So this summer my mission is to put together something to replace my dying laptop. I've been working a lot (to pay for this in addition to my normal expenses) so I really haven't had much time to plan this thing out and, with summer drawing to a close, I think it's time I buckled down.
I'm looking to build something that I'll primarily use for school work. I don't game a lot, but I want to have the option if a game comes along that I get into (Spore!). I also do minor video and photo editing, but it's nothing that I spend a lot of time on.
Here's what I've quickly come up with that fits in my budget (under $1,000):
CASE:
COOLER MASTER Centurion 5
MOBO:
Gigabyte GA-K8N Pro-SLI
CPU:
AMD Athlon 64 3500+
RAM:
CORSAIR XMS 1GB (2 x 512MB)
PSU:
Coolmax 550w
Graphics Card:
POWERCOLOR X800GTO256MBDDR3 Radeon X800GTO
DVD:
Samsung DVD Drive
HD: Seagate Barracuda 200gb [Already have it, plus another 200gb drive in an enclosure that I may throw in as well]
Monitor:
Acer 19" Widescreen
I'll be running Windows XP Pro.
Do you think this is something I can get started on or do you have any suggestions for better components? I am kind of new to this and could use all the help I can get. I was also wondering if a heatsink is necessary for the cpu and if someone could suggest a cheap one that would do the trick.
Thanks in advance for any helpful tips!