The_wall

This might be my first computer I build myself (havn't decided completely if I wanna make the purchase). I'm not much of a computer wizz so keep this in mind, think of me as a computer idiot. The computer will be for mostly gaming, but also school work, general internet fun, music, and pictures.


So if you guys would be so kind as to check it out it would be greatly appreciated. Are these parts smart choices? Are they all compatible? Should I buy any better things? cheaper things that'll perform just as well? Am I missing anything important? I'm probably going to hook it up to a wifi router my brother currently uses for his laptop, will this work out well for me too?

edit:sorry if this looks sloppy, again I'm not great with computers


AMD-compatible Motherboards
Qty. Product Description Unit Price Savings Total Price

Update DFI LANPARTY nF4 SLI-DR Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce4 SLI ATX AMD Motherboard - Retail
Model #: LANPARTY nF4 SLI-DR
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$189.00 $189.00
ATX Computer Cases
Qty. Product Description Unit Price Savings Total Price

Update COOLER MASTER Praetorian PAC-T01-E1 Silver All Aluminium Alloy ATX Mid Tower Computer Case - Retail
Model #: PAC-T01-E1
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$108.50 $108.50
CD/DVD Burners (RW Drives)
Qty. Product Description Unit Price Savings Total Price

Update NEC Black IDE DVD Burner Model ND-3540A - OEM
Model #: ND-3540A Black
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$38.75 $38.75
Internal Hard Drives
Qty. Product Description Unit Price Savings Total Price

Update Seagate Barracuda 7200.8 ST3250823AS 250GB 7200 RPM Serial ATA150 Hard Drive - OEM
Model #: ST3250823AS
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$99.50 -$2.00 Instant
$97.50
Keyboards
Qty. Product Description Unit Price Savings Total Price

Update Microsoft N86-00009 Black PS/2 Wired Standard Keyboard - OEM
Model #: N86-00009
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$19.99 $19.99
Memory - System
Qty. Product Description Unit Price Savings Total Price

Update CORSAIR XMS 2GB (2 x 1GB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM DDR 400 (PC 3200) Unbuffered Dual Channel Kit System Memory Model Twinx2048-3200c2pt - Retail
Model #: Twinx2048-3200c2pt
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$276.00 $276.00
Monitors - LCD
Qty. Product Description Unit Price Savings Total Price

Update BenQ FP91G+ Black 19" 8ms LCD Monitor - Retail
Model #: FP91G+
** This item is warranted through the product manufacturer only. what's this?
**Dead Pixels Policy: Replacement or Refund for 8 or more dead pixels only.
$30.00 Mail-in Rebate
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$296.99 $296.99
Mouse
Qty. Product Description Unit Price Savings Total Price

Update Logitech MX518 931352-0403 2-Tone 8 Buttons 1x Wheel USB + PS/2 Optical Mouse - Retail
Model #: 931352-0403
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$39.89 $39.89
Processors
Qty. Product Description Unit Price Savings Total Price

Update AMD Athlon 64 3500+ Venice 1GHz FSB Socket 939 Processor Model ADA3500BPBOX - Retail
Model #: ADA3500BPBOX
** This item is warranted through the product manufacturer only. what's this?
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$201.00 $201.00
Sound Cards
Qty. Product Description Unit Price Savings Total Price

Update Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeMusic 8 (7.1) Channels PCI Interface Sound Card - Retail
Model #: 70SB046000007
** This item is warranted through the product manufacturer only. what's this?
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$117.50 $117.50
Speakers
Qty. Product Description Unit Price Savings Total Price

Update Logitech Z-5500 505 Watts 5.1 Speaker - Retail
Model #: 970115-0403
** This item is warranted through the product manufacturer only. what's this?
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$269.98 -$50.00 Instant
$219.98
Video Cards
Qty. Product Description Unit Price Savings Total Price

Update VisionTek XTASY VTKX850XTPEA Radeon X850XT PE 256MB GDDR3 AGP 4X/8X Video Card - Retail
Model #: VTKX850XTPEA
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$349.99 $349.99

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"We do what we like and we like what we do!"~andrew Wk

Procrastinate now, don't put off to the last minute.

Kadath

That cart is cookie-based, we won't see what you have.

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JStrider

yah... you need to copy and paste it into here so we can see it

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The_wall

damn, hang on a second and I'll copy and paste it.

