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First time builder, need verfication of hardware selection

S

Santasballz

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jan 10, 2005
Messages
366
Hi, i enjoyed the forum and hope i can get some help.
this is my first time building a computer so plz be patient with me.
i have selected the following hardware components to build a computer, please tell me what you think. I'd like to hear ALL OPINIONS on whether they are good or not. Price budget is around 2000 USD. oh, and PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE check for compatibility issues! plz! cause i dunno if they are compatible.


processor:
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=19-103-463&depa=0

mother board
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=13-131-510&depa=0

RAM:
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=20-145-503&depa=0

Video card:
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=14-121-188&depa=0

case:
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=11-112-075&depa=0

power supply:
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=17-103-495&depa=0

haven't decided other hardware componants yet.




If you think i can get a better deal or better products with the money (other than the ones i've chosen) PLEASE give your opinion! thx.




edit: plz check power supply. i know that a good PSU is like the most important thing ever in a system so i wanna make sure i got a good brand and good quality one. thx
 
Processor/mobo is fine, good choice there... However unless you use heavy 3D apps and things of that nature, 2GB of ram is over kill, for gaming anyway. I'd go for an eVGA or some other 6800GT card. I heard that the ASUS card is overclocked to some weird speed or something. That's a good PSU, however you could get a Antec Neopower which is a superb PSU too, and save a few bucks. The case is good, but more than I'd like to spend on a case.

What I would do is start out with a 1GB of pc-3200 and go with a less expensive case. The Antec and Coolermaster cases are excellent, provide superb cooling and cost a lot less. Switch the 6800GT to another card maker. With the money that you save from the less ram, and less expensive case you can get a really kick ass LCD. Probably 19 - 21" range.

My two cents, that's what I would do. My thoughts are... Just because I have the money to spend doesn't mean I need to.
 
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=14-170-057&depa=1

That 6800gt is the same thing, different company for like $100 less.

For other upgrade option check out my upgrade guide that's stickied in the video card section: http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=845296


Edit: oh yea, you don't need 2gigs of ram, get 2x512megs of some pc4000 or pc3500 or something.

Edit2: get a different power supply, check out the power supply forum stickies for suggestions. That pwoer supply you have on there is junk and is way underpowered amperage wise (wattage means jack).

~Adam
 
oh really? lol i always thought the bigger ram the better, but if 1 gig will do me fine i sure will be able to save a few hundred bucks.

so...if the computer is mainly used for gaming, 1 gig will do fine? i am looking for corsairs, are there any recommendations of 1 gig corsairs? (there are quite a few 1 gig corsairs on newegg so it gets confusing choosing)

i'll look into the PSU, thx
as for case, thx for suggestion but i am a dedicated lian li fan and will probably stick with it ^^


and arcane, plz do suggest an alternative if you think it's better. like i said, i've never selected hardware before and this is my first time so i really don't know much


edit: hmm unforunately neo power supply isn't available on newegg...darn

edit2: hmm...and the PSU i've chosen seem to be one of the "recommended" ones in the sticky :confused:
 
The neopower is right here, and in stock.
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=17-103-924&depa=0

Actually, I've read somewhere on the hardforums, 2GB of ram actually decreased performance in gaming. 1GB will do you fine, LianLi cases are awesome, sleek looking cases, just a little pricy for me.

As for ram, I recommend Crucial, Corsair, Kingston, Geil. However, Do you plan to overclock your machine. Ram will make or break an OC'ed machine.

Like CleanSlate said, watts means jack, it's the amps you need to worry about. I personally recommend the Neopower, I don't think you'll be disappointed at all.

What other hardware are you looking to add, hardrives, sound card, ect?
 
2GB of RAM won't hurt, and if there is a performance decrease, you probably won't know it. However, although I usually suggest that the more RAM the better, if you're looking to save some $$, downgrade to 1GB.
 
Buckus said:
2GB of RAM won't hurt, and if there is a performance decrease, you probably won't know it. However, although I usually suggest that the more RAM the better, if you're looking to save some $$, downgrade to 1GB.
Click to expand...

Oh of course more ram is better, it's always better. However if you're on a budget, 1GB will do just fine... esp for gaming.
 
alright, i think i'll stick with 1 gig ram if its ok since the machine will be used mainly for gaming. maybe a little graphic design, but guess 2 gig isn't neccessary. with the remaining cash i can get some more stuff.


as for ram, 1 gig corsair i am looking into. i am not planning to do any overclocking, and even if i do, it woud probably be for fun in a very short amoutn of time. so any recommendations on a 1 gig corsair ram? (just because i am not ocing, please don't think i want to save money on ram. since iam already down grading from 2 gig to 1 gig, i want to get the top 1 gig corsair rams)

also, thx for giving me the link for power supply, i guess i'll use that one instead of the enermax one ^^



now then...lets get to COOOOOOLING.
the processor comes with its own heat sink and fan i believe, but i want something more for better cooling:
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=35-118-115&depa=0

they were the biggest, most expensive and nicest looking heatsink and fan i could find on newegg. any suggestions? they any good? i am probably not going to go with water cooling so i wanna get really good cpu heatsink and fan.

in addition, is it neccessary to cool hard drives and rams? are those ram cooler and hard drive coolers any effective? i wanna get some because where i live is generally extremely hot in the summers so i wanna make sure my hard drive survives, but are they really effective?

thx
 
That's a nice heatsink, I personally would go for the thermalright XP-90 or even the XP-120, if you have the room.

