I want to buy and build a new computer but have never done it on my own before. Before I buy all the Hardware from Newegg, I thought I would list them on here so anyone can warn me if I am making a mistake. Any advice is appreciated.

Case: Antec Nine Hundred Black Steel ATX Mid Tower
Power: Antec EA650 650W ATX12V Ver.2.2 / EPS12V version 2.91
MotherBoard: ASUS M4A79 Deluxe AM2+/AM2 AMD 790FX ATX AMD
CPU: AMD Phenom II X4 940 Deneb 3.0GHz 4 x 512KB L2 Cache 6MB L3 Cache Socket AM2+ 125W Quad-Core Black Edition Processor
Memory: 4 x G.SKILL 2GB 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800
Video: SAPPHIRE 100245L Radeon HD 4850 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI
Hard Drive: just moving old HD to new comp

Also, since 32bit windows only recognizes up to 3gig ram I NEED to upgrade. I have XP HOME right now. Should I upgrade to 64bit XP or go to 64bit Vista? Thanks for any help.Nice! I would go for the 64bit vista because it has dx 10.  Also the old hard drive could be a huge bottleneck because it could be ide.  Any hard drive is a bottleneck no matter what though.  I would go for a sata driveActually it is IDE! I thought it was a SATA but after your post I double checked.

Western Digital Caviar SE WD3200JB 320GB 7200 RPM 8MB Cache IDE Ultra ATA100

Guess I need to add a hard drive to my list. What would be the best way to transfer the data from old to new HD?Use the old hard drive as a slave.  Install your os on the new hard drive FIRST.  You can use the old one as extra storage tooIDE has a maximum throughput of 133Mbps.

most hard drives never exceed this; so how it would be a bottleneck confuses me.its a bottleneck to the whole computer its slow finding data and stuffyes but IDE can only be maxed out by the highest end, most expensive drives- so saying that switching to a SATA interface will speed it up is a specious claim. Hmm, I've been using that word a lot lately...But it would help transfer rates Quote from: computeruler on March 06, 2009, 11:34:31 PM

But it would help transfer rates