Edit:copied and pasted

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Procrastinate now, don't put off to the last minute.

wombatman

You seem to be missing a video card there. Is that on purpose (not being sarcastic, just wondering if you already had one you were planning to use)?

archpaladin

The video card's at the bottom of the list.

nVidia has good video cards -- their stuff will playback movies at TV quality if you have a good monitor to accompany it. Radeon is generally good quality though, but if I were making a gaming machine, I'd go with a mid/high end nVidia.

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The_wall

Alright thanks for the advice archpaladin. Do you think the monitor I chose is a good one?

Any more thoughts about my purchase, I am just really worried I might be dissapointed in something I buy, or it may not work as well as intended (or at all) because I'm really not up to date with computer stuff.

__________________
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MooseMan3000

Well, everything on that list is good... but some of it is too good, from the sounds of it. The three things that really stand out as extraneous are the motherboard, RAM, and sound card. We'll take those one at a time.

Motherboard: The DFI Lanparty SLI is a great motherboard. Are you planning on running SLI? If so, you'll need two of the same video card, or the Radeon X-Fire card (which is a lot more expensive). If not, why would you get an SLI board? Also, if you're planning on running SLI, why? It's much more cost effective to just get a better, single card. If you're looking for top of the line performance for games, get a Geforce 7800 GTX. nVidia won this battle. The ATI cards are good, but the nVidia ones were better this time around.

Also, that motherboard is great for overclocking. Since you claim you're not very good with computers, I'm going to go out on a limb here and say you probably won't be overclocking. So why would you buy a motherboard that is designed for that? You can get a motherboard that has all the features you need and more for half the price you'll pay for that DFI.

RAM: Again, will you be overclocking? If not, you don't need the XMS. Yes, when it comes in the box, the XMS is slightly better than the value stuff. Its real strong point, however, is that it can be overclocked and stay stable. If you're not overclocking, however, the benefits of super high end RAM are minimal. Again, a 2x1GB kit should run you about half the price you're looking at for the XMS stuff.

Sound card: Are you an audiophile? Are you going to be lots of media intensive stuff? Is there a reason you need a sound card? The onboard sound on most nForce4 boards is excellent, and it hardly takes any processing cycles to use. The processor you're getting, the Athlon 64 3500+ can easily handle all the games you'll throw at it and still have cycles leftover for sound. There will be little to no performance increase if you get a sound card, so think pretty hard about whether you're willing to spend $120 on that 2% speed increase. The majority of your gaming performance depends on your graphics card, not your processor.

Which brings me to my next point...

Why the X850? It's outperformed in most instances by a 6800 Ultra, and it's always outperformed by a 7800 GTX. I've been an ATI fanboy for a long time now, but the numbers don't lie. nVidia just has better cards right now. For gaming performance, the new Geforce can't be beat. I'd use some of the money you'll save on the other components and get a really nice graphics card, instead. Sure, it's a $100-200 more, but the performance increase will be very noticable, unlike the increase with, say, the sound card.

It does look pretty good, though. Does the case have a power supply included? If so, who makes it and what's the wattage? That will be fairly important to how stable your rig is.

And good choice on the mouse. Get a good mousepad for it (I recommend the fUnc 1030, though others are pretty good, too); you won't regret it. It just moves and tracks so much nicer with a good pad.

BurntToast

Actually the first thing that I noticed is that you are buying a PCI-E board and an AGP video card. That will make for some sad times when you try to build the new machine. The 7800 comes as PCI-E only as far as I am aware of so you will be safe if you get that.

Also, again as far as I am aware, you cannot run ATI's Crossfire setup in a SLI board. You would have to buy a Crossfire specific board. However a SLI board is a good investment if you buy a good card that is SLI compatible. It will run fine with just one vid card and then a few years down the road when the machine is starting to have trouble running the newest games... you could just buy a second vid card and viola... be back near the top again.

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MooseMan3000

I didn't even realize the X850XT came in AGP. I assumed it was PCI-E. Oops.

Yeah, you're right about the Crossfire. I read it wrong the first time. I thought the technologoy was built into the card, not the board. You know, like it should be.

As far as the SLI board being a good investment, I still disagree. SLI is still not a very well supported technology. To truly take advantage of it, you need two exactly identical cards. If you only buy one card now, two years down the road the chances of you finding the exact same version of that exact card are very, very slight.

Even when you have two cards in SLI, very few games run perfectly. There are often artifacts and other problems associated with the multiple GPUs. Besides which, a single 7800 still outperforms two 6800s in SLI. Right now, it's much more cost effective to just get a better card, rather than try to do SLI. Maybe in a few years if the support is there it will be worth it to do SLI, but not now. Or so I think.

