Building A Computer..confused

[Roho5588]

I will be building a computer sometime in the near future and this is my first time.  I had a few questions that i hope someone might be able to answer..  I have been browsing for parts at Tigerdirect.com, and have picked a number of items.  Heres a list of what i was planning to buy:
A custom ATX case with 400w power supply
A Soyo Socket 470 Motherboard w/ Pentium 4 2.4ghz processor
A cpu fan...thermal grease??
A Seagate 40gb hard drive
512MB PC2100 DDR RAM
128MB Geforce4 vid card
A 52x cd burner
  Ribbon Cables??
Im a little hesitant with my selection of parts, for various reasons.  Do i really need a cpu fan over my chip? or can i go without it..and do i need thermal grease? I wasnt sure about that, but i put it on my list anyways.  I was also wondering if i needed to buy ribbon cables for my hard drive..cd burner and cables for my power supply and motherboard...or do they already come with them?  Are there any compatability issues either? If you can answer any of my questions i would be really really thankful...plz email me at Quikfire79@yahoo.com

thanks!

[Hope]

Do i really need a cpu fan over my chip? or can i go without it..and do i need thermal grease?

YES!!!!!!!! If you do not use these things, you will burn up your CPU and waste all the money you are investing. These are VERY important.

I was also wondering if i needed to buy ribbon cables for my hard drive..cd burner and cables for my power supply and motherboard...or do they already come with them? 

You will most likely need to buy them. I would suggest calling TigreDirect to verify.

Are there any compatability issues either?

There should not be any compatablity issues, again you should check with TigreDirect. They are very good over there and will be able to answer your questions. If you are really concerned that you have everything you need, you might consider purchasing one of their kits. It has everything you will need.

I know that you requested an email, but I thought that I should answer here because I am sure there are others who have these questions.

Good luck and make sure you have everything you need before you get started. Don't forget your software including your oporating system.

[islanding]

HI,

Do i really need a cpu fan over my chip? or can i go without it..and do i need thermal grease?

Depends on the chip package, you can but them with or without the CPU fan form Intel. If you buy it without the fan, yes you will need it and the grease. It sounds like something different than it is. You will not be lubing something you just put the grease between the chip and the heatsink to increase heat transfer.

I was also wondering if i needed to buy ribbon cables for my hard drive..cd burner and cables for my power supply and motherboard...or do they already come with them?

The case will come with the power supply (with the power cables) and mounting hardware. The motherboard will come with the IDE cables for the CD & harddrive as well as for the floppy drive. Most anything else you may want to use will come with the correct cable. These devices are not like external devices such as a printer, they do come with the correct cables.

Compatibility takes some research, you need to make sure the motherboard has the correct front end bus for the chip set you plan to use and many other features. All of this information is available to you form the manufacturer or try Tom’s Hardware it is one of the best sites for this kind of information

Tom's Hardware

Good Luck on your project.......

[12noon]

Ribbon Cables might come with your case, but i'm not sure. I'd go for a bigger hard drive tho !
 

[Roho5588]

Ribbon Cables might come with your case, but i'm not sure. I'd go for a bigger hard drive tho !
 

lol yeah i would too...id get like 400 gb if i could..but i dont have the money for anything more than 40 gigs   

[Roho5588]

whats the difference between DDR SDRAM 266 and DDR SDRAM 333? would i be safe with going with the cheaper one? im getting 512mb of the 266 one..but im not sure if i should get 333...too many numbers!

[SensoVision]

don't sure if difference in speed of DDR 333 and 266 are huge since my RAM is still not DDR, but I just curious, for which purposes would be used your PC?

[Roho5588]

id probably use my computer for gaming..like Action games such as Half Life and such (HL2 is coming out november 20th!!) and im thinking that 512 RAM is good enough and considering my computer right now has a 64 mb graphics card, and the graphics are pretty good...and im getting a 128mb graphic card..i think itll be alot better    but i was just wondering if there would be any difference...but i guess all it has to be is compatible with my motherboard?

[SensoVision]

hmm I think that you have a bit better computer than you actually need even taking in consideration new games...  but from other side you wouldn't need to upgrade your system for some time...

[CoastPC]

whats the difference between DDR SDRAM 266 and DDR SDRAM 333?

A fairly good article explaining the difference is here> http://www.white-chocolate.com.au/Manuals/ddrexplained.htm
But as previously stated, depends a lot on the choice of mainboard to see a noticable difference between the two.
 PS: I cant wait for HL2 either!!  HL was one of the best games I ever played
Chris

[SensoVision]

PS: I cant wait for HL2 either!!  HL was one of the best games I ever played

small offtopic: I think that HL is the only shooter I like, I even plan to play HL 2 one day(I'm not playing games anymore) Anyone heard about Stalker  BTW?

[SensoVision]

just heard bad news about HL:(( check yourself this thread for more info:
http://forum.weblamp.net/index.php?threadid=1261

[12noon]

Just read it and it is bad news.
 

[islanding]

Hi,
  IMHO DDR (Double Data Rate) Memory at any speed is over kill for Home & Game use. If you are building a server Okay, other wise I do not think you need it.

[matrics]

Uh, ok people, DDR is THE memory type to use. ALL the newer mainboards support solely DDR memory (yes, even the newer ones for Intel processors - if you have Intel P4 + SDR memory, your system sucks , the memory creates a bottle neck and your cpu can`t make full use of its transfer speed).

If you`re going with an AMD processor, the best rule to follow is as follows:

1. If you have a mainboard with VIA KT266 or 266A or similar, use    DDR266.

2. If you have a KT333 / nforce mainboard, buy DDR333.

3. If you have a nforce2 / KT400 mainboard buy DDR400.

These rules are not exclusive ( you can use kt266 with ddr400
or kt400 with ddr266), but the performance won`t be very good if you don`t respect them (there`s that bottle neck again)

Prices aren`t all that different, in Romania for instance, the difference between a 256mb ddr333 module and a 256mb ddr400 module is like 3-4$, so don`t be cheap, buy what suits your needs.