first comp

F

foster34

n00b
Joined
Mar 18, 2008
Messages
39
so i just got back from afghanistan and i got some money saved up and i wanna build myself a computer. its main use would be for mainly gaming but it would probably see some media use as well, maybe throw in a blu-ray player and hook it up to my tv. i may also do some overclocking for fun. ive done a little bit of research but everything is so much different than it was when my buddy built me a comp along time ago. i'm looking to build a computer that will last me for a couple of years with little to no upgrades. any and all advice would be warmly welcomed.

budget - would make me feel better if i kept it under 2500 but i'm not too worried about it. as long as it does its job great and lasts

heres what i've considered but doesnt have to be limited to this.

proc - q6600 or 8400 - wanted to go with the 8400 at first but leaning towards the quad core. which would better suit my needs? use to be an amd guy but looks like i'll have to wait for my next build

hsf - im not sure if i will need a aftermarket HSF or if stock cooling will be good for just a little bit of overclocking

mobo - GIGABYTE GA-EX38-DS4 - i went with this at first but i noticed noone really mentioned it around the forums when considering a build. not sure if its not up to par with the ga-p35-ds3l or ga-p35-ds3r. i dont want to limit myself to just gigabyte boards but ive seen them mentioned quite alot

Diamond Radeon HD 3870 X2 was on my first wish list but i read if ur not going above 1680x1050 (think thats it) u dont really need two video cards. not sure if this was true or it was limited to the posters budget im now looking at the nvidia side and at the EVGA 9800gx2 that just came out. the price tag doesnt really give me that much of a scare but i know it might be a waste.

before i picked out memory i've read that its supposed to be in a 1:1 ratio with ur cpu. now is this fsb or what? i guess i'd be shooting around 4gb
psu - CORSAIR CMPSU-620HX - hear its a very solid psu.

HDD - Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD6400AAKS 640GB - i know nothing about HDD. would this be slower than say getting a raptor for my OS and a bigger one for storage?

case - had trouble picking out out but went with COOLER MASTER RC-690-KKN1-GP Black SECC/ ABS ATX Mid Tower i want something kinda plain with decent airflow and the review sounded decent.

monitor - looking for something with a quick response time(2ms-3ms pref), 22"-24" and with a good picture. most of the reviews i read on these made them sound really bad. maybe one of you guys could suggest something

cdrom - LITE-ON Black SATA Blu-ray DVD-ROM

all this is just what looked good so none of the parts are set in stone. as i said i've been out for awhile and i dont really have a grasp on whats better than what and what goes with what and why. i only looked on newegg because u could make a wish list there but i wouldnt have a problem with ordering from somewhere else.

all in all im looking for something thats fast and can handle pretty much any game i choose to play.

thanks for tips and advice in advance
 
Off the top of my head the GeForce 8800GTS 512 would be plenty for a 1680x1050 resolution, and a good deal cheaper than the 3870X2.

As for the motherboard, were you planning on doing Crossfire? If not, go with a P35 board like the DFI Dark or EP35-DS3 series.

Power supply looks good and the case you picked is great, getting one myself.

Stay away from the Raptor as most of the newer 7200rpm drives are very close in performance and you'll get so much more space for the money.

Lastly for ram you can pick up these:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231122

$85 and free shipping at the moment.

As for overclocking, it's probably best to pick up and aftermarket HS now as some require back plates which means removing the motherboard. The ZEROtherm NV120 and Thermalright Ultra 120 are good ones.
 
Just a heads-up that the LiteOn drives can be loud. I have many older LiteOns (all PATA) and they're all still going strong, but they can indeed be loud when reading and writing.
 
I would go with the Q6600, because the e8400 is way overpriced right now. Plus going quad core right now can be useful for the future since you are looking to use this rig for awhile.

for hsf I like the zerotherm nirvana nv120 120mm cpu cooler. you can find it at newegg. people have been able to oc the q6600 to 3.6ghz with it :D

motherboard... if your getting a monitor under 1920x1200 then get a single card motherboard (22inches). if 1920x1200 or larger then you can get a crossfire or sli board (24inches). remember theres the 3870x2 and 9800gx2 so you don't necessarily have to get a crossfire board or sli board for gaming at large resolutions. also get one that has what you need like sata ports and etc.

if your going 1920x1200 or higher, i would go for the 9800gx2 although its in the $600 area but it does fit your budget. early benchmarks show at this resolution the 9800x2 really shines above the others. going with the 8800gts g92 or 9800gtx (depends if its worth it; no benchmarks yet i think) when it comes out will be fine if your going under 1920x1200 resolution.

if your going q6600 then ram at 800mhz are the ones to get. no need to get higher mhz because youll be ocing afterall.

if you go single card then the 620hx is a really good choice especially because its modular. you your going sli or crossfire consider getting the corsair 750tx or pc power and cooling 750w crossfire edition.

raptors are a real waste of money. your better off getting a harddrive with more space than a raptor with such little space. the new 7200rpm harddrives arent too slow either so it makes raptors really pointless nowadays.

case wise the cooler master 690 is good choice. look at the antec 180,180b,182 also. they are less noisy and is designed to keep things cool by making compartments for the power supply and such so that it wont heat up the whole rig.

monitor wise is really up to you. i have a 22 inch samsung 220wm that i bought on black friday for $216 with tax and absolutely love it.
 