Example: You could try running SLI. To do so, you would need an SLI board... say, $150 at the least. Then you would need two cards. We'll say two 6800 Ultras. $450 apiece. So you're looking at just over a grand to do an SLI setup.

Alternatively, you could go with a less expensive motherboard with only a single PCI-Ex16 slot. Say, $100. Then just get a better card, say the 7800 GTX. You only pay $500 for that card, but a single 7800 GTX outperforms two 6800 Ultras in SLI. Call me crazy, but I'd rather pay $600 for better performance than paying $1000.

Also, assuming you did go the route of getting an SLI capable board and waiting a few years to grab another card. You would pay about $600 upfront for that setup anyway, and then you'd have to buy a second card down the road. Why not just get the better $600 setup now and be done with it?

Sty

Actually, the new drivers let you mix different vendor cards on sli config. But, it seems that the next generation card will anyways beat the previous generation sli so...

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The_wall

Ok thanks for the advice guys, unfortuneatly I don't completely understand it lol. So I don't need a sound card for sound? This just shows my ignorance, I figured if I wanted sound I needed a sound card. So I'll be sure to take that off the list. However will music sound a lot better with a sound card?

What would be a good motherboard for what I need? I really don't get what you guys were talking about with SLI and overclocking or whatever. Also what would be a good choice of ram? I would like at least a gig of ram, plus the ability to upgrade at a later point.

And finally would this be a good video card choice?

# Albatron 7800GT Geforce 7800GT 256MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16 Video Card - Retail

Core clock: 400MHz
DirectX: DirectX 9
DVI: 2
Memory Interface: 256-bit
OpenGL: OpenGL 2.0
PixelPipelines: 20
RAMDAC: 400 MHz
Tuner: None
TV-Out: HDTV/S-Video/Composite Out
VIVO: Yes
# Model #: 7800GT
# Item #: N82E16814170088

that's one that came up when I searched for nvidia

Edit: I checked about the power supply for the case, it appears it doesn't have one; thanks for pointing that out. I looked at a million cases and they all seemed to come with a power supply so I figured this one would too.

__________________
"We do what we like and we like what we do!"~andrew Wk

Procrastinate now, don't put off to the last minute.

MooseMan3000

Alright. So first, yes that would be a good video card. If you're looking for the best performance, however, instead of a 7800GT you would want a 7800GTX, which would cost a little bit more, but right now it's the best gaming graphics card on the market. eVGA cards get very good reviews generally, so this is one I would recommend.

My point about the motherboard you picked was that, for your uses, it had way too many features. The most important one is that it is SLI capable. SLI stands for Scanline Interleave Mode. What it means, however, is that you use two graphics cards in conjunction with each other to render the image faster. However, this is really only for people who are looking for the absolute top of the line, and cost is no issue. If this is you, great, get two 7800 GTXs and spend $5000 on your machine. If not, you don't need it. Save a few dollars by getting a motherboard without the SLI capability, and instead put that money towards a better graphics card. You'll get a much better bang for your buck that way.

Instead of getting that particular model, get a motherboard with fewer slots and fewer extra features and save some money there. Get one with a single PCI-Express 16x slot, rather than two. Something like this. It doesn't need to be that one specifically, but that one seems to me like it has all the features you would need at a much more reasonable price.

As far as your RAM goes, my point with that is you don't need to buy the Corsair XMS stuff. That RAM is really high quality, but unless you're overclocking (and seeing as you don't know what this means, it's pretty safe to assume you won't be doing it), you don't really need RAM of that quality. Instead, get something more like this, and save yourself $100. With the motherboard I pointed out, you would still have two slots available to stick more RAM in, as well. You could do up to 4GB in that motherboard.

If you're looking for cases, and you don't want to worry about a separate power supply, I recommend Antec. Their cases are excellent quality, and most of them include power supplies, also made by Antec. Their power supplies are also excellent quality, so they're definitely a good choice for beginners.

Now you don't need a sound card to have sound. 99% of motherboards now come with a sound card built into it - they call it onboard sound. If you're a total audiophile, then you'll want a better sound card. Also, if you're completely deadset on having the fastest machine out there, no matter how much it will cost you, you'll want a sound card. If neither one of those statements apply to you, however, chances are the onboard sound will be fine for you.

