My bf has decided to build a gaming comp for me..this will take time (not to mention $$) as he is teaching himself "how to". I have every confidence in him. So far this is what he has:

Hard Drive: (HDD) Western Digital WD740ADFD - 16 mb buffer...74GB/10,000rpm (SATA w/data & power cables)
(setup on Raid 0 or Raid 1..he is not sure which RAID to use)

Case: Mid tower...Colormaster...RC-730-KSN1

Power Supply: Thermal Take 680 watts....woo 49 duel fan

WHat he is looking at OR researching: cpu..AmD Athlon 64/4600 x2
MOBO: ASUS A8N-SLI delux socket 939
memory: mobo capacity = 4gb=crucial 2GB kit. (DDR PC3200 cl=3/ddr 400 2.6v)
vid card: Ati crossfire 512mb ddr3 pci-x x-1800 OR ATI x 1900gt pci ex 256mb ddr3

Hope i typed this right coz i have no idea what half of this means..but the funny thing is if i call him in to read what u guys wrote back he becomes interested...so please give ur comments as to what is good or not and why. ty..im sure ill be back looks pretty sweet 8-). only thing is, you cannot have a RAID connection with just one SATA drive. it requires two. also, you might want to consider getting a larger harddrive. id suggest a minimum of 120gb.Whoa that's gonna cost too. If you want to save some money, only get 2gb ram (that's more than enough for today's needs). You can always plug in more later. (If you are getting 4, can't tell from what you've written)Thats actually suprisingly close to my COMPUTER right now. I think youve got a pretty good selection up there. Couple things:

1) I wouldnt raid the hard drives. First off, as someone pointed out, that requires two. Second, what you are describing is a Western Digital raptor, those 10k rpm sata drives, and they are pretty quick on their own. RAID in essence creates one drive out of two physical drives, giving you a lot of space but increasing the possibility of problems. Because of the way it works, if one of the two drives were to die, then the information on both drives would be unaccessable. [Assuming you went with RAID 0. RAID 1 is just data backup, it mirrors one drive to the other.]

2) Dont bother maxing out your ram right now. Ive got 2x1gb sticks, and the RAM is definitely not the bottleneck. You can always get more later, and AMD is moving to a whole new socket system very soon [AM2] which has the capability to increase RAM speeds considerably in the future. If you buy 4 gigs now, and then decide to upgrade your system in a couple of years to take ADVANTAGE of some new stuff coming down the pipe, its definitely possible that the ram will be too slow.

3) If neither of you have ever built a system before, ask lots of questions! lots of info out there, and its easy to screw something up if you dont exactly know what you are doing. Trust me, I blew a computer out once just with static electricity Clear an area to work, leave things in boxes until you are ready to put them into the case, make sure everything is compatible before you take it out of the packaging, etc.

My computer, for comparisons sake:

Abit AN8-SLi Fatal1ty
X2 4400+
2x1gb Corsair XMS PC3200
BFG Tech 7800 GTXOC
2x72gb Raptors
1x120gb Seagate barracudaAM2 CPU's are out now, if you go for amd make sure you get an AM2 Chip,

I heard the New intel Chips are infact better than the AMD one's so you might want to look at what intel has to offerAlright, building a computer is a very tough thing, if u care abt saving a few hundred dollars, or if u really want to know the specs and compare them to the rest of the market in order to feel proud of urself for putting all that time in and getting the best value.

1. HDD: You got the S.ATA part right, but i dont get why u would want to spend so much money in order to get a 10,000 RPM HDD. For the same price u can get at least a 250GB when all u get now is a 74GB HDD. It dosent matter as much, performance wise and its a waste of money.
What i would suggest u do, is buy a 250GB HDD from WD, wich make cheaper but more reliable HDDs. You can even find one with a 16M buffer. and all for a little over a hundered dollars.

2. RAM: In order to play today's games, 2GB will do u ok, and u will never need 8GB so getting 2GB in 2 1GB sticks is a good idea (other then getting 2GB sticks). Then u can upgrade to 3, or 4 when u feel like u have to.

3. I see ur looking into an SLi build, wich i think it usually a waste of money unless u spend over 1000$. Also the difference beetween the X1900GT and the X1900XT is huge, and u should always buy the X1900XT. You shouldnt of course buy an X1800 series card, because they are FAR worse then the X1900 series and arent worth it. Of course ATi cards dont overclock so WELL, and that is usually why a newer series is better (smaller nm process allows for higher clocks), but the X1900 series, and its 48 Fragment Pipelines is a must for anyone BUYING ATi.
You can find 2 X1900XTs for 600$ if ur lucky, or with mail-in rebate.
But u can also get an Nvidia card. At this point in time, i think that getting a 7900 GT/GTX in Sli is the best thing u can do.Building a pc is easy, Longs you get all the right bits.

If you have another pc (which as your posting i presume you have) if he ever gets stuck he can look at how it goes together, Its basically like one small jigsaw.

Looks a pretty good set-up.it can also be an expensive jigsaw if you put some components in wrong. I actually have that mobo. I love it. Im actually about ready to rewipe and start fresh. I own all Asus boards because of the reliability. I havent had any problems with the system at all. One thing i recently learned while surfing. I will never use StumbleUpon on Firefox again. Its a haven for spyware. its a pretty cool extension but from now on if i use it it will be on my imac. Thats the reason im rewiping.

I agree with the others in here. You can get a 300 gig drive for under a hundred and if you were going to the RAID route i would use (2) 250 gig drives. I saw them(maxtor, now seagate) for 59 dollars after rebates. So for 120 bucks you get a nice 500 gig system, not bad.

One thing i should mention, especially for a first timer. The one thing that always tripped me up was the power connections on the mobo.Power, reset, etc. Make sure you get the connections properly installed or your system wont start. These will most likely be on the very edge of the board. If you need an exact match, you are lucky i have the exact board as you, i can send you a pic of what it should look like. Lemme know

Good Luck

RichQuote

AM2 CPU's are out now, if you go for amd make sure you get an AM2 Chip,

I heard the New intel Chips are infact better than the AMD one's so you might want to look at what intel has to offer