I'm a total noob to this, help me build a mining rig?

[dennist]

I wanted to know aside from the video card, exactly what else matters in the system? If I were to get my hands on a 5830 and run this with a shitty Pentium 4 or other processor, would that matter in the long run? Do I need a high wattage power supply?

Also, would the video card die at some point due to the intense activity?

[CubedRoot]

Heres some suggestions and links to Amazon where I found the best prices:\

Corsair 850 Watt power supply (you may not need one this big, but here it is for reference)
http://amzn.to/lHdtiw

Sapphire HD5850 for $149. These will get you about 350 MHash with proper tweaking.
http://amzn.to/jfFMRP

2 Gig Kingston Ram. Will be PLENTY for mining, and its cheap at $21 bucks
http://amzn.to/mom2Wr

AMD Sempron 140. Amazon had the best price I could find on it at $37
http://amzn.to/ilK3X3

This is the case I use. Its an Antec 300, and has plenty of room for GPUS and is well ventilated with the included dual 120mm fans.
http://amzn.to/lgHjr4


Hope that helps!

[carbonc]

I actually have a single 5830 running on a P4 3.2 hyper thread.

I can only get 278 MH/s stable.  and windows XP runs really really bad when you have it screaming like lol.
But it runs cool
Mem 300
Clock 800

70% fan
65 degrees C

[dennist]

Definitely! Hopefully the 5800 cards come back in stock soon

[grue]

I would suggest to ommit a case. it provides better cooling, and it reduces costs