New member need help building 1st gaming PC.THANKS!

[halbrooks32]

Hey, im a new member excited about joining legit reviews .I am about to order hardware to build my 1st system (gaming) . im 18 years old from Alabama i would truly be thankful for any advice about my setup. this is what i have so far

Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 ST3160815AS 160GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM

XFX MIA78S8209 AM2+/AM2 NVIDIA GeForce 8200 HDMI Micro ATX AMD Motherboard - Retail

XFX PVT95GYDQ3 GeForce 9500 GT 512MB 128-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card - Retail

CORSAIR DOMINATOR 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1066 (PC2 8500) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model TWIN2X4096-8500C5D - Retail

AMD Phenom 9850 BLACK EDITION 2.5GHz Socket AM2+ 125W Quad-Core Processor Model HD985ZXAGHBOX - Retail

i already have a PS 500watt. Case ,and optic 52x cd/dvd rw drive that i am using in this build, i hope all of this will work together i really don't know my budget is $450 for the hardware i posted up there and/or suggested.Again thank you for time and look foward to meeting you guys.Thanks Halston

[Apoptosis]

Welcome to the forums!

What part of the budget is set aside for the video card? If you game much I'd beef that up a bit as a 9600 GT would be a better choice and can be found under $40 after rebate when they are on sale. That will give you some more gaming muscle. If you game what monitor resolution do you use? Also not sure the price on that memory kit, but Crucial has some 4GB DDR2 800MHz kits going for $10 after rebate, which is hard to beat when building a system on a strict and tight budget. I use that kit in my HTPC and you can't beat it.

Cheers and Happy Holidays!

[halbrooks32]

Ya that 9600 sounds good i can do that upgrade, and about the memory ah i was just trying to find some decent memory for a good price and the mobo supports 1066mhz memory will the 800mhz work and if so run better than thev 1066mhz ?

[halbrooks32]

forgot on the monitar im usually on its a CRT usually arouns 1024x768 usually but sometime im on a monitar with 1440x900 , 90% of time im on the 1024x768 .

[halbrooks32]

EVGA GeForce 9600 GT 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card that a good card ? also the GDDR3 memory on GPU will it matter that the memory on mobo is DDR2 ? like wont clash or anything bog down speed ?

[Apoptosis]

EVGA GeForce 9600 GT 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card that a good card ? also the GDDR3 memory on GPU will it matter that the memory on mobo is DDR2 ? like wont clash or anything bog down speed ?

The video card memory is GDDR3 (the G being for graphics card memory), which is different than regular desktop or laptop system memory. You can run a system with DDR1 memory with GDDR5 memory on the video card with no problems at all. Generally the higher the number memory the more operations it can do per cycle, so in you price range you'd want to go GDDR3 as that would be better than GDDR2 hands down. It also uses less power and often puts out less heat. So don't worry about clashing or anything like that.

The best deal I can find this second for a video card is this... Amazon has the PNY Verto GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB Overclocked PCI-Express Video Card for $112.99 - $70 Rebate = $42 with free shipping and no taxes if your in the right state. That card also has a larger 768MB frame buffer, which is nice for many of the new game titles and if you ever play at a higher resolution.

That will be pretty hard to beat, but yesterday it was $30 ($100 - $70 rebate)... They raised the price because they were selling so well.

You said you'd want to go with name brand Corsair memory, so here is a sweet rebate deal on some Corsair memory. 2GB (2x1GB) Corsair DHX DDR2-800 PC2-6400 4-4-4-12 Desktop Memory $9.99 After $45 Rebate.

You'll have $115 tied up in rebates for 2-3 months, but when it's all said and done you'll have memory and a video card for $52... not bad and for 1024x768 it should do just fine. Hope this helps.

[halbrooks32]

Yes thanks a lot ill be posting a alot more with any PC help i need thanks