Hey everyone,

I am getting ready to build my first computer and I think I am ready to order. I just want to make sure that everything I have picked out will work together and is also good quality.

http://secure.newegg.com/WishList/ [...] er=8705852

I have a few main questions. First, is that motherboard good? Newegg reviews are promising but I am just worried because of the low price. It has a lot more features than the other boards I found in that range.

Second, do I need to buy any fans for cooling? I don't plan on overclocking.

Finally, are there any good promotions for buying things through newegg? I have found a 3% cashback option through livesearch. I just wanted to know if there are any other discounts offered through newegg.

Thanks

I only have 2 suggestions. First off, nice choices. Great bang for buck.

1.) Especially if you have never built before, this is something that there is no way for you to know. I usually try to go for a little bit nicer case, simply because it makes the install so much easier (usually). Other perks of a nice case of course are the cooling, and they usually don't have sharp edges on the inside to cut you or your wires.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6811119068
That one isn't much higher than the other one you have picked out, and I've built in that one before, it's really nice.

2.) I'm in the market for a TV Tuner also (haven't picked one yet), so in my research I've found a couple of things out. First off, MAKE SURE that the card you pick is ready for digital transition in February. Second, make sure that the card will work with the OS you pick (A lot of them don't work well with XP home/pro).
As I said earlier, I haven't decided what I'm going to do yet, but there seem to be 3 cards that everyone talks about a lot, but I'm still researching too, so I don't have a lot of advice about which one is best, but here they are:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6815116015
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6815100014
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6815306006

To me, everything else seems ok. Mobo looks good. I have that exact ram and it's great. And you can't really beat a E8400, especially if you decide you want to OC in the future.

Which ever case you get, make sure it has fans with it. To start out with that should be fine, just keep an eye on your temps. If they get too high, either replace the stock fans with better ones or simply add more.

Hope this helps
Good luck with the build!

First off drop that motherboard and get one of these:

P45-DS3L $100
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6813128345

or
ASUS P5Q $130
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6813131295

Imo, I wouldn't trust a Foxconn board.

Everything else looks good. Also why do you have 2 cases listed?

Thanks for the help.

The reason I have 2 cases listed is that I added the Raidmax after I twice had responses suggesting a better case. I am not going to get the cheap one. I will look into the tv tuner thing. That is good information to know. I wouldn't want a useless card. The reason I have picked this mobo over the two you suggested is that it has 2 ports for graphics cards so that if I decided in the future that I wanted to have more graphics power I could crossfire the current one with another card.

Couple of suggestions for you:

- Swap out the OCZ PSU for a Corsair one, 600ish watts should be ample. Corsair have good build quality and reliability and are sometimes a little better spec'ed than their OCZ counterparts. There are some good deals going on a 750TX which is overkill but will last well into the future.

- You could buy a Gigabyte DS3L P35 motherboard ($84). Although slightly older technology you won't notice the difference if you aren't going to game heavily or Xfire graphics cards. It does save $45 though. I run a similar one and it works very nicely.

- You could use this saving towards a slightly nicer screen either a Sumsung 2253BW (better at 22" ) or see if you could find a 24" one, as long as you aren't gaming.

- If you aren't going to overclock your CPU you won't need the thermal paste as there is some already applied to the retail cooler.

- If you are going to be gaming on this machine you wouldn't regret the upgrade to an ATi 4870 GPU.

Hope that is useful.
Jeremy

Better PSU, IMO. PC Power & Cooling S61EPS 610W

Thanks for all the help everyone. I took a lot of your advice and put in my order. I am very happy with the cost and the hardware I got. Hopefully everything works out well.

^Final specs?

Also note that the P45 WILL be limiting at high res on CrossFire hence why I recommended the DS3L for a single card solution and your upgrade path pretty much dies when Nehalem becomes main stream.
http://www.tweaktown.com/articles/ [...] index.html