I think I have my new computer all priced out:

O

Onionsoilder

Reaver
Joined
Mar 19, 2007
Messages
3,173
Alright, well after encountering numerous problems with my factory-built HP, I've decided to build my next computer. This is my first time building one, so I'm open to any advice. I plan on it being a moderately powerful gaming computer, with internet and basic things like open office. This is what I was planning on getting so far:

Case: Coolmaster Cosmos
Motherboard: ASUS M3A79-T Deluxe
Hard Drive: Western Digital Caviar 500 GB
RAM: G Skill 8 GB
CPU: AMD Athalon 3.0 GHz Dual-Core
GPU: NVIDIA 9800 GTX
PSU: Corsair 750w
OS: Windows Vista Home Premium

Thoughts? Advice? I currently have a 22" monitor I'm going to use, and I plan on canabalizing my CD & DVD drives and External HD as well. Also, and advice on actually assembling it when I get the parts is welcome as well. I have messed around with the internal hardware before, but as I said, this is my firts time actually building a computer.
 
Id seriously think about a Core 2 Duo processor.

This is my tentative config that im still working on. I plan to buy it around christmas time. Im fairly certain that with some upgrades, it will serve me extremely well, even if it wont be the top dog.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129021 -- Antec Nine Hundred Case
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148274 -- Seagate barracude 1TB
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102759 -- Sapphire HD 4850 ( This one is very likely to change to a GTX 260)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139006 -- Corsair 750W PSU
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145215 -- Corsair DDR2 1066 4GB
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131297 -- Asus P5Q Deluxe (Also subject to change, Probably to a P5Q Pro if I stay with crossfire or a different Asus or Gigabyte mobo if I decide on SLi)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115041 -- Intel Q9550 2.83gHz - a very nice quad core processor, and not overly pricey.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835186134 -- Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro 92mm, In case I decide to do some overclocking ( which I will ).

Thats the bulk of my build and I think itll serve its purpose quite well. Total price is somewhere around 1200-1300 USD

As for assembly, its actually fairly easy. First, mount the cpu in the motherboard. It should go in easily, if it doesnt, dont push. Close the retention bracket. Put on the heatsink. Put mobo on motherboard tray or into case if there is no mobo tray. Hook up PSU. Hook up all other components ( HDD's, DVDD's etc).Plug in your gfx and sound cards, hook them up to psu. Boot up computer and test for stability. Install OS.

On this same subject, anyone have any suggestions for me? My maximum budget is 1500$ with tax and shipping (so ~1400$ for all components)
 
Thanks for the advice on the assembly. Anyway, I have a question. What is this heatsink for the CPU? I was told that unless I overclock, fan cooling should be enough? Or is the heatsink something I need regardless of what cooling system I have?

As far as the Quad Core, I've been told that unless you have a specific use for it, there is no reason to do so. 98% of applications out there can not make use of more then two cores, meaning it's only really good for heavy multitasking. Eventually programs that can use all four cores will come out, yes, but by then there will be a new generation of quad cores out and the current gen will be even cheaper. Then again, I'm just relaying what I've been told.
 
The fan you've been told about is a heatsink/fan combination, just that its the stock intel one and while not crappy, its not usable for overclocking. If you plan to do any of that, you want to get a bigger/stronger one such as the one I linked to.

As for the Quad Cores, yeah I guess it does depend on what you do. Ive begun using Photoshop, Premiere Pro and After Effects a lot, so having 4 cores will definitely be helpful for me. Plus they're no slouch in the speed department. Mainly, im trying to future-proof myself since Im not made of money, and dont want to spend 200$ on a Dual Core now and 200$ on a Quad Core in a year. Id rather put that money towards a second gfx card or another set of RAM sticks.

In the end, its really however you feel about it. If you're only going to be gaming and doing some surfing/music playing, Dual Core should be fine for you, but bear in mind that more and more programs are becoming multi-threaded, so the usefulness of a Quad Core will only increase as time goes on.
 
I'd always go with 2 smaller hard drives over 1 big one. I currently have 2 250gig HDDs. That way you put windows on a partician of less than 1/2 of the C drive and use the D drive for your files, and can backup D to the extra space on the first drive.

Open a page file on each partician, and you gain performance that way.
 
Cutlass said:
I'd always go with 2 smaller hard drives over 1 big one. I currently have 2 250gig HDDs. That way you put windows on a partician of less than 1/2 of the C drive and use the D drive for your files, and can backup D to the extra space on the first drive.

Open a page file on each partician, and you gain performance that way.
Click to expand...

If you have an old HDD, you can also use that, especially if its a small one like 80 or so gigs. Then you set it to be Windows and system files only and move everything else to another bigger drive.

Another cool thing you can do is get a SSD, especially if you find a 32+ gig one on sale. Put your OS on that, as well as your most used programs. Then you'll have much better boot times.
 
I actually ended upgrading to a 640 GB HDD with double the cache - while saving $5. Same company, same line. It's not even on sale, the list price is $5 cheaper :lol:

I also switched out the 790 ASUS for this 770 one, which saves me about $100(I don't plan on using SLI at all). In addition, I'm thinking about going for a Zalman instead of a Corsair it's about $10 more, yet it is supposed to last longer and have a more stable power supply.
 
Cutlass said:
I'd always go with 2 smaller hard drives over 1 big one. I currently have 2 250gig HDDs. That way you put windows on a partician of less than 1/2 of the C drive and use the D drive for your files, and can backup D to the extra space on the first drive.