Onboard sound used to be a bare minimum; you would rather just hum all the sounds to yourself than listen to games or music with on onboard card. In recent years, however, the quality has increased drastically. Also, the majority of the time the onboard sound is now 7.1 channels, which means you can have full surround sound without having a sound card. That used to be one of the main reasons to get a card as opposed to using the onboard sound.

Basically, unless you have a very specific reason to get a sound card, stick with the onboard. You'll save some money, and there's an excellent chance you'll never even notice the difference.



I think I got all the questions. If anything's still unclear, feel free to ask. I hope I helped a little.

Sty

Don't buy the GT or GTX right now. NVidia just announced that they'll be putting out an 512MB version which is also clocked considerably higher than the current GTX.

Ergo, wait for the 512 to come out (November 14th), the price for GT or (more likely) GTX will plummet. If you buy it now, you feel cheated in a couple of weeks.

http://www.theinquirer.org/?article=27443

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n0nsensical

Well, sure, it's easy to just say get the best video card on the market. The point of getting a lesser card is to save money without losing too much. The framerate difference between the GTX and GT is not large. I wouldn't pay $100 more than a GT for one, maybe not even $50. At $350 for an X850 XT PE I would definitely get the GT instead, though the former is not a bad card especially if you play mostly Half-Life 2 like me.

Also, the point of SLI is not simply to get the best performance in existence. It also offers a decent upgrade path in the future, when your model video card becomes cheap you can just pop in another one and get a big performance boost for not too much money. I think you'd be better off spending a little more for an SLI motherboard than a lot more for a 7800 GTX, but hey if you find a cheap GTX you might go for it.

The_wall

Wow you guys are helpful, thanks a lot. I now think I undertstand what your saying with the motherboard. n0nsensical makes a good point however, will I have better upgrade potential with an sli motherboard?

Also what would be a good kind of ram to get? Money is a factor, but not as big a factor as it is for many building their own computers. I have the money for a lot of high end stuff, but it would be nice to have a sweet computer and have money left over to buy some games.

Again thanks for all the advice, it's much appreciated.

__________________
"We do what we like and we like what we do!"~andrew Wk

Procrastinate now, don't put off to the last minute.

Sty

As pointed before, today it's not feasible to go for SLI configuration since the next generation card is considerably faster. Buying an older second card will cost you more than just ditching the old card and getting a new one. So SLI is only suitable if you're going to pluck dual cards in initially.

And the new GTX is about 20-30% faster than the current one if you look at the clock rates.

The RAM you get limits your possible future overclocking abilities. So, go for normal PC3200 if you don't care about overclocking. Minimum 1G, 2G would be nice.

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n0nsensical

I don't entirely agree with that. I think right now if I had one 6800 GT/Ultra and an SLI motherboard and wanted better performance, I would buy another rather than replace it with a 7800 GT/GTX, save some money and end up with comparable or better performance. It might not be a huge savings to do the SLI upgrade, but I think with the current and last generation it turns out to be a wash or better, and we can't really speculate at this point about the price or performance of the next generation compared to this.

I did find some benchmarks showing a larger benefit of a GTX over GT than I orginally thought, especially at extremely high resolution (2048x1536), but I'm still not sure I'd pay the premium for it. At 1600x1200 they also seem to show Ultra SLI being comparable to a 7800 GTX and better than a GT, and in Doom 3 the SLI considerably better than either. In these, the GT/GTX difference isn't as large, probably because of their lower test resolutions. The bottom line is you need to do a lot of research if you really want to end up with the best performance for the least money, and the best for one person isn't the best for another due to differences in what and how we play.

MooseMan3000

My main point is that you end up spending more money on an SLI solution than simply getting a better graphics card. Even if you wait 3 years for the price of a 6800 Ultra to get down to $100, it still cost more in the long run than just getting a 7800 GTX in the first place. And you're still behind in performance. I just don't see it as an economical solution, no matter which way you look at it.

Take a look at my example from before. In the start, you pay roughly $600 for a motherboard with a single PCI-E x16 slot and a top of the line card. Or you could pay the same $600 for a motherboard that's SLI capable, and a graphics card that's not as powerful. In a few years, you buy another card.

No matter how cheap that second card is, you've already spent more money than you would have if you hadn't bought the SLI board, and you're performance still isn't as good as if you had simply gotten the better card to begin with. I'll say it again: A single card of the next generation always outperforms two current generation cards. Until it becomes possible to truly integrate two completely different cards, SLI simply isn't a cost effective upgrade solution.

