Chris,

You have quite a list, so I'll be brief.

The "dongles" are the Molex power connectors used by ordinary IDE hard
drives, CD drives, etc. You'll have lots of them on the cables from your
power supply.

If the BFG card you're buying has 2, I assume that it's a Geforce 6800
Ultra. (That's confirmed by the statement that it fills the first PCI slot.)
I think that BFG would ask that the two Molex connectors be from different
power cables off the supply.

(My own card is a PNY 6800GT. It has a single Molex connector. I've added an
aftermarket cooler to it, http://www.arctic-cooling.com/vga2.php?idx=40. The
combination was approx. $65 US cheaper than an Ultra, and I've overclocked
it to 410 MHz core /1100 MHz RAM, or slightly above stock Ultra specs.)

The Antec 480W supply ought to be sufficient, as it makes 22A on the +12V
line. (I'm using a Thermaltake 420W supply, rated at 18A on +12V.) The Antec
supply probably provides more useful current than some off-brand supplies
that cite higher total power ratings.

The 6800 Ultra will be entirely compatible with your AV8, which is an AGP
3.0 (AGP 8X) board. There should be plenty of room in the Antec case for the
graphics card. I have an Antec Super Lanboy case, and my 6800GT fits in
that, although there is not a lot of excess space.

I don't have an AV8. Mine is an Asus A8V. (Good thing I'm not dyslexic.)
Both boards use the same Via chipset. I've had good luck with the A8V for
the short time I've had it (less than a month). Some sites
(www.anandtech.com) recommend the MSI Neo2 Platinum (nVidia nForce 3 ultra
chipset) as the fastest Socket 939 board, but I stayed with Asus. The AV8 is
supposed to be a good board, though, and may be a better value than the Asus
board.

You should get most of the cables you need in the retail mainboard package.
I don't know about the UK, but the Abit North American site lists a couple
of SATA cables, a round ATA133 cable, and a round floppy cable. (I like
those better than the flat ribbon cables Asus supplied.) If you use more
than two IDE drives (or want each IDE drive to be on its own controller),
you may want to buy another IDE cable.

The onboard sound ought to do 5.1 surround. If you really want to know,
download the manual from Abit. It's an Adobe Acrobat document. (The Asus
board's onboard sound supports a 7.1 system. As I have analog 5.1 speakers,
I've stayed with my semi-old Audigy 2 sound card, hoping to spare a CPU
cycle or two.) You may find that your onboard sound is better than adequate.

Dunno about the RAM. I'm using an unmatched pair of generic PC3200 DDR
(Samsung chips), purchased months apart. They work fine, as verified by the
Windows memory diagnostic (http://oca.microsoft.com/en/windiag.asp). I was
either lucky, or the K8T800Pro boards aren't fussy about RAM.

I have a A64 3500+ myself. It's a good choice. My only comment is to be
careful about pricing. At least here in the US, AMD prices have dropped over
the past few days. It is also possible now to get slower Socket 939 CPUs
than the 3500+, although I believe that the 3500+ is at a pretty good
price/performance point.

For my own hard drive, I'm using a pair of WD1600JD drives in RAID 0. I
don't know whether RAID 0 is worthwhile, but it's easy enough to use. I know
little about the performance of the drives, but they are quiet enough. The
WD Raptor drives (10,000 RPM) seem to be the benchmark champions, but their
cost per gigabyte is very high compared to the Caviar drives. The Seagate
7200.7 series might be worth a look, if only because Seagate has a 5 year
warranty (at least in the US). Some Seagate drives also support NCQ (native
command queuing), although I don't think you'd get that on a K8T800Pro
system.

I get the impression that you are building your first system. If so,
congratulations. You've made no bad choices, in my opinion.

Bob Knowlden

Address may be scrambled. Replace nkbob with bobkn.

"Chris" picturesofengland(on wrote in message
...
Hi.
I'm about to order all the parts to attempt to build myself a new PC
Would really appreciate some help!! Please..
I'm really worried about a few things, mainly, will everything be
compatible, especially the Motherboard, CPU, RAM, and HDD.
I'm also worried about what cables i may need, and if I have everything
for
the BFG graphics card that I'm planning to get.
The system requirements for it are confusing me as to whether i will need
to
order extra cables etc, and even get a bigger PSU.

BFG System Requirements:
A minimum 480W system power supply, An AGP 2.0 (or higher) compliant,
motherboard. Some motherboards violate the AGP specification and therefore
this card may not physically fit in some systems. A vacant PCI slot
adjacent
to the AGP slot. This board occupies two slots: one AGP and one PCI. Two
available hard disk drive power dongles (smaller floppy disk drive
connector
is not sufficient).

For instance, it says 2 available hard disk drive power dongles?? Where do
I
order these from? or will they be included with my PSU?
Also, will my Mother board be AGP 2.0 compliant?
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
The parts i have ready to order:

Motherboard:
Abit AV8 SKT939 K8T800PRO 800FSB 8xAGP SATA Sound GIG LAN Retail Box
from he
http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/produ...duct_uid=64800
More info he
http://www.abit-usa.com/products/mb/...es=1&model=175

PSU
Antec PSU True Blue 480w Blue Led Fan
from he
http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/produ...duct_uid=43567
Will it be powerful enough and have enough cables for the BFG and
everything
else???

MEMORY
I'll be getting this: Kingston 1GB 400MHz DDR Non-ECC CL3 (3-3-3) DIMM
(Kit
2)
From:
http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/produ...duct_uid=49296
As far as i can see, it will be compatible with the motherboard.

CASE
The case I will be getting is this: Antec Plusview 1000 4x5.25 5x3.5 ATX
Tower Case with Side Window
From he
http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/produ...duct_uid=44356
It says compliant for AMD so i'm hoping it will be ok.

CPU
Athlon 64 3500+ S939 512Kb Box
From he
http://www.dabs.com/uk/Search2/Produ...n%2064%203500#

HDD
Western Digital WD2000JD 200GB Serial ATA150 7200rpm 8mb Cache- OEM
from he
http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/produ...duct_uid=55240

Cables so far:
1x Belkin Serial ATA 2.0 7-pin Cable - Red 18" for the hard drive. Will i
need any more?
1x Ebuyer AC Power Lead (Kettle Type) Suitable for ATX PSU
1x Ebuyer 6" Internal Power Y Splitter Cable

I'm worried i'm going to receive all the parts, and then have to order
more..

By the way, how good will the sound be on the motherboard, would it
support
dolby 5.1? I'm going to order some 5.1 speakers.
Also, i'm wondering about will i need any ports? usb like at the back of
my
existing system? Or do they come with the case or motherboard?

Ive also got on my list to order, a monitor, anti static wrist band,
windows
xp software, disk drives, sound card etc etc, but its the above that the
most important.

Many many thanks for any help.
If everything looks fine i'm going to order it as soon as.

Chris