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First SFF Build...

C

CaptAwesome

n00b
Joined
Nov 13, 2006
Messages
10
Hey, I'm pretty new to the whole SFF scene and I'm really interested in building a SFF box. I'm on a pretty tight budget and I want to build a machine that can play mainly Source engine games with a decent framerate at my LCD's native res (1280x1024).

It's going to be as follows:

Aspire X-QPACK (Red or Silver)
C2D 6300
Thermaltake 430W OEM <-- is this enough?
Asus 512MB 7950GT
2x 1GB Corsair DDR2 5300 (pretty sure its value ram)
WD 320GB SATA hdd
LG burner (from previous box)

What I've yet to decide is the motherboard. I'm not too interested in OC'ing and from what I can tell from this board is that mATX isn't quite ready to push the C2D. So, that's not too much of an issue to me.

I'm deciding between these two boards:

ASRock Conroe945G-DVI
or
Asus P5V-VM-DH

I'm leaning towards teh Asus (inbuilt wifi, useful for other devices), but can anyone tell me any reason to choose the other? Remember, I'm on a tight budget and pretty much all the components of this box have been decided except the motherboard.

Any help is appreciated!
 
Good set up.

The MicroFly is a little easier to work with. I would check out some of the other SFF cases before you commit to the qpack which is kind of an out of date SFF which Apevia will be replacing soon (in theory).

Furthermore, If you only want to play source games then I would lower your graphics card a notch and get better RAM. 533 is not worth it. Also, get a better PSU. 430watts is fine but you can get a much better one for a good price. May I suggest the Silverstone short cabled PSU? PSU is everything in my opinion.

As for the mobo situation. I am looking into what C2D boards are coming out. If you can hold off a little then maybe wait for a good board...if not, the Asus board is fine.
 
Alright, so I've got it down to:

Aspire X-QPACK (Red or Silver)
C2D 6300
Asus 7950GT 512mb
2x 1GB OCZ DDR2 800 Gold XTX (au$50 more)
WD 320GB SATA hdd
LG burner (from previous box)

However, a relatively cheap PSU is hard to come by down here (Australia) all of which end up being $100+, I'm looking for something that'll run the system just fine. Are there any particular PSUs I should be looking to get, or avoiding altogether? What wattage should I be aiming for?

Any help is appreciated.
 
There are, but all 650W+ and way too expensive for my tastes.

I might go back to my original plan of ordering some parts from the US, since I have some relatives there who may be able to procure cheaper parts from NewEgg.

[edit]

http://www.asus.com.au/products.aspx?l1=3&l2=116&l3=0&model=1199&modelmenu=2

From what I can tell, this motherboard doesn't support DDR 2 667 or 800 RAM, so would it be worth it to buy RAM i can't take full advantage of?
 
Just to be sure, will a 430W Tt OEM psu be able to run all the stuff in there? Or will i need something more powerful?
 
It would be close. Do yourself a favor though and don't buy the Tt PSU. The PSU is the lifeblood and you don't want that thing failing.
 
Fair enough, I'll look into reworking my budget or perhaps extending it a bit more to get something a little better. Hopefully nothing too far over au$100

thanks for your input.
 
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