Building a new PC

Hello,

I am hoping to build a computer for £400 or less
It isn't going to be a kick-ass gaming machine, just a decent computer. I have some parts already from my current machine.
Keep in mind I only have a working knowledge of computer hardware as I am only 15 years old.
This is what I would like.

Q8200
N7AD LGA775 sli Motherboard
DVD RW
500GB HDD
??? PSU
3GB DDR2 ram that i already own
9500GT, I already have one but I would like another in SLi so I can make use of 3 or 4 monitors

I have some questions,

Is there anything I have missed?
Do you think I should buy these parts?
If not, what can you recommend?
Do processors come with heatsinks?

Thanks

[edit] Could somebody please tell me what a TN monitor is and the difference between a standard TFT.

Well if you are looking to keep within a strict budget, knowing what this PC is expected to do would help determine what kind of parts you really need. For instance, most games and day to day applications will not benefit from a quad core processor, so going with a higher clocked dual core would benefit you. But most photo, video, or audio editing/encoding applications do scale very well with core count so the quad core is the ideal pairing.

With that said, the Q8200 is a great chip and I wouldn't put too much worry into it, but the E8400 (3ghz/6mb L2/1333 fsb) is available in the same price range, so if you dont think you need a quad core it is a great alternative. Also to answer your question, ALL retail processors will include a basic heatsink. If you are buying an "OEM" processor, you will receive only the chip itself and no heatsink. If you are not overclocking you really wont need more than the standard heatsink, but there are better heatsinks on the market that you could use to get lower temperatures, lower noise levels, and better overclocking headroom.

the ASRock N7AD is not a bad board, but then again it wouldn't be my first choice. I don't think it will give you any trouble, but if you wanted to get into overclocking your new chip you may run into a wall with this board. I dont think you'll have too many options in the bios to play with and the PWM that controls power flow to the processor looks a bit weak as well. But like I said, for day to day stuff I dont see it being a limiting factor.

DVD drive is fine, but I'd suggest going with a cheapo. I normally buy the Samsung, Lite-on, or Asus models that float around newegg for about $20 (half the price of most) and I have yet to have one die on me. They work great, go through a lot of CD/DVD burning and still run fine, no need to spend 2-3x as much for something that doesnt do any better.

Hard drive...well space is up you what ever you need to buy, but cant really say much about the drive without knowing what model you are looking at. My advise is to look at some of the 640gb models though as these days you can find them at very competitive prices, and as they rely on fewer platters with greater density, along with larger cache (usually 16-32mb) you do stand to gain a bit of performance over the average 500gb drive. Worth looking into.

Power supply, I would suggest at least a SOLID 350w, preferably a good 400w. I'm not sure where you intend to buy your parts, if you are buying them online post what retailer you are buying through and maybe we can help you find a good model. Brands to watch for would be Antec, Mushkin, Enermax, Silverstone, OCZ, and a few others. Avoid cheap and generic brands.

If the 3gb of ram you already own is DDR2 800 then no reason not to use it, but if its anything slower - and your budget allows for it - you might want to consider upgrading to something faster such as DDR2 800. The board does not support DDR2 1066, but many boards in this price range usually do when paired with better chipsets, such as those offer by Intel.

Video card is a bit of an issue though, it is really not worth it to run 9500 GTs in SLI because they are just not that powerful. The additional money you would send to buy a second 9500 GT would be better put towards a newer and faster video card, such as the 9600 GSO or even better choice would be the HD 4000 series from ATI. If all you are looking for is the ability to run multiple monitors you do not need to enable SLI or Crossfire..in fact both have VERY poor support for multi-monitor gaming. My advice would be to buy a motherboard with an integrated graphics controller, run 1-2 monitors off that and use a single powerful video card to run the other 1-2. This way you can use a motherboard based on the Nvidia 9300/9400 chipset which will give you better feautres. Some of these boards even offer 3-4 output methods so you may not even need a dedicated video card at all, unless you want to do some moderate gaming.

My advice would be to get a different motherboard, based on the 9300/9400 chipset from Nvidia and use that in conjunction with your current 9500 GT. This would give you what you need in terms of output and you would a better chipset. If you are looking to improve your gaming performance, then id sell your current 9500 GT and pick up something a bit more powerful, even a 9600 GSO is going to leave a 9500 GT in the dust...should even be faster than 9500 GT SLI...

But that should answer your questions, if not just reply back and we will do what we can.

Thank you for your quick and detailed response!

The reason I intitially chose the Q8200 is because I want my new PC to be future-proof. I don't want to be upgrading every year or two. I also dont think I will be overclocking my CPU, although, if i were to consider it, how much faster could i get it without using a different heatsink?

Yes I have noticed DVD-RW drives are very cheap, considering how much they are used.

What exactly is the cache of a Hard Drive?

The ram I am using now is DDR2 667 (2x512, 2x1024) but I can always get cheap 800 ram from crucial.com. IS there a noticable difference between 667, 800 and 1006 ram.

I was not aware that the onboard graphics and PCI-e graphics cards could be used simultaneously. I don't even have onboard graphics in my current computer becuase came was supplied with a Nvidia 6800 so I couldn't test it.

I am only a casual gamer so I don't think I will need to upgrade the 9500GT in the near future.

Thanks again for the quick reply!