Since everybody else covered the important parts -- specifically, the parts recommendations -- allow me to elaborate further on a few of your issues.

The issue with monitors is that all 22 inch monitors sold nowadays are made with TN panels. TN panels drive the overall price down and have great frame rates (which is good for gaming), but they have horrible color reproduction and virtually nonexistent viewing angles. (It may be enough for your needs, as well as for most people, but A LOT of people have treated them like garbage in the Displays forum.) A lot of the cheap 24 inch monitors also use TN panels.

With a 24 inch monitor (with its native resolution of 1920x1200), you may see a benefit by going with CrossFire (AMD/ATI only) or SLI (NVIDIA only) multi-card setup However, CrossFire/SLI is only useful if you buy the motherboard and all of the cards right away. (This total, for the motherboard, CPU, and video cards, could easily exceed $1000 on their own.) The GeForce 8800GTS (G92), the 8800GTX/Ultra, the 9800GTX/GX2, and the Radeon HD3870X2 are each capable of powering a 24 inch monitor and provide good frame rates for gaming.

X38 motherboards don't get mentioned very often (positively) from us because we feel that many people don't need them. The Intel X38 chipset offers CrossFire, PCI Express 2.0 support, support for DDR2 and/or DDR3 RAM, and many of the same features as the cheaper P35 chipset. However, most people don't use/need CrossFire; PCI Express 2.0 cards are currently backwards compatible with the PCI Express 1.0 (x16) slot (because there is no single card that uses the full bandwidth offered by PCIe 1.0); and DDR3 is very expensive (especially compared to the current prices of DDR2 RAM) for its meager (or rather, debatable) "performance gains." If you want a P35-based motherboad, choose from one of the following, based on which features you want:

Danny Bui said:
Abit IP35-E Intel P35 Motherboard - $90
Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3L Intel P35 Motherboard - $90
MSI P35 Neo2-FR Intel P35 Motherboard - $112
DFI BloodIron P35-T2RL Intel P35 Motherboard - $120
Gigabyte GA-EP35-DS3R Intel P35 Motherboard - $122
DFI LanParty DK P35-T2RS Intel P35 Motherboard - $140
Gigabyte GA-EP35-DS3P Intel P35 Motherboard - $151
Abit IP35 Pro Intel P35 Motherboard - $170
Gigabyte GA-EP35-DS4 Intel P35 Motherboard - $180

Just to help you out: If you don't need RAID, more than 4 SATA ports or legacy ports, then the IP35-E is a good choice. If you like the IP35-E but need legacy ports, check out the DS3L. If you need 5 SATA ports, 2 eSATA ports, and a second PCI-E x16 port, then get the Neo2-Fr. If you want heavy overclocking abilities and six SATA ports, check out the Blood Iron. If you like the BloodIron but want significantly better overclock stability, go for the LanParty. If you want 8 SATA ports, RAID, and legacy ports and high overclocks, than the DS3R is a good choice. If you want the DS3R but need Firewire and a second PCI-E x16 port, then go for the DS3P. If you want something that can overclock pretty damn high along with eSATA ports and firewire connections, than the IP35 Pro. Note that the IP35-Pro seems to have problems with the Wolfdales CPUs
Click to expand...

If you prefer peace and quiet, Samung makes quiet-running hard drives and optical drives. Take a look at the SH-S203B is you want a capable all-around DVD burner, or the SH-S203N if you want LightScribe (a feature, primarily developed by HP, for you to create labels on discs using the burner's laser). Even though Blu Ray has won the hi-def "war," I'd wait for prices to drop even lower (unless you have a very large Blu Ray collection already).
 
thanks for the quick input.

i dont really understand the crossfire or sli technology and i dont think i'll be gaming at anything higher than 1680x1050 so i'll probably just stick with one vid card.

is this one any good?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128083
what seperates it from the ds3l or ds3p? also theres another version - p35c-ds3p. what is this?

and on the blu-ray drive a review said it was pretty quiet, but im not too worried about it

the ram looked good and cheap which doesnt hurt at all

for monitors, what does GTG by the response time mean?


edit thanks for the mobo and and display input tiraides

how can i figure out with 22" have TN panels? im currently looking at this one

probably gunna go with the dfi lanparty that grimr mentioned earlier

also another thing just came up. if im going to hook my computer up to my tv and play blu-rays will i need a video card with hdmi out?
 
GTG is "Gray to Gray" response. It's a bit deceptive because it could take much longer to go from black to white.
 
