If you’re building, not buying premade, make sure you check the motherboard and see if it’s ATX 1.2 or ATX 2.0–some of the newer boards are 2.0 which has a 24 pin power supply vs. the 20 pin power supply of the earlier ATX 1.2’s.
I wouldn’t rely on a stock heatsink for a gaming rig. Games really put the system to work and it will churn out a lot of heat. Even if the stock heatsink is sufficient to keep the core from melting remember that excess heat amounts to wear and tear on the CPU so the more heat you can dissipate the better. I am doubtful a stock heatsink could manage a gaming rig anyway. If the PC was for someone like my parents who never do anything besides Microsoft Word, e-mail and a tiny but of surfing the stock heat sink would be more than sufficient.
In short consider what the machine will do and buy accordingly.
After looking around a bit, this is the list of compnents that I would get to build myself a new rig. Cost is about 1200.
Antec LifeStyle SONATA II Piano Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case w/ 450Watt SmartPower 2.0 ATX 12V V2.0
BIOSTAR TForce4SLI Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce4 SLI ATX AMD Motherboard
AMD Athlon 64 3500+ Venice 1GHz HT Socket 939 Processor
A-DATA Vitesta 2GB (2 x 1GB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM DDR 400 (PC 3200) Unbuffered System Memory
MSI NX7600GT-T2D256E Geforce 7600GT 256MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16
Western Digital Caviar SE WD2000JBRTL 200GB 7200 RPM IDE Ultra ATA100 Hard Drive
LITE-ON 16X DVD±R DVD Burner
MITSUMI Black 1.44MB 3.5" Internal Floppy Drive
Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound - OEM
Thermaltake CL-P0200 Silent 938 K8 - AMD K8 solution w/ Heatpipe Cooling Tech
Microsoft Windows XP Professional With SP2
Any suggestions?
Antec LifeStyle SONATA II
MSI K8N Diamond Plus Motherboard Socket 939 With SLI
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+
Corsair XMS2 1GB(2 x 512MB) RAM
GIGABYTE GV-NX78T256D Geforce 7800GT 256MB
WD1500AD Raptor X 150GB Hard Drive 10,000 RPM, SATA
NEC ND-3500A GNB 16x DVD±RW
Arctic Silver 5
Thermaltake CL-P0200 Silent 938 K8 - AMD K8 solution w/ Heatpipe Cooling Tech
Windows XP Home Edition w/SP2
The above configuration costs about $1700. That is a lot more than your $1200 I know. I just offer it as a comparison. The above items are all top rated (or very near the top) of their class.
I like this setup a bit better because reading more I think the dual-core CPU is a good investment. Realize that Socket 939 is now officially done. No new Socket 939 chips will be made. I think the CPU I listed will have the legs to take your machine for awhile till your next upgrade. If you go with the 3500+ you listed I wouldn’t be surprised if an upgrade 6-12 months sooner would be in order than with the dual core 4200+.
The motherboard I listed seems to be really nice. I haven’t been a big fan of MSI in the past but this time they seem to have done a really good job and that mobo is getting a lot of praise.
The Corsair memory is pricey and definitely meant for the enthusiast. It is sweet but consider it more of a luxury. Still I would recommend Corsair memory in general (they have less expensive chips than that one). Note that 1GB would do you just fine in most cases. 2GB is nice but if you need to save a few bucks the first thing I’d do is drop from 2 to 1GB. Doubtful you’d ever notice the difference and of course you can always upgrade down the road to 2GB.
The video card is a nudge up from what you specified. I think the extra money is worth it but the card you chose is fine too.
The Western Digital Raptor-X drive is definitely a luxury and priced accordingly but it is one sweet ass drive. Most people ignore the hard drive and its performance but it can make the overall computing experience so much nicer. I have 2 Raptor drives (older model) in Raid-0 and my boot times are lightining fast. Reading forums I see people complaining in some games how it takes 20 seconds for a new level to load and I wonder what they are talking about as it takes me 5 seconds. Can you live with a slower drive? You bet. As I said this is more luxury but a very, very nice one (I drool thinking of having two of those in Raid-0).
The only other difference is the DVD drive…the one I listed can burn dual layer which is nice if you care. I also chose XP Home Edition. Unless you know you are going to be a part of a business network (more than 5 PCs, login in to a domain) then Home Edition is fine and saves you some money.
I wrote that wrong. No new Socket 939 designs will be forthcoming. They will continue to manufacture Socket 939 chips for awhile yet but the next generation of chips will not use Socket 939. Socket AM2 is currently slated to hit the street in June.
A further note on the hard drive choices…
Here is a comparison of your drive choice versus the Raptor (average read performance): http://www23.tomshardware.com/storage.html?modelx=33&model1=280&model2=131&chart=34 (this page is a really nifty way to compare many different drives…worth a look)
That said again I will note that if you have never been treated to a fast drive like this then you will not notice the difference and be perfectly happy. Once you do use one you will be forever spoiled.
The stock heatsink that came with my 4000+ keeps the temps down just fine. It’s not like in the bad old days - nowadays they have heatpipes and everything. If you are overclocking, live somewhere really hot, or want to undervolt the fans and run the cooling at 50% capacity to keep the noise down, then you need a super-dooper heatsink like a Scythe Ninja or similar. Otherwise, AMD/Intel package the appropriate cooler to keep the thing within limits at load.
Rasa - good point. I had to nip out and get a new PSU for that very reason when I last upgraded