Total newb needs ideas

[dogg23]

I want to try to build my first computer, nothing special just mostly for casual gaming. I am better off buying a built computer, or trying my hand at building??? Any ideas on the compenents I should look at would be great. thanks in advance.

The more I read the more confused I become

 

[Crashman]

I'd go with the following parts:

Abit NF7-S motherboard
AMD XP2500+ CPU
some inexpensive PC3500
Western Digital 1200JB hard drive
Radeon 9600XT video card.

That should give you lots of performance now, and pleanty of room later should you wish to try your hand at overclocking (for free added performance).

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<font color=red>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to an ego as large as Crashman's!</font color=red>

 

[endyen]

Why the pc3500? Where I am, it's much more expensive, and few people oc the 2500+ past 210 fsb. All he needs is pc3200/ddr400

 

[Crashman]

Where I shop, budget PC3500 is cheaper than top quality PC3200 and more likely to run stable in dual channel mode at PC3200 speed.

<font color=blue>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to a hero as big as Crashman!</font color=blue>
<font color=red>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to an ego as large as Crashman's!</font color=red>

 

[endyen]

Fine for us, but he's going to have to set his own latencies and check to see how they perform. Abit of a chore for a beginner.

 

[Crashman]

That's the reason I recommended PC3500, the latencies are already set slow enough that it runs stable at PC3200 speed. If he were to buy "high performance" PC3200 and use it in dual channel mode...when he made an attempt to overclock to 200MHz bus, he might find it doesn't run stable at the default settings.

The way I see it you have a couple choices when it comes to getting memory that uses failsafe latency values, you can buy Crucial, or you can buy PC3500.

<font color=blue>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to a hero as big as Crashman!</font color=blue>
<font color=red>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to an ego as large as Crashman's!</font color=red>