Q: Athlon 64 X2 6000 Windsor 3.0GHz 2x1MB L2 Cache Socket AM2 125W Dual-Core Processor GIGABYTE GA-MA78GM-S2H AM2 /AM2 AMD 780G HDMI Micro ATX AMD Motherboard OCZ Platinum 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1066 (PC2 8500) Linkworld PRESCOTT 437-01-C2222 Black SECC/SGCC MicroATX Mid Tower Computer Case 430W Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD5000AAKS 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive My concerns are buying a processor that is too fast or not worth the price, case ventilation and the power supply I need. Also first time building a computer so if anything won't start up when I press the power switch that would be nice to know.
A: Yes, those parts will work together. Would I build your computer using those specifications? No, I would not. You are entrusting your parts to your one power supply - getting a high quality one that will not die on you within a year is crucial to maintaining computer integrity. Look into getting a case without a power supply and then getting a power supply at minimum with 500W voltage from a third party. Do not use any brand other than the following: Antec, Channel Well, Corsair, Enermax, Enlight, Fortron Source, OCZ, PC Power & Cooling, Seasonic, and Sparklepower. These are tried and tested companies which produce high quality power supplies among other things. A Raptor Hard Drive will really make your computer feel zippy when opening programs and whatnot, but you'll have to sacrifice a lot of your space if you don't want to hike up the price substantially. Also, look into good CPU cooling - this is another area where it's good to just buy an aftermarket (third party) device instead of using the stock cooler. AMD Processors especially are known for their lack of ability to regulate themselves in high heat environments. In fact, if you run an AMD CPU with no heatsink on it, it will burn up within a matter of seconds. An Intel CPU of model Pentium 4 or later will slow down to prevent self destructing. Make a checklist for the following parts: CPU RAM Motherboard Video Card Sound Card Power Supply Case Operating System DVD / CD Drives CPU Cooler Hard Drive The video card and sound card might be integrated with your motherboard, you'd have to check that out for yourself. However a third party card will generally be vastly superior.