As for ram, since you're not going to do any major overclocking, I would go with pure performance ram. So I recommend Crucial Ballistix. It's also a good overclocking ram too, but works wonders with default settings. It's highend ram like you want. It has heatspreaders so you don't need to worry about cooling them.

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=20-146-546&depa=1

As for a hard drive cooler, I don't think it's necessary, unless you're planning on having 4 - 5 HDD's, a good case with good airflow will do just fine.

As for fans, panaflo fans a good quiet fans that push a lot of CFM.

Anything else?
 
HD cooler ++++++++++

HD's are the hottest things in the computer generally because most have no AIR flow to them. (gg, edit, sorry I'm on some strong pain meds due to wisedom teeth surgery)

Ram is not too bad about it though... though for expensive ram on your budget... why not?

Edit: dont skimp on the sound card and sound systems.

~Adam
 
arnt the Xp-120s like really heavy? If its his first build he migth not wana risk that buling hs fan even tho it looks so bad ass.
 
arcanetripwire said:
That's a nice heatsink, I personally would go for the thermalright XP-90 or even the XP-120, if you have the room.

As for ram, since you're not going to do any major overclocking, I would go with pure performance ram. So I recommend Crucial Ballistix. It's also a good overclocking ram too, but works wonders with default settings. It's highend ram like you want. It has heatspreaders so you don't need to worry about cooling them.

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=20-146-546&depa=1

As for a hard drive cooler, I don't think it's necessary, unless you're planning on having 4 - 5 HDD's, a good case with good airflow will do just fine.

As for fans, panaflo fans a good quiet fans that push a lot of CFM.

Anything else?
Click to expand...



panfaflo? i thought the fan is included with the heatsink i've chosen?
 
For the processor get a winchester core, definitely DONT get 2GB of ram unless you plan to be using adobe alot..........
 
earthscore said:
For the processor get a winchester core, definitely DONT get 2GB of ram unless you plan to be using adobe alot..........
Click to expand...

Yea this is why I say this: you don't need over 1gig of ram unless you do video editing or use 3dsmax or some rendering software daily for work.

~Adam
 
robberbaron said:
The case will need a decent exhaust fan.
Click to expand...

Yea.. think of a computer case like a box of extremely hot air (like it is) without any air flow the components will die alot quicker (more heat = bad), you need at least one fan blowing into the case from either the front bottom or the left side of the case and then an exhaust fan either on the top of the case or on the back side of the case above the cpu preferably since heat rises. I'd say try for a case with a slot for an 80mm or 120mm fan on the top of the case, I think those work best for exhaust.

~Adam
 
alright, thx. looking good right now...

moving on the hard drive and sound card

for hard drive, i think 80 gig is plenty for the primary (i might get a second one just for storage) but for the primary one, i think the 10,000 rpms would be good? any suggestions on brand and specific models? thx

as for sound card...i WAS planning to go for a crappy one lol. even if i had the money, i was planning to go for a crappy one, i don't really give a shit about sound, as long as it can play average things. when i say "crappy", i mean the performance. the perfomrance iam looking at is average or even below average, but i still want the quality of the sound card to be TOP NOTCH (meaning long life). any suggestions?

thx!

p.s.: i just read something about hard drive, if i go for a 10000 rpm one, i think i'll need a hard drive cooler, any one have any recommendations? thx
 
CleanSlate said:
Yea.. think of a computer case like a box of extremely hot air (like it is) without any air flow the components will die alot quicker (more heat = bad), you need at least one fan blowing into the case from either the front bottom or the left side of the case and then an exhaust fan either on the top of the case or on the back side of the case above the cpu preferably since heat rises. I'd say try for a case with a slot for an 80mm or 120mm fan on the top of the case, I think those work best for exhaust.

~Adam
Click to expand...



i think the lian li case i've chosen has 2 120mm fans. the front one at bottom and the back one at top, that should be enough right?
 
10k rpm would be great for gaming and everything else, I'd suggest it.

Check hotdeals section for cheap 72k rpm storage drives.

For sound card, the problem isn't always sound quality, onboard sound and crappy sound cards cause excessive (5%+) of your cpu to be used while gaming/mp3s... which is just gay IMO. I hate to recommend a sound card because I've had two bad experiences with sound blaster's and I'm not a sound man, on the sound card forum read the stickies and if those dont help, post.

~Adam
 
Santasballz said:
i think the lian li case i've chosen has 2 120mm fans. the front one at bottom and the back one at top, that should be enough right?
Click to expand...

Even so, 200 is a lot for a case IMO, I wouldn't spend more than a $150 for a higher end case. And that's in an extreme case... maybe ~$100 because really a case is nothing more than a housing and I'm not into nice cases as much as many ppl. For ~$100 you should be able to find an equivolent case (airflow and features) minus the brand name. Just my opinion though.

~Adam
 
I would get an Audigy 2 Value. It's only $49.

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=29-102-179&depa=0

I just built my dad a new computer. It has an Athlon 64 3500+ with a MSI Neo2 Plat mobo. We went with the Audigy 2 Value sound card. Just for fun, we created a UT timedemo for benchmarking. We first tried the on board sound and then the Audigy 2. The Max FPS and the average were both pretty close to each other, but the minimum was drastically different. I can't remember the exact numbers, but the on board sound minimum FPS was in the high 30s and the Audigy 2 minimum FPS was in the high 60s. So, IMO the sound card is pretty important. Especially when you are building a high end machine.

I also wanted to add in addition to the list of quality memory companies above: Mushkin Memory.
 
don't get an audigy, get a turtlebeach santacruz, and you'll be plenty happy. No bloatware just a simple card and a driver and nothing else.
 
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