. The processor will be 200-250. dvd drive will be 50 (if you get the NEC 3520). That only leaves 50 bucks for ram. :(

[g-lo735]

He can get a AMD 3200 for under 200, 1gb ram(corsair value selects 512mb x2 cl2.5) for under 100, 50-70 on a dvd drive, and he could get a good mobo for less than 150.

he could get a DFI lanparty nf4 ultra-d (http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=13-136-152&depa=0) for $133 at newegg

is the harddrive sata or ide?

[therealwesty]

zenblue92, what do you plan to use the system for? What sort of onboard features are looking for? Any interest in SLi or overclocking? What's the budget? There are a lot of boards out there, if we have an idea about what you want then we can make some specific suggestions.

A lot of members here have been using the nForce4 chipset and have been pretty happy. Any reviews I have read show the Via K8T890 puts up similar performance overall with a few different features. nForce4 has better SATA support while K8T890 has better onboard sound, if you are planning to use a 3rd party soundcard than nForce4 becomes an obvious choice.