Open a page file on each partician, and you gain performance that way.
Click to expand...

speed increases with size, it is well known fact. since drives are reliable, it makes more sense to buy single drive with lots of space.
 
Onionsoilder said:
Thoughts? Advice? I currently have a 22" monitor I'm going to use, and I plan on canabalizing my CD & DVD drives and External HD as well. Also, and advice on actually assembling it when I get the parts is welcome as well. I have messed around with the internal hardware before, but as I said, this is my firts time actually building a computer.
Click to expand...

Are your old drives SATA? You only have one IDE slot on the new ASUS. If it is a problem, you may need some IDE to SATA converters. 22" monitors rock-they're a great price compromise; I just got mine from a 17". New large drives are pretty cheap, so you might want to price the storage/$ ratio vs. your old drives; You could probably get an external cage for them as well to use as backup drives.

My one-off anectodes on ram are that I'll never try G.kill again, I'm skeptical of OCZ, would use Mushkin again, and I'm very happy with Corsair.
 
I've changed my future setup a bit as I wanted SLi. I have dual monitors and now that the Big bang 2 drivers are set to be released, I decided to go with nVidia. I know that two 4850's in crossfire would get me the same performance as a single GTX 260+ but I want the option of later adding another card to almost double my performance, and with Crossfire thats not an option.

Also realized that the Antec 900 isnt compatible with the PSU I had chosen out ( Corsair 750TX). The PSU has a bottom cooling fan and the 900 has a bottom PSU mount. I could go and cannibalize the case to make a bottom ventilation hole, but I would rather not do that.

So, the changes:
Case: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811133021 -- Thermaltake Armor VA8003BS
GFX: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130400 -- EVGA GTX 260 Core 216 OC
Motherboard: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813188024 -- EVGA 780i SLi

Those changes are gonna cost me though as the final price is up to 1550$.

On what GoodGame said: G.skill and OCZ seem to be RAM brands that either work with your setup or dont. So if you plan on going with either of those, make sure that the setup you plan to use them in is one that will work with said memory.
Muskin is a very nice budget memory brand.
Corsair of course is the best when it comes to memory, at least in my opinion. All the RAM ive used has been by corsair, from old 64mb modules to my current 1gb sticks. None have ever failed on me, they just got replaced ( upgraded rather).
 
Get a different PSU. The one you have aint bad, but it looks like it only has 20amps on its two +12v rails, which might be too low for the 2xx series nVidia cards and on.
 
Since you're going with Vista, I'd take a close look at the CPU-Mobo combination so you can take the RAM over 2GB. Also, I'll say again, I've had only 1 experience with G.Kill and it was a bad one. I'd recommend Corsair for the RAM.

For instance, with my E8500 and Asus combo, I could have 6GB of RAM if I upgrade to Vista.
 
I think I'm gonna stick with the G. Skill. Not that I don't value your advice, but it was recommended to me by two different people and it's gotten good reviews on Newegg. Ontop of that, the only 8GB of Corsair is more then double the price of this at $280 instead of $130.

I would like you know what you mean about the CPU-Mobo combination though. Is there something wrong with mine? If it could only run 2 GB RAM, that would suck since one of the reasons I'm building this rig is to have 8 GB.

As far as the PSUs go, how do you check the how many amps are on each rail?

If that isn't enough, what about this PCP&C one?
 
They should be in the specs. Either that, or find the power input/output picture on newegg. It should have something like : Output: +12V X amps.

I reccomend the Corsair PSU Im gonna put in my rig. Its got a single +12V 60 amp rail, which is plenty for a GTX 260 SLi setup, although a bit lacking for a pair of GTX 280's.
 
Yeah, the one I linked to in my post has a single 60+ amp rail as well. guess I'll go with that, since it's $120 off right now.

I'm still wondering about my Mobo choice though. Can it take 8 GB of RAM?
 
Onionsoilder said:
Yeah, the one I linked to in my post has a single 60+ amp rail as well. guess I'll go with that, since it's $120 off right now.

I'm still wondering about my Mobo choice though. Can it take 8 GB of RAM?
Click to expand...

FYI, I think its been -120$ for a long time.
The specs for the mobo say itll take 8 gigs, so you should be fine.
 
Isn't 8 gigs of ram overkill for the other components? You might get a CPU/GPU bottleneck. Even with Vista, 2 gigs is enough for most users (especially relative to your other components), and 3 or 4 is plenty.
 
If you wanna save some money on the Case, get a Antec 1200. Its 20$ cheaper I think. For PSu, the Corsair 750TX is also 20$ cheaper.

You can also grab a 4GB set instead of an 8GB set for now. You can spend some of the saved money on a Phenom 9850 Black Edition instead.
 
stickciv said:
If you wanna save some money on the Case, get a Antec 1200. Its 20$ cheaper I think. For PSu, the Corsair 750TX is also 20$ cheaper.

You can also grab a 4GB set instead of an 8GB set for now. You can spend some of the saved money on a Phenom 9850 Black Edition instead.
Click to expand...

My points exactly.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

S
Build-in-Progress - Help me fill the gaps?
Replies
6
Views
3K
Civilwar20
Civilwar20
civvver
Post your pc specs
Replies
3
Views
1K
Maniacal
Maniacal
M
So, you wish to get a new PC for Civilization 5 and Beyond Earth
Replies
2
Views
3K
Aedn
A
M
Can I improve my config
Replies
4
Views
1K
Mat1
M
Patroklos
Upgrading Some of My PC Hardware, Need Some Help!
2
Replies
34
Views
5K
GoodGame
GoodGame
Back
Top Bottom