Folks, I need your good help to advise on the system specs below.I have always bought my PC's but now feel competent enough to build my own !! ( famous last words !! )After spending the last two weeks trawling through various sites on the internet I have come up with the following specsCoolermaster Wave Master TAC-T01 (No PSU) (CA-037-CM) Antec TrueBlue 480W PSU (CA-003-AN) Intel Pentium 4 "Prescott" 3.2GHz (800FSB) with HT Technology - Retail (CP-047-IN) Abit IC7-MAX3 "Canterwood" (Socket 478) Motherboard (MB-039-AB)Corsair 1GB DDR XMS3200LLPT TwinX (2x512MB) CAS2 (MY-018-CS)Western Digital Raptor 74GB Serial ATA 10000RPM - OEM (HD-015-WD) (

Hi Phil,It looks like overall you are setting up a good system. I can suggest a couple of things based on my experience of building these beasties over the last ten or fifteen years...First, I never use anything but Crucial RAM. Personal choice - most other RAM is fine, but Crucial is the best in my opinion. I have never had a RAM failure with their products and I usually keep a machine for 2 to 5 years and they are powered up most of the time.Second, I always use the same brand when I have two drives in a system. It seems that sometimes there are compatibility problems when combining two or more different brands in the same machine. Similarly, at work we have a number of SAN (Storage Area Network) boxes with 10 drives in each and they all have the same manufacturer's drives in them. Our new NAS (Network Attached Storage) boxes with 12 drives in each all have the same manufacturer. In any case, make sure the drives you select spin at the same speed. This is very important for compatibility issues.Third, you should take a look at the Logitek web site regarding their bundle of wireless mousies and keyboards. I recently got their bundle for an application at work and it is top notch. I think we paid around 50 or 60 $US for it. Fourth, I just recently got an Aopen CD/RW-DVD combo drive and it is very nice. It was cheaper than the Sony, I think and actually had better customer satisfaction ratings from Newegg where I buy most of my PC stuff.Regardless, what you have spec'd out is going to be a fine system. Make sure you take anti static precautions while you assemble your new toy!! Good luck:-wave

Thanks for the advice, I'll certainly look at the options for the hard drives and my opt for two of the deskstar drives rather than the raptors. Thanks for the heads up on the CD/RW-DVD I will have a look at the specs and consider the option to change...Did think about the logitec keyboard and mouse at the start, but couldn't find a combo set here in the Uk at a competive price when researching this system...but will have another trawl around the Uk suppliers before commiting to this..With regards to the Crucial memory, what specs do you recommend ??kind regards:)

"First, I never use anything but Crucial RAM."I can't agree with this. Crucial makes very good RAM, but others do as well. I've run Corsair, Kingston, and Crucial over the years.The Corsair XMS 3200LLPT you spec in your original post will work very well. It is top quality memory. Crucial would be cheaper, but in a gaming system a memory like the LLPT would be my first choice.Just my 2 cents worth,

Depending on your back-up requirements you might want to consider a DVD writer in place of the CD writer. A few months ago I replaced my CD-RW drive with a 4x DVD+R/+RW drive because I got tired of having to write several CDs to periodically archive data, and all the confusion as to what directory was stored on what disk and so forth. At the time I thought I should probably wait for faster drives to appear (I understand they're up to ~8x now), but when I learned I could write an entire DVD in about 20 minutes, which is a tea break, I saw no problem and went ahead and bought one. Of course you can still use the same drive to write CDs and make audio CDs. Actually a couple of weeks ago I made my first foray into DVD movies by putting a ton of photos with transitions and a music track onto a disk. It was a fun and interesting project, and it actually plays in my Sony DVD player, which is an older one that won't accept CD-R disks.

Greg,Many thanks for your input...This will definately be a case of quality over price, so I'm taking my time and trying to cover all bases..RegardsPhil Densley.Melksham.UK.http://www.precisionmanuals.com/images/forum/supporter.jpg

Paul,HAve been toying with the issue of a single duel reader/writer for both Cd/DVD or to go single units for both....I will have plenty of IDE connections as I plan to use the SATA connectors on the mother board for the hard drives and therefore could setup both drives on IDE 1 and 2...Still confused about if I can reuse my windows xp disk to install the OS on the new computer if I bin the old one ???the licence is for application to one pc and this will be what I will do..so do I need to reactivate or deactivate current install ??regardsPhil Densley.Melksham.UK.http://www.precisionmanuals.com/images/forum/supporter.jpg

Last month I reinstalled XP Home several times while fighting the seasonal CTD's. I did reactivate with each install, but encountered no problems at all. I had figured that as many times as I reinstalled during a three week period that I would have received an inquirey from MS... but not a word from them.

Greg,Thanks...I'll give it a go I'm not exactly happy about having to fork out another

>Paul,>HAve been toying with the issue of a single duel reader/writer>for both Cd/DVD or to go single units for both....>I will have plenty of IDE connections as I plan to use the>SATA connectors on the mother board for the hard drives and>therefore could setup both drives on IDE 1 and 2...>Still confused about if I can reuse my windows xp disk to>install the OS on the new computer if I bin the old one ???the>licence is for application to one pc and this will be what I>will do..so do I need to reactivate or deactivate current>install ??>regards>Phil Densley.>Melksham.>UK.Phil,On my new build I finally decided to install BOTH 52x24x52 CD-RW and Dual format DVD/CD RW. I did this after reading of all the various players that can and can't read "-" & "+" R & RW media. Now I'm set to burn ANY format that I might need :-)I may have just gone with the DVD Dual format drive, but the CD-RWs are really low priced in the States right now. I also put my CD/DVD drives on the IDEs and my first HD on SATA. Everything is working very well and fast. IMO, if you only have WinXP on ONE computer then MS should have no complaints. I really don't think they care WHICH one, as long as it's ONLY one.Anyway, watch those "+" and "-" listings before you buy your CD/DVD drives. From what I've seen these days, things are heading more for the "+" media but both are still used.Best,

Just a couple of suggestion.I would get a 500w power supply, if you are getting a 9800XT, it is hungry.I really like my Maxtor HD I think more than the WD's. I would get a BB ATi Radeon 9800XT. Look around here. www.rage3d.comGo to the Corsair site and post your sys specs and the RamGuy will tell you the best for your build. www.corsairmicro.com It's your rig build it the way you want, be happy. :DJay

Tom,Thanks for the heads up...which units did you finally decide to go with ?Would they be available in the UK ?Phil Densley.Melksham.UK.http://www.precisionmanuals.com/images/forum/supporter.jpg

Jay, Good point on the PSU, I'll look at moving to the 500w unit.What is " BB "??regardsPhil Densley.Melksham.UK.http://www.precisionmanuals.com/images/forum/supporter.jpg

Phil,I see you are based in the UK!How much is all this going to cost? - I am interested in this kind of spec myself and am wondering whether to try to build a PC or buy a Dell system ready made - i am sure the parts are going to be more expensive than in the US!Regards,Alex.

Alex,At the moment current pricing gives a total of