Help! Rookie question - ABit AWD9D-Max and compatibility...

[andrew77]

Hey there... I'm not expert at all... but I want to build my own system - a powerful one, but not necessarily the most powerful one ever! I've heard from others that you really have to determine if various components are compatible with one another. Well, after reading the recommendation at Tom's hardware, I chose to go with the Abit AW9D-Max motherboard... along with the following:

(1) Intel Core Duo E6700
(2) NVidia BFG GeForce 7950 (Tiger Direct)
(3) Crucial 4 x 1G DDR2 SDRAM (PC2 8000)
(4) Dell 30" UltraSharp Monitor

Does this look like it will work okay??? Are there any issues related to my choices, and would anyone recommend different items???

Once these are nailed down, I'll pick out hard drive, sound card, cooling, power, etc.

Thanks so much in advance!!!!

Andrew

 

[BUFF]

Looks fine but you can save a few $$ here & there if you want.
1.If you are willing to try a little overclocking you could buy an E6600 instead of the E6700.
2. you may be just as well off with a 7900GT
http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTE4MywxLCxoZW50aHVzaWFzdA==
3. If you are using a 32-bit OS then you won't get the use of the full 4GB as a big chunk of the last Gb will get reserved.
PC2-8000 is way overkill unless you are doing some serious overclocking, even 6400 gives you a lot of overclocking room.


& buy a quality PSU.
It's the foundation of your system & everything relies on it.

 

[thefishdude]

well i have that board and that processor and works a treat. overclocks from 2.7ghz to 3.3ghz with out any voltage changes at all just type in 330fsb and voila.

 

[430752]

I have the aw9d max and run a e6600 no probs. You may want to consider the e6600 instead of e6700 since the gains of the e6700 may not be worth the price, but I leave that to you since both are fine processors and you can't go wrong there.

I also run crucial ballistix pc 6400 ram, 2x1gb. You didn't specify ballistix or tracer or other crucial ram, but it should be fine. However, as someone already mentioned, I've read that 2 ram sticks do not give as much gain, diminishing returns after 2 sticks. If it were me (and this is what I did) I'd stick with 2gb ram and go for the raptor harddrive as that you will give you some tangible gains in speed (read/write to harddrive)

dunno about your video card, I have the evga 7900 gto.

the monitor should be fine, but more dependent on the video card than mobo, etc. I run the HP 21" (normal aspect) lcd. very nice. 30" has to be a blast, but not all monitors are created equal.

good luck, and enjoy. and don't forget to spend on cooling. I'm a fan of arctic cooling products and find the freezer 7 pro works well and is a bit cheaper than the monster cpu coolers. also run the arctic cooling 12 exhaust fan and a different front fan (arctic cooling 12 fan only pushes air out, not sucks in).

curt j.