Rebuilding my broken desktop (one of them anyways)

[pyromaster114]

I've found myself in need of a computer that I can hook up to my TV and use for Hulu and other digital media streaming services, as well as my music collection, etc.

I have a desktop that's a few years old, bought around 2004. It (somehow) failed strangely, and won't load an OS anymore. (fails to boot from CD, tried a different drive, tried a floppy boot disk, all the same, system fails.)

Anyways, I've decided to use the case, HDD, DVD-ROM drive, and mouse/keyboard from this, and replace the Motherboard, the CPU, the RAM, and thus the Power supply (old one is only 20-pin, new motherboard I'm planning on getting is 20+4pin).

So I have:

1 case that will fit a microATX motherboard (or possibly larger motherboard).
1 Floppy drive. (Not necessary to hook up... no use for it really.)
1 DVD-RW drive. (IDE)
1 80GB IDE HDD.
1 19" LCD monitor.
1 USB keyboard.
1 USB mouse.

I need:

Motherboard
CPU
RAM
Power supply

So I have decided on some hardware from Newegg, and was wondering if anyone has any suggestions, advice, warnings, etc.

Motherboard:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131288

CPU:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116091
OR
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116072
(The one with the slower FSB should work fine no? Just I won't get the 1066 MHz FSB speed, only the 800MHz... which is really all I need, and since I'm trying to stay at a max of 200$, if I can cut out like 20$ by going with an 800MHz FSB instead of 1066MHz, great why not.)

RAM:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820161030

Power supply:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817339025

 

[red1776]

Hi Pyro,
i would replace that PSU with this http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139008

and just a consideration as an alternative http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128357

other than that, for what you are doing with it...nice choices

 

[raybay]

We like your choices... stable, reliable, rugged... but not choices for a gamer.

What we don't like is your choice of power supply. The "hec X-Power Pro 600 600W Continuous..." simply is not of the quality of the rest of your choices. If it is a money issue, drop down to a 500 Watt which will work great with that system... Corsair, OCZ, FSP Group, Sparkle, and several others offer more reliability and more constant output that would be better protection for the system than the HEC...
I suspect you have have been too influenced by price, and by the claim of 600 Watts.
500 high quality Watts, or even 400 to 4509 hiqh quality watts is better for your system, long term, than that HEC.

 

[pyromaster114]

You mean this one?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139008

I also see that this one is available... didn't see it before...
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817153023

Although since the Corsair one is just a few $$ more, I should probably go with it because it seems to have a better rating by users...

 

[pyromaster114]

We like your choices... stable, reliable, rugged... but not choices for a gamer.

Well, luckily I'm not a very big gamer, and if I really wanted to game later, I could add a dedicated video card, as the motherboard has a PCI-Express x16 slot, no?

 

[red1776]

gee i thought i just said that

 

[pyromaster114]

red1776, is there any particular reason you'd recommend the gigabyte board over the asus?

 

[red1776]

just an alternative, the build quality is excellent, even in their lower budget boards. both are excellent.

 

[pyromaster114]

Crud now I can't decide...
I guess I'll go with the Gigabyte board because it's got more reviews, and a higher percentage of them are 5/5 than the Asus.

Also, raybay recommended checking into OCZ power supplies, so I looked around and Newegg has a re-certified unit available:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817341029

Anyone have any good or bad things to say about buying re-certified OCZ PSU's?

 

[pyromaster114]

As it stands, here is the new list of components:

CPU:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116072

Motherboard:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128357

RAM:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820161030

Power supply:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817341029

The total (with shipping) comes to $202.64. Not bad for something that's going to far exceed what I need it to do. (Again, this is just going to be my media center PC... not a gaming rig... although it might eventually be outfitted to play some games...)

 

[red1776]

not bad at all pyro, very nice :grinthumb

 

[captaincranky]

That motherboard is in a current Newegg Email promo @$52.99 w/ free shipping. Better hurry though, that deal expires 10/12.

 

[pyromaster114]

Before I click the buy button, I found this little thing and wanted to know what you all thought of it.
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicat...?EdpNo=5234547&csid=ITD&body=MAIN#detailspecs

It's a bit cheaper, and the power supply is only 300 watts, but I wanted to know what everyone here thought of it... if it would actually be any good and if it would hold up. (Not break 30 days after i get it...) I'm not familiar with the motherboard brand.

EDIT:
Well I went with ordering the parts from newegg, as I expect to get what I pay for.... at least usually. Since I've had a bad experience with tigerdirect.com before and I've also never heard of the motherboard manufacturer... and the CPU was slower.
So I decided to go with those parts. I'll be sure to post the finished product when the parts get here and let you know how it worked out.

 

[Rage_3K_Moiz]

It comes with a trash PSU, and Biostar is nowhere near in the same league as Gigabyte and ASUS.

The Newegg build is better.

 

[pyromaster114]

So here's the final build as it's currently assembled:


CPU:
Intel Pentium E5200 Wolfdale 2.5GHz 2MB L2 Cache LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Processor (800 MHz FSB)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116072

Motherboard:
GIGABYTE GA-G31M-ES2L LGA 775 Intel G31 Micro ATX Intel Motherboard
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128357
(I've been very pleased with this so far, the integrated graphics chipset ran most stuff I wanted to play, although now I'm using a dedicated PCI-E x16 card.)

RAM:
WINTEC AMPX 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820161030
(It's RAM... meh... it's good RAM in that it hasn't done anything bad, and seems to be plenty fast enough for my needs.)

Power supply:
Recertified: OCZ StealthXStream OCZ500SXS-B 500W ATX12V / EPS12V Active PFC Power Supply
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817341029
(Quiet as anything I've ever seen, seems to stay pretty cool, no sign it's a bad PSU by any means.)

Graphics Card:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814133288
(Snagged this from a friend who upgraded his card... it's running Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning at max settings, save the memory buffer is set to about 1/4. (I don't actually know what that does... I think I could get it higher... haven't tried... don't know if it would even help anything... anyone mind telling me what that does? I assume it's a buffer, limit as in how much you want it to pre-load into your graphics card's memory... but I could be wrong.)