First gaming rig

E

Eseipel

Limp Gawd
Joined
Mar 8, 2007
Messages
165
I have been browsing this forum for the past week or so, browsed the FAQ's, and read up on the general way systems work, and thought I would give it a go. I've had some help from a tech savvy friend, and I will have outside help for putting it together, if said help is necessary. Anyway, I was wondering if I would have any problems with this current setup, considering I would be using it mostly for gaming and / or multimedia. I will also be using Windows XP and upgrading to Vista probably around the new year.

Case: Ultra Wizard Black Mid Tower Case http://shop1.outpost.com/product/5124886

Motherboard: GIGABYTE GA-965P-DS3 LGA 775 Intel P965 Express ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16813128012

Video Card: PNY VCG88GTS32XPB GeForce 8800GTS 320MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16 HDCP Video Card - Retail http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16814133193

PSU: Antec SmartPower 2.0 SP-500 ATX12V 500W Power Supply - Retail http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16817103937

CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E6400 Conroe 2.13GHz LGA 775 Processor Model BX80557E6400 - Retail http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16819115004

RAM: Patriot eXtreme Performance 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16820220144

DVD Burner: NEC 18X DVD±R DVD Burner With 12X DVD-RAM Write Black E-IDE / ATAPI Model 7170A-0B - OEM http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16827152076

HDD: Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 (Perpendicular Recording) ST3320620A 320GB 7200 RPM IDE Ultra ATA100 Hard Drive - OEM http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16822148139

When looking at the motherboard it had a notice on it that said: " Notice: Only DDR2-800 memory supporting JEDEC approved 1.8V operation with timings of 5-5-5 or 6-6-6 is supported on Intel Desktop Boards based on Intel 965 Express Chipsets." I did, however read in another thread that this had been taken care of. The current RAM I have listed is 2.2V and a 4-4-4-12 timing. Will I have any trouble with this?

Also I am not really planning on overclocking this, is this motherboard about the best I can get for my buck if i'm going for a dual core gaming system?

I appreciate any help or review you can give me on this.
 
I don't know much about that particular board but that chipset is pretty good. I have a couple intel boards at work that are running the 965 and they were pretty much plug and play (not that the chipset is everything but it is less problematic than any of the Nvidia stuff right now). If you're not OCing then it's probably a good board since it has lots of good features and since you're not too concerned about Bios options.

That said, for that price you could likely get an Intel brand board for similar money and know it's going to be super reliable. One downside of that chipset though is it's not very friendly with Linux apparently. I don't know if it's all Linux or just Ubuntu but I tried to install it on ours and it won't happen. Something to do with the way these boards identify the IDE optical drives that it forgets how to read it part way through install.

As far as the NEC optical drive goes, I bought one of those for a friend and have so far not been able to make it burn anything. It will read just fine but it will not burn at all. I don't know if it's a driver issue or what but it appears to be an Optiarc drive badged as NEC and I can't find any documentation or driver software for it. I have heard it's a good drive and it's def the right price but that's just one experience and this is in an older Dell too... so maybe not worth worrying about. I would say go for something retail as far as a DVD/CD drive goes though just so you know you'll have the driver disc and the manual with it.

sorry for the long post, just my $.03....
 
I'm not sure what no7fish is talking about, the DS3 is considered one of the best boards for overclocking.
 
Thanks for the feedback on the optical, I changed it to a

SONY Black 16X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 8X DVD+R DL 16X DVD-R 6X DVD-RW 5X DVD-RAM 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-R 24X CD-RW 40X CD-ROM IDE DVD Burner - Retail http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16827131039

Because I will probably be doing quite a bit of burning to save on my HD space and external viewing, I'd like a good one. My main problem is I'm on a limited budget, so if it saves me 50 bucks to spend an extra couple minutes to burn a dvd, that's alright by me.

As far as the overclocking, is this board a bit much for my generic needs if I don't plan to do much to it?
 
Whether you want to OC or not, the DS3 is a great board.

If a DVD burner can't burn, then it either needs a Firmware update, or an RMA, assuming you have all the controller drivers installed and have the settings right (DMA, etc). With that said, I'd recommend going with a SATA DVD Burner, like the Samsung or Lite-On (in stock at zzf).

For the price of that Antec SP2.0 500W, I'd suggest goin for the Sunbeam NUUO 550W (review) instead, or an Enhance 5150G 500W. While I do have 2 of those antecs, I only paid $15 each for them, lol. They're great, but the other two I listed are of much better quality. If you want even better quality, go for the Corsair 520W from buy.com or zzf.

You'll be fine with that ram on the DS3. Those are just specs, but most systems can support faster timings and more voltage. The DS3 will definately be able to give you more vDIMM.

You have such nice components in such a budget-oriented case! Why not go for a Coolermaster Centurion 534 at least? its only $30 at svc.com, and its a much better case than the Ultra FAR.

Everything else looks good. You might want to re-visit the overclocking thing again, though, because these chips have so much headroom, and are sooo easy to overclock without sacrificing any stability. If you really don't ever plan on OC'ing, you could drop to a cheaper board, and cheaper ram. Though, I'd suggest sticking with your current choices, just to keep the option open.

http://anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2802

also, you might need this: http://www.mechbgon.com/build/index.html
 
taylorwilsdon said:
I'm not sure what no7fish is talking about, the DS3 is considered one of the best boards for overclocking.
Click to expand...

Did you bother to read the OP? Hes not planning on OCing and he was asking abouth the fitness of DS3 for a non-OCer running it stock out of the box, which no7fish commented on.

Unfortunately I don't have any experience with it to comment on its fitness for that purpose.

As for the rest I think they look good. I think you'll be very happy with that setup.
 
Gnu314 said:
Did you bother to read the OP? Hes not planning on OCing and he was asking abouth the fitness of DS3 for a non-OCer running it stock out of the box, which no7fish commented on.
Click to expand...
Generally speaking, if a board is good at OC'ing, it would be good at stock settings, too. Most of everything can run at stock... its the extra quality that enables it to be pushed past its stock settings. So, if a board is one of the best overclocking boards around, meaning its stable at overclocked speeds, it would be safe to assume its stable at stock speeds as well. While there may be exceptions to this, I am unaware of any.
 
Sorry if I came across wrong. I didn't mean that the board was not good for OCing, just that I didn't know if it was. I was stating that since he isn't interested in it then he doesn't need to be concerned with the Bios options, which I don't know anything about on that board, and that it has good physical features...

Oh, and thanks on the drive issue.
 
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