Advice Ps on my 1st Self Build!

[wannabgeek]

Hi Guys

Any advice on this matter would be wellcome!

I am thinking of updating my PC (sig below) to hopefully a faster system. I want it for Gaming/Editng Internet etc it will also be a stand alone PC ie no local Network! My Budget is aprox £500 as i would like to keep some of the components from my old pc....So should i buy a new pci-Ex Mobo or would i be better off with the same 8x board which will be better for me as I could keep my 6mth old 6800LE (OC'd 16x6). I also have a 6 mth old 200gb HD (Maxtor 6B200PO ATA) that i could maybe include and a Audigy 2 5-1 sound card. You can see the rest of my pc in the sig below!
Ps I would like to sell the old pc once the new one's built!

Many thanks in advance!

[NikolaX]

so if you want to keep same mobo , no AMD then ?

[wannabgeek]

so if you want to keep same mobo , no AMD then ?

No i dont want to keep the old one i just meant non pci Ex!

[ed^chigliak]

You could try the ASrock ULi 1695 mainboard which has full speed AGP and PCIe on the same board is socket 939 for AMD 64. It's a cheap option too with pretty good features. Here is a review

http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=2524

[NikolaX]

You could try the ASrock ULi 1695 mainboard which has full speed AGP and PCIe on the same board is socket 939 for AMD 64. It's a cheap option too with pretty good features. Here is a review

http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=2524

Yes this is good buy, so you can keep the old gfx, and can upgrade later on PCIe.
http://www.ctidirect.co.uk/infopage1.php?pid=3624 (50£)

And take Athlon 64 3000+ or up.
for memory take the Geil value 1G memory and you are ready to fly.

[wannabgeek]

Cheers for your help!
Will it accept my 2 ATA HD's? And i also need a board with Firewire/1394 for my Editing which that does not have! Any ideas? Also is there any down sides to this board as it seems to cheap?

[ed^chigliak]

Yes it has 2 IDE connectors so up to 4 ATA drives. Both hard drives + CD & DVD. Make the move to SATA HDDs at some point in the future.

If you disable the onboard sound and go with an Audigy 2 ZS then there is firewire port on the sound card. It's good for gaming and lower CPU usage and not expensive iirc.

Yes it's cheap. Too cheap only time will tell. ASrock wouldn't be my first choice but neither would it be my last choice (that honour goes to PCchips) and right now it's the only ULi 1695 board available in Europe. Others will follow like Abit, Asus, DFI, MSI, Gigabyte, Soltek, Epox. You could wait or take a chance on ASrock. I'd be prepared to give it a go myself. Some people are having some problems (no show stoppers mostly minor) and others are not. No change there then. Pretty much all my purchases hardware and games have probs until new patches or bios releases. I'd check out their website and if you can navigate the site and figure out were to get bios updates that would be a good sign. If the website sucks I'd wait for another manufacturer to offer a similar product.

ULi is very popular in asia where it is a much more mainstream chipset. It's not well known in Europe but it does give Nvidia some much need competition.

I'm going to go ULi but I'll not be upgrading until release of Morrowind Oblivion when I get a feel for the spec I need to run that game.

[wannabgeek]

Sorry to go on but...Is it possible to have a sata and ATA HD running side by side and if so would i put the OS on the sata?
Re the ZS; I already own a Audigy 2 +firewire (5-1) but not too sure which vers,i think its an oem as it came with PC! Also can i buy this board with a cpu installed as i dont really want to install it just in case i mess it up!

[ed^chigliak]

Installing the CPU is easy I wouldn't worry. Lift lever on the socket. Place chip in socket. Push lever down. It only goes one one way round. Look at pins and look at socket and you see which way it fits. You don't force it or push it at all it's a zero insertion force socket and when you lower the lever it clamps the CPU pins. The stock heatsink is easy to fit also. It's difficult to damage the new CPU fitting a heatsink now that modern CPUs have heat spreaders which protects the chip.

Yes you can mix SATA and IDE HDDs. Two seperate controllers both work at the same time otherwise you wouldn't be able to have CD/DVD with a SATA HDD and that would be silly. On my mainboard there is a setting in my bios so I can choose to boot from SATA or IDE. Otherwise just select your boot order preference in the bios as normal. Exit and save obviously.

Play it safe.

Don't buy rubish RAM. Get crucial RAM using the memory selector for your 1st build. It's guaranteed to work with your mainboard.

Spend £40-60 on a good PSU about 400W... Seasonic S12, Enermax Noisetaker, Antec Truepower. You want good clean power rails and amps to spare for stability and peace of mind.

[wannabgeek]

Sorry for late reply and thanks for your advice! Any good places to buy all this and roughly how much should i pay for ULi 1695 Mobo and your recommended CPU? Sorry for all the Qs!