Noob Builder First System

[jeckulz]

Hello all.
Ive decided that I'm gonna take a stab at building my first PC.
Now I'm quite confident in the actual building of the thing (putting it together, modding and so on)
but I'm pretty sure I need a wee bit of advice with regards to what Im actually building with.
Ive gurrently got a system given to me (very kindly) by my fiances dad about 18 months ago, which comprises of an old ASUS Intel mobo (unsure of Serial), packing a celleron D that only accepts SDDR RAM. It also has a Tagan 480w PSU, a 120gb IDE HDD (for program files), a DVD writer, and a hand full of 80mm Enermax fans. I also have a 320gb SATA HDD thats currently in an External caddy.
I will be taking the DVD drive and the HDDs forward to the new build.
I WAS also going to take the Tagan 480w forward to the new build as its the newest part of the system, but some guys on OC Forums told me that Tagan were a load of crap and I should probably invest in a new one. What do you guys reckon to this???

So after much advice seeking, and generally only being told to spend more money (which wont be available- Budget is dead set at £350/£400 at a push if I do the dishes all year) I've taken suggestions, and put my own input in there and come up with the following system.
First however, the system is intended for heavy photoshop abuse (large images, up to 20 layer projects), some work in adobe premiere, some potential work in cubase, some oldskool CS.S, and other media PC general functions with the view to a VERY mild OC in the future.
I cant post links or images so PLEASE take the time to look at these for me;
-AMD athlon 2 X4 620
-ASUS M4A 785D-M PRO
-550w Antec Basiq Plus PSU (modular)
-4gb (2x2gb) Corsair TwinX DDR2 XMS2, PC2-8500 (5-6-6-18)
-Xigmatek Red Scorpion S1 283 CPU Cooler
-Antec 300
-Asaka 120mm AK-174 CB (2 of- The case comes with 2 antec fans installed)

£347.13 from Scan for all the above (I'll be collecting as Im only 20mins from their HQ)


Let me know what you think.
If you have an alternative basket to show me, TRY to keep it to £350.
And also, IS it really neccessary to renew my PSU as that £35 could get me a fan controller in there to boot!!!!!


Thanks in advance all,
From your Noo-est Noob

[mac124]

Hi and welcome to the forum.

That looks like a pretty good build tbh. I don't know what the exact chip is for the on board graphics but it wont be up to much in the way of gaming, though you admit you wont be doing a lot on that front.

A nice build for the money, upgradable should you want to.

The only change i would suggest to make it even more "upgradeable" would be a DDR3 motherboard / memory.

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Asus-...-SATA-RAID-VGA (+ £11)

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/4GB-%...S-9-9-9-24-XMP (+£9 over your proposed build)

So for £20 more you could go for a ddr3 motherboard and memory, it would give more options should you want to upgrade sometime in the future.

[jeckulz]

Hi and welcome to the forum.

That looks like a pretty good build tbh. I don't know what the exact chip is for the on board graphics but it wont be up to much in the way of gaming, though you admit you wont be doing a lot on that front.

A nice build for the money, upgradable should you want to.

The only change i would suggest to make it even more "upgradeable" would be a DDR3 motherboard / memory.

Asus-M4A785TD-V-EVO-AMD-785G-AM3-PCI-E DDR3-SATA-II-SATA-RAID-VGA (+ £11)

4GB-Corsair-XMS3-DDR3-PC3-CAS-9-9-9-24-XMP (+£9 over your proposed build)

So for £20 more you could go for a ddr3 motherboard and memory, it would give more options should you want to upgrade sometime in the future.

The onboard is an AMD 785D, which are apparently okay as far as onboard goes.
Forgot to mention though, Ive also got an ASUS AX-800 graphics card out of the old system, (has s-vid, DVI and VGA output) not sure how it compares to the onboard as its 5 years old now.

As far as RAM slot goes, is there any performance reason to choose DDR3 over DDR2 now?
Or is it just a future compatability reason? Only I notice the CAS times on the DDR3 you suggested are significantly higher than the DDR2, or is CAS not the best indicator of performance (Im told elsewhere this it is, and Im unsure TBH)

And if anyone has PSU advice as above, that'd be great.
Thanks again Mac, My first response to my first post... And its seemingly positive!
So far so good lol