Sty

I'd love to be able to, for example, combine 7800GT with a 6800GT always swapping out the oldest card . Imagine, the first 4xPCIx boards just came out... sadly, I just don't see that parallelism in general allows that in computers.

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Sty

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The_wall

Well you both make good points. I think I'll save my money now and go with a non sli board and just upgrade later if I feel it's worth it. You guys have been a lot of help and I thank you for it. If you feel up to it I am trying to find a good case now that comes with a power supply, I looked at antec cases at newegg and all the really good ones didn't seem to come with a power supply. Again this only if you feel like it, you guys have already helped me a ton. I might just get the case I really want and just buy a seperate power supply.

Oh I just remembered, regarding the cases; is 1 fan enough to keep a gaming pc cool?

__________________
"We do what we like and we like what we do!"~andrew Wk

Procrastinate now, don't put off to the last minute.

n0nsensical

And I'll say it again, I don't agree based on the stats I've seen and posted. SLI 6800 GT/Ultra is not in general outperformed by a single 7800 GTX, and it would be cheaper to add another 6800 series if you already had one than to replace it with a GTX. Now since the motherboard is more expensive in the first place, it's even closer, but I still don't think SLI can be that easily ruled out.

MooseMan3000

I've been looking for the benchmarks that I've been basing my claims on, but I just can't freaking find them. From what I've seen, the increase in performance using two cards in SLI is minimal, whereas the increase in performance with upgrading the card is fairly significant. This difference was more pronounced, as you mentioned, at higher resolutions.

To me, it still seems more cost-effective to get a better card when you want to upgrade. I'm still open to the possibility of SLI, and whenever somebody asks me I consider that as one of the options, but I always end up deciding that it's better to get a single card. Like I said, in a few years if the support is better and it's possible to integrate two completely different cards, then maybe it will become more feasible. Until then, I'll probably stay away from it. Obviously, you're free to do as you please.


The_wall, I apologize for straying from the topic. As far as the case goes, is there a reason you want one of the "really good" cases? What sort of features are you looking for in the case? Why do you need a high end as opposed to a simpler one?

The main features I look for in cases now are these:

1) Material. My first case was a steel server chassis, because I thought I would need the room, and I liked that it would be sturdy. Big mistake. My case alone weighed about 35 pounds, and that's without any components in it. My girlfriend's new case is all aluminum, and the difference in weight alone makes any extra price you pay for the aluminum worth it. I pulled it out of the box at first, and I literally thought part of it was missing it felt so light. Definitely go aluminum, if you can.

2) Cooling. To answer your question about the fans, quite simply, no. One fan isn't enough to cool a fast gaming rig. Your processor and your graphics card are going to get pretty hot. You want to make sure they stay nice and cool. To that end, you want as much air running over them as possible. Most decent cases will have 3 or more slots for case fans. One intake in the front, one intake in the side, and one exhaust at the back.

You also want to consider, however, that each fan you add also makes the machine noisier. So depending on how important that is to you, you may wany to keep the number of fans lower. Better, however, is to get a case that can handle larger fans. Most cases use 80mm fans. Those suckers have to spin pretty fast to move the air. A single 120 mm fan can move more than twice as much air at the same RPM as an 80mm. More importantly, it can move the same amount of air at less than half the speed. Lower speed fans means less noise, which is very, very nice. I'd go with a case that has 2+ 120 mm fans (preferrably 3).

3) Space. How much room is there for the components you want? You'll probably want some room to upgrade, so get one with 3 or 4 5.25" slots, 1 3.5" external (if you want a floppy, that is), and 3 or 4 3.5" internal, for extra hard drives.

4) Construction. One major thing that most better cases have that lower end ones don't have is a screwless design. That means everything snaps together without you having to use a screwdriver once (except to put the motherboard in, most likely). This makes assembly and changing components much easier. Something to look for.

Also, you probably want something with rounded edges. Chances are pretty good that at some point while you're building the computer, you'll cut yourself on some sharp edge. If all the edges in the case are rounded, however, that probability goes down significantly. Again, this is a feature of many higher end cases that cheap ones lack.

5) Front connections. Most cases have front audio jacks (stereo audio and microphone). Many also have USB 2.0 jacks. A few have Firewire, as well. I like one with all 3, but those cases are few and far between. Decide what you would likely use (front audio and USB are really convenient), and find cases that match.

6) Looks. This case is going to be your baby's home for the next X years, you want it to be something you don't mind looking at. I like side windows so I can see all the 1337 components, even if they're not lit. But you may prefer something else. Just keep it in mind.