IIRC, ALL 22" LCDs are TN panels.

For best video AND audio output to your TV, get an ATI card w/ HDMI.
 
enginurd said:
IIRC, ALL 22" LCDs are TN panels.

For best video AND audio output to your TV, get an ATI card w/ HDMI.
Click to expand...

...or you could just use DVI to HDMI with digital over RCA and AnyDVD HD to strip the HDCP crap from the stream and keep it full resolution and sound quality, no issues, with any video card. HDMI is such a non-feature -- does anyone actually care if they have to run two wires instead of one?.
 
ok. so if i go for a 24" will a 9800x2 be fine for 1920x1200? or should i go crossfire/sli and grab 2 8800gts or 3870x2? and if i did which would be better performance wise?

the 24" im looking at is BenQ G2400W Black 24" 5ms DVI HDMI Widescreen


thanks for all the input guys. i know i seem indecisive but i want to make sure im getting what i want

so things that im pretty sure about now..

COOLER MASTER RC-690-KKN1-GP Black SECC/ ABS ATX Mid Tower
q6600
Corsair 620HX
G.SKILL 4GB(2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800
Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD6400AAKS 640GB
LITE-ON Black SATA Blu-ray DVD-ROM

monitor mobo and video card/s are still up in the air

still trying to figure out what u just said silent. i use a dvi to hdmi adapter i guess and then im guessing AnyDVD is a program but where does the 2nd wire come from?

also, how much of an increase would i see over my horribly outdated setup

amd 3000+
6800gt
2gb pc3200
all i can remember

i'd imagine pretty huge but im not sure how much everything has progressed since way back then
 
The 9800GX2 is probably the least problematic of the options as it avoids a SLI motherboard but offers plenty of performance at 1920x1200. It's just slightly slower than a pair of 8800 GTS 512MBs, but not enough to matter. The 3870X2 is slower than the 8800 GTS 512MBs in SLI or the 9800GX2. The cost difference between a pair of 8800 GTS 512MBs and a SLI board to support them, and a single 9800GX2 and a non-SLI board is probably within $50. The 3870X2 is slow when compared with the Nvidia options.

Your new setup will destroy your old setup.

If you get the 9800GX2 you can ignore what I said, since you can just use HDMI. All I was describing was that there was a way to get BluRay and HD-DVD movies to play on your TV without a HDMI or HDCP compliant video card. If you end up with a card without HDMI support I will be glad to explain it further; just ignore it for now.
 
thanks alot silent. you've been a huge help so far.

and i totally forgot about an os. when i was in afghanistan i had to help some people with their new laptops and pretty much all of them had vista. idk if it was cuz they couldnt update but alot of them had problems i've never seen before with xp. also it took me awhile to figure out how to get around in vista and im still not too comfortable with it as i didnt have alot of time with it. will vista have an advantage over xp with a quad core or is that totally application dependent? if i stayed with xp would i be missing out on some performance?
 
You don't have DX10 support with XP, and you never will. Given you're spending $600+ on a DX10 capable card... I'd pick up Vista. It works very well on modern hardware.

Vista Home Premium 64bit OEM is what you're after.
 
makes that decision easy ;) im guessing its the $99.99 one off newegg?

ok so what i've gone with...

COOLER MASTER RC-690-KKN1-GP Black SECC/ ABS ATX Mid Tower Computer Case - Retail $79.99
BenQ G2400W Black 24" 5ms DVI HDMI Widescreen LCD Monitor - Retail $399.99
Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Kentsfield 2.4GHz LGA 775 Quad-Core Processor Model BX80562Q6600 - Retail $254.99
DFI LANPARTY DK P35-T2RS LGA 775 Intel P35 ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail $139.99
EVGA 01G-P3-N891-AR GeForce 9800 GX2 1GB (512MB per GPU) 512-bit (256-bit per GPU) GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 $OUCH
G.SKILL 4GB(2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory $84.99
CORSAIR CMPSU-620HX ATX12V v2.2 and EPS12V 2.91 620W Power Supply - Retail $169.99
LITE-ON Black SATA Blu-ray DVD-ROM Drive Model DH-4O1S-08 - Retail $149.99
Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD5000AAKS 500GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM $99.99


Microsoft Windows Vista 64-Bit Home Premium for System Builders Single Pack DVD - OEM $99.99

total $2085.89
 
$100 shipped for the RC-690 is insane. That was a great choice at $20 AR, but it's a ripoff at that price.

Pick this up instead. Far higher quality case, too.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811112099

Everything else looks solid, though I'd personally hold off on the BluRay drive and pick up a $30ish Samsung SATA DVDRW drive instead for now. The BluRay drives should get cheaper.

There's a kit of Patriot Extreme Performance DDR2-800 for like $94 shipped, $60-something AR at ClubIT if you want to save a few dollars there. Could combine it with the Q6600 order (and anything else on the list you can get cheaper over there) to save some cash off.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top