First time building a PC - all advice very welcome

[Alf]

Fair enough
in your eyes, is there any reason to get 64bit Vista?

 

[ferrus]

I might just go with 64Bit then. To avoid buying it in the future when it really is time to move.

 

[floppybootstomp]

Fair enough
in your eyes, is there any reason to get 64bit Vista?

No probs with seeing 4Gb RAM.

Future proofing.

Theoretically, OS should work faster.

And, uh, that's it, basically

 

[Alf]

what what? Ol man Flops coming up blank?

 

[ferrus]

Also having second thoughts about the Antec 900, I originally chose it over the Coolermaster Stacker 831, and then changed to the Antec due to it being roughly £40 cheaper. But now I realise the Stacker might be better with it's removable tray, which (correct me if I'm wrong) could be easier to build in. And (in my opinion) it's much nicer to look at.

 

[ferrus]

Any view on the Stacker... ?

 

[Alf]

Stacker is a fine case, where as the antec is a mid tower - the Stacker is a full tower. This means its larger, and as a result is more airflowy and easier to work in. Not to mention the sheer amount of fans you can stuff into it.

 

[ferrus]

Thanks, I think I'll go with the Stacker.

Could you tell me what's the difference between a Stacker 830, 831, and 832?

832: http://www.cclonline.com/product-info.asp?product_id=12645&category_id=237

831: http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/ProductInfo.asp?WebProductID=592605

830: http://www.cclonline.com/product-info.asp?product_id=6398&category_id=237

The prices vary wildly, so I need to know what the best deal is.

 

[Alf]

i want to say that the 831 and 832 offer differnt case option. but im not sure.
Stick with the 830

 

[ferrus]

Any views on ATI's HD 1GB 3870 graphics card over the 8800s? Is it a bad idea to put an ATI card with an Intel processor? I heard they work best with AMD processors as ATI is owned by AMD.

For example: http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/ProductInfo.asp?WebProductID=753010

 

[Alf]

the 3870 X2 is a pretty good card from what i have read
http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTQ1NCwxLCxoZW50aHVzaWFzdA==

Personally i dont know if a AMD card will suffer perfomance in a Intel machine. I would hope not as this would be really bad on AMDs side.

 

[ferrus]

Final decision soon, I really need to know if mixing AMD/Intel/nVidia products will cause problems. :S

 

[Alf]

Im sure there will be no problem, as if there were - then i would have heard something about it around the net.

 

[ferrus]

OK thank you.

 

[floppybootstomp]

And another opinion added.....

I don't envisage any problems at all, all computer componets should work well together providing they're designed to work on the same platform.

Any doubts are probably suggested by the Corporations that make the components as they have vested interests in selling their own product.

They obvioulsy want you to think only their products work well together so you give them your money.

It's a jungle out there

However, FWIW, I'd go with Nvidia graffix atm.

I was a big gameboy fan of ATI vid cards for years but the last card I used made by ATI was a 9800 Pro circa 02.

Since then, Nvidia have been good, very good. And Nvidia also supply good support for Linux Users whereas ATI do not. That is a big plus in my book.

But hey - it's your choice