And now a few recommendations.

First, this is the case my girlfriend just built her gaming machine in. It's got just about everything I look for in a case: It's all aluminum; it's got 3 120 mm fans; front Firewire, audio, USB; an LCD display that shows lots of information (including case temps); a nice big side window; and a very stable power supply. NZXT is an upstart little company, but so far their products seem to be top notch, even if they look a little funny. I didn't particularly like the looks of the Nemesis when I first saw it, but I've grown to appreciate it.

Next, the Antec P160. This is one of the cases I'm looking at for my next build. All aluminum; front Firewire, USB, audio; space for 3 120 mm fans; lots of space to expand. It doesn't have a power supply, but that's not a big problem. It does have a removable motherboard tray, which makes installing the motherboard, processor, and RAM much easier.

And the Lian Li PC-60APlus. Lian Li is revered as one of the best, if not the best, case manufacturers there is. None of their cases come with power supplies, but that's because they're very high end cases, and they expect the people who buy them will want to get a power supply separately. Again, it has front ports, space for 2 120 mm fans as well as 2 80 mm fans, lots of space, etc. It has the removable motherboard tray (one of Lian Li's hallmarks), and it's very well constructed. A very nice case, though somewhat on the pricy side.


If you get a case sans power supply, just make sure to get a PSU from a reputable company with decent wattage. Antec makes very nice power supplies, as do some others. Basically, you get what you pay for as far as PSUs go. If you're paying $20 for a 600w PSU, it's not actually capable of delivering 600 watts.

Sty

As for the case, I was just day before yesterday strolling in Akihabara in case shops and this antec http://www.antec.com/us/productDetai...?ProdID=81800# stopped me in my tracks.

Definetly my next one. It has separate thermal zones for hard-drives and for mb/gpu, which basically means more efficient cooling with less noise.

Anyway, I'll be jumping on the water-cooling bandwagon this weekend First on the list is the GPU. Innovatek has very nice products for cooling down both the gpu and the memory.

__________________
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Sty

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Sty

Ah the word about 6800GS came out, and it's sweet (money/performace wise)

Take a look at it, the Final Words from Anandtech:

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2593&p=9

__________________
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Sty

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The_wall

You guys have been a huge help. I think I'm out of questions to ask you guys .

I think the Nemesis is the case best suited for me. I'm not huge on the look, but it comes with a psu and fans for a reasonable price which is huge for me. Hell maybe I can get used to the look as well.

Anyways I can't thank all of you enough, but mooseman especially for all the help. I already feel I understand the basics of building a computer much more after reading this thread.

__________________
"We do what we like and we like what we do!"~andrew Wk

Procrastinate now, don't put off to the last minute.

MooseMan3000

Bahahaha! I never thought anyone else would actually get that case. When I first saw it, I practically gagged. My girlfriend, however, was in love with it, so that's the ony she chose. It took me quite a while to get used to it, but after seeing all the features and how well the case was designed, I got used to the look. I actually like it now.

But seriously, if you don't like the look of the case, don't buy it. There are other cases that perform well in a similar price range.

Try the Antec Super LANBOY. All aluminum design, side window, front USB and audio, two low speed 120mm fans included. This is another one in my list for my next build. I'm not a huge fan of the blue grill for the front 120mm fan, however, so I'm probably going to stay away from this one. Still considering, though. Pair that guy with basically any Antec, Enermax, or OCZ power supply and you'll by fine. For your uses, I'd say 350w is a little too small, but a 450w should be plenty.

If you want something a little more "normal," try the Antec Solution Series SLK3800B. Includes 1x120mm exhaust fan, with space for 1x120 intake fan, 1x80mm side intake fan, and a vent to help keep the graphics card cool (Newegg says no side vents, but that's a mistake). Also includes a pretty decent 400w power supply, all for under $100. The main drawbacks I see of this guy are that it is made of steel, so it will be a little heavier (but on a mid tower, that's not really too bad), as well as the lacking front ports. It has USB 2.0, but no audio or Firewire.

Really, though, there are thousands of cases out there, ranging from shitty $20 boxes to the $1200 Zalman all heatsink (no fans means no noise!) case. I recommended Antec, Lian Li, and NZXT because I know from experience and reviews that they all have excellent cases. The few that I pointed out I liked mainly for the features they included, with looks at a distant second. They aren't necessarily the right cases for you, however, so look around for a while. You'll find something you like.