Building my first computer...

Right-O

So I'm building my first computer. First off, the specs:
Aspire X-Dreamer II(Black) ATX Mid-Tower Case with 350W Power Supply
ASUS "A7N8X-E Deluxe" nForce2 Ultra 400 Chipset Motherboard
AMD Athlon XP 2800+ "Barton", 333MHz FSB, 512K Cache Processor
Maxtor 200GB 7200RPM SATA Hard Drive
Rosewill 52x32x52x16 CD-RW & DVD Combo Drive
SONY Black 1.44MB 3.5inch Floppy Disk Drive
SAMSUNG 793DF-Ivory 17" DynaFlat CRT Monitor
Creative Labs Sound Blaster Audigy2 ZS PCI Sound Card
Corsair Value Select 184 Pin 512MB DDR PC-3200
SAPPHIRE RADEON 9700 PRO 128MB DDR TV/DVI 8X AGP

Point out anything that looks out of place or could be switched out for something that would get more bang for my buck. My budget limits me to not go too far over a $1000 and these come out to about $900 as is.

Also, any tips or pointers about building the thing are welcome.

 

Aspire X-Dreamer II(Black) ATX Mid-Tower Case with 350W Power Supply

Popular case these days. As far as I'd go with that is to put a couple of case fans at the back and a couple at the front, check that the side and top blowholes are blowing in the right direction, and also remove the crappy pressed grills in favour of a screw-on grill, as they are MUCH less restrictive in airflow.

Also, don't forget the CPU HS/F !!! Unless you're getting the Retail version on the CPU, that is, in which case you get one stock... buutt it doesnt look very cool and with that case you wanna show off!

Probably not best "bang for buck" but fairly cheap addons (prolly about $40 more) which will make it just that bit cooler than the hundreds of other cases identical to that that are floating about at the moment

Oh yes. I would also suggest getting 2 sticks of 256MB ram, rather than one of 512... because that motherboard supports dual channel. (you have 2 different coloured slots, you put one in each colour). This increaces memory bandwidth by up to 50%, so its definatley worth it.

 

At risk of getting slapped... heres a guide on how to get rid of them grills : http://forums.bit-tech.net/showthread.php?t=63810

 

Heh, actually, it's a good thing you posted that. Otherwise, I would have been sitting there wondering "How the hell am I suppose to remove that?"

And it relieves me to see you using newegg.com, I was wondering if it was as cool as all the reviewers were making it out to be.

 

Well, I was only using it because a) everyone else does and b) its cheap and in your area.

To me, newegg is useless because to ship over here costs way too much, thus why ive never used them. They have a good selection of hardware though.

And if you have a dremel, or even a drill it would probably be easier (and neater) than using wirecutters, but MAKE SURE that you don't do it while the mobo is in there, and vacuum it out afterwards, cause metal filings are bad!

 

I would suggest trying to squeeze in the upgrade from the 9700 to a 9800, preferably pro if you can.

 

My only suggestion would be to take some of that extra money and use it to purchase a genuine APC brand UPS to back up the power supply.

Electicity is the life blood of a computer. Make sure that the electric running into the PSU is good to go!

 

I'd do what Robster said... and scrap the floppy drive. How often do you use a floppy for anything? You can make a cd bootable just as easily as you can a floppy disk. Sony is ridiculously overpriced as it is.

I'd also scrap getting the Audigy. Believe it or not, the onboard sound for the nforce line rocks. It may not be 24-bit sound, but for playing games and mp3's as well as movie playback, it rocks my 5.1 setup.

That combined, should save you a couple of extra bucks, and get you a Built By ATi Radeon. If you're getting an Ati GPU, that's the way to go as they don't cut you back on your graphics pipelines or set you back on memory bandwidth

 

Get a DVD burner instead of a DVD ROM/CD burner. You can even get the newly introduced dual-layer DVD burners for $100 or less if you shop around. You will have more options as far as storage and back-up that way.

 

all great suggestions. here's mine. unless you plan on upgrading your processor later to a 400fsb processor (athlon XP 3000+ or 3200+), your memory will clock down to PC2700. so you may get 2x256 PC2700 and that may be able to save you a few bucks.

btw, i run that exact board w/o a sound card also. sounds great.

 

All very good suggestions. Looks to be a nice system ya got going there.

"movin' to the country, gonna eat me alot of peaches." ahhhh the Presidents.