Hi, I have just finished building my first computer. I have decided to go ahead and build another one, but this time I was thinking about building a micro-atx computer. I want something small and compact(like for a dorm room) and that can be moved around easily. I am assuming that building a smaller micro-atx computer is the same as building a large one. I would really appreciate any help, this is what I was considering for a cheap, but semi-powerful, micro-atx:

DVD Burner - NEC 16X DVD±R DVD Burner Silver IDE Model ND-3550A - OEM $36.99

Case - ASPIRE X-QPACK-AL/420 Black/Silver Aluminum MicroATX Desktop with 420W Power Supply - Retail $84.99

Hard Drive - Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 SATA 120GB 7200 RPM Serial ATA150 - OEM $69.99

Motherboard - ASRock 939NF4G-SATA2 Socket 939 NVIDIA GeForce 6100 Micro ATX AMD Motherboard - Retail $66.95

Memory - CORSAIR ValueSelect 1GB (2 x 512MB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM DDR 400 (PC 3200) Unbuffered Dual Channel Kit System Memory Model VS1GBKIT400 - Retail $66.50

Processor - AMD Athlon 64 3200+ Venice 1GHz HT Socket 939 Processor Model ADA3200BPBOX - Retail $159.00

Looks like a solid system! I will be buiding something pretty similar soon actually, for my office. I was actually going to go with the Asus micro ATX board with the 6150 graphics, but the one you picked looks quite nice actually. I like that it has the PCI-e slot for future graphics updates should you need it.

I also really like those Qpack cases. Since I will be regularly taking my PC home from the office, I am seriously considering that one. The only thing about it that I am worried about is that PSU. Aspire has built themself a pretty bad reputation for PSUs. It may be worth it to invest some extra money and ditch that PSU for a good one (enermax, antec, fortron etc.).

Good luck!

As usual Don has hit the point exactly. what I've seen on the site is it's very difficult to find a good high power (and i mean above 200W omg!) micro ATX form PSU. I mean some guy was trying to upgrade his vid card and he for the life of him could not find a proper micro PSU and had to give up on his new card. So do that home work first before investing is all of the above. (Nice stuff btw). No sense having that with a 200W PSU and no way to put a reasonable vid card in it.

cheers.

Well, the good news about the QPack case is that even though it only takes microATX motherboards, any ATX power supply will fit in there. That is why I like that case. You can get a good psu and pop it in there (although from the reviews, it is tight.... but at least doable).

Oh, well that's a huge benefit over a standard microATX case, good stuff Don.