First Time Builder Seeking Help.

You would be better off with an X850 XT video card. The Fortron PSU linked to below is a better deal than the Antec that you chose. As for the motherboard, is there any reason why you chose the Epox? The DFI NF4 SLI-D is a better board. Also, there isn't really any reason not to get an SATA hard drive. A good one would be one from te Samsung SpinPoint series.

Video card: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814102688
PSU: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817104954
DFI motherboard: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...2E16813136158R (It's a refurb, but you can find the same board on Newegg for $164 new)

Also, if you're seriously considering buying an additional video card for SLI, you're going to need a more powerful PSU (500W+) with dual 12V rails. I recommend the Fortron Blue Storm or the Seasonic S12 500W and 600W.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

You plug the SATA cable from the drive into a header on the motherboard. Then you plug the SATA power connector from the PSU in the drive.

And to the person who said that CPUs don't come with thermal compound, the 3000+ he's getting will come with a thermal pad.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

You can just take the jumper out of the slave drive, and it should be auto-detected as a slave. Whichever drive you want to be the master needs to have its jumper set to master, though, and this includes SATA drives.

You do need a PCI-e connector from your PSU, but if your PSU doesn't have one, you can buy a 4-pin molex to PCI-e adapter.

And a thermal pad is a kind of thermal interface material, but thermal pads perform much worse than most pastes, such as Arctic Silver 5 or Ceramique.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Originally Posted by Zimarooski

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822148106

I found this SATA hard drive, it's only about two dollars difference. What are the advantages to running a SATA HD than running an IDE HD?

The main advantage to SATA over PATA is that the cables are much smaller, which results in increased airflow. There is also a slight performance increase over PATA, but it is not very significant at this point. The prices are roughly the same, so get SATA.

Originally Posted by BlueMikey

I don't think I would go with that type of hard drive, whether it be SATA or IDE.

http://www.tomshardware.com/2005/12/...es_at_a_price/

It looks like 500 GB HDs are slooooooow. If you want that much capacity, it looks like it would be still better to go with two half-capacity but faster drives. The higher capacity Western Digital drives seem to perform better than the Seagates.

That's true but Western Digital drives are also much noisier than Seagate drives, and most WD drives (excluding Raptors) have 1 year warranties, whereas Seagate drives have 5 year warranties.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Originally Posted by Magic

I've never heard of thermal pads either. Are they still a problem if you're not overclocking? I am so clumsy about applying thermal paste. I'm not even sure how my Duron is running when I'm pretty sure I had paste running off the sides of the core.

Thermal pads are fine if you aren't overclocking - they come with the retail CPU, after all. However, don't go buying any to use instead of thermal paste, just learn how to use the paste more effectively.

I was speaking idiomatically.