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First Time Computer Builder (Also, Hello)

Windows 7 Pro

While technically it is an upgrade, it is a valid license for Windows 7 pro. All you need to do is install the OS and not input the license key. Then you reinstall the OS and select upgrade. When it asks for the key input it now and it will activate. Technically this is cheating and not kosher, but it does work.

Edit....It looks like you already found your OS. I also missed the second page of this thread.
 
OrangeWolf said:
Well crap -- I just tried to order and it looks like the combo is different or expired or something. I don't see Civ5 included anymore, crap. I figured it meant through the 31st, not at the stroke of midnight as 30th turned into 31st.
Click to expand...
Actually that's not the reason: The i5-2500K is no longer being sold at Newegg or any Sandy Bridge CPU for that matter. That's due to the today's news of the Intel chipset design error:
http://hardocp.com/news/2011/01/31/intel_chipset_design_error_discussion

So in other words, I'd hold off for another week or two as we all figure what to do next in light of today's news.
OrangeWolf said:
Edit: Was looking at the LE version of the Pro mobo I was already planning to buy. It looks pretty similar on paper -- but it says it has USB 3.0 x2 and USB 2.0 x6, but then on the onboard USB list it says 8 USB 2.0 -- so I think I don't quite understand what's up there. Not sure of the real world disadvantage to the slightly cheaper option either -- though reviews do say it's more difficult to overclock properly for some reason.
Click to expand...

Six USB 2.0 ports on the rear panel of the motherbord + two internal USB 2.0 headers = 8 USB 2.0 ports.
 
Well damnit, now I don't know what to do. I was hoping that the AMD competition for this chip was fairly close in performance but it doesn't look like it is. Thanks for the heads up Danny -- looks like I dodged a bullet. Oh, and the Mobo info is good stuff -- thanks, I know to look out for that now. Maybe there will be some Feb. deals on Newegg I can take advantage of and just go with a cheaper PC I can plan on upgrading sooner rather than later.
 
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Wait a week. NewEgg hasn't released all of its February combo deals yet.
 
*Bumpage* I had hoped to have my Sandy Bridge build up and running at this point, but since I haven't managed that due to the chipset issue, here I am.

Do we have any idea when either (1) I will be able to purchase Sandy Bridge again or (2) when Bulldozer will be available? I've seen everything from late-Feb to May as estimates for when I can buy a 2500k -- and those are very far apart in my specific situation. I can wait til March, but April onwards I should buy now.

However I'm unwilling to purchase something that is the same cost as the 2500k would be -- I.e. an i5 760 or thereabouts -- so I was looking at this deal (AMD 1090T for $199 with free Mobo) only to realize belatedly that it's in-store pick-up only. Damnit.

$239 -- Phenom II x4 965 + Asus Mobo combo

This is about $140 cheaper than the 2500k combo I was looking at, so I don't mind too much stepping down for much less in cash if it means I can buy now.

But are there any other better deals out that people have found? The last post indicated that most of what is going to be available this month should be listed by now, I think? I want a Mobo with SATA 6Gb/s and USB 3.0 preferably but if I upgrade in 2 years then I don't see that as really an issue honestly (original plan had been to keep the CPU/Mobo much longer) so it isn't a requirement. I do not intend to overclock at this point if that matters.

Other parts will remain the same as listed earlier in this thread for the most part -- HAF 912, Spinpoint F3, Radeon 6850, 4 or 8 gigs RAM, & 650-750W Corsair PSU. Given that I'm going with a cheaper processor I might just get 4 gigs RAM and plan on porting the CPU/Mobo/RAM to a build for my parents in 1-2 years, but keeping all the other parts for my own future builds.

Ideally I'd go with my original plan and get a 2500k, but unless someone thinks that it (or Bulldozer) will be available before April 1st I'm not going to wait.

I feel pretty bad with how I keep bumping this time and time again for my n00bness, but this forum has been pretty amazingly helpful. I'll have to donate or something. *thumbs up*

Edit: Would that x4 965 be good to go out of the box, or is there a hidden cost in that I'd have to buy an extra CPU cooler? I know for the 2500k without OC folks said I'd be good with what it came with.
 
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OrangeWolf said:
Do we have any idea when either (1) I will be able to purchase Sandy Bridge again or (2) when Bulldozer will be available? I've seen everything from late-Feb to May as estimates for when I can buy a 2500k -- and those are very far apart in my specific situation. I can wait til March, but April onwards I should buy now.
Click to expand...

1) Technically you can still buy the CPU from Amazon.com proper. However the key problem is actually finding a LGA 1555 motherboard from a reputable seller with the same socket LGA 1555 replacement plan as Newegg, Amazon, Microcenter, Fry's, Tigerdirect, etc. The Sandy Bridge CPUs will still cost the same as they are now in April so yeah

However the updated/fixed motherboards won't be hitting the market till late March at the earliest.

2) All I've seen is Q3 2011.

OrangeWolf said:
But are there any other better deals out that people have found?
Click to expand...

A cursory look says no.

OrangeWolf said:
Edit: Would that x4 965 be good to go out of the box, or is there a hidden cost in that I'd have to buy an extra CPU cooler? I know for the 2500k without OC folks said I'd be good with what it came with.[/I]
Click to expand...

For stock clocks, the Phenom 965 is good to go out of the box.
 
Ok, buying today/tonight assuming all goes well. I can't wait until May+ for fixed SB Mobos or Bulldozer, so I've changed my plans almost entirely. Instead of trying to buy a CPU/Mobo that I can use for 5 years while only upgrading a few parts here and there (like the GPU) I'm just going to back down all the way and build a computer that I intend to give my parents in 1-2 years. I still want quality parts but this also means I won't need the upgrade potential that I wanted beforehand.

It's unlikely that I will be overclocking, so if I should pick something other than the x4 965 I'm open to suggestions. Budget this time is around $750 or less -- I'm not willing to take a performance hit from Sandy Bridge unless I'm getting a nice bit of savings as well.

Proposed build:

$239 -- Phenom II x4 965 & Mobo Combo
$180 -- Gigabyte Radeon 6850
$47 -- G.Skill Ripjaws 4GB 1333 DDR3 RAM
$65 -- Samsung Spinpoint F3 1TB
$90 -- Corsair 650W PSU
$60 -- HAF 912 case
$23 -- DVD Burner

Total: $704 +shipping

I have a Dell U2211h monitor (1920x1080) and I will be picking up some new speakers, a keyboard, a mousepad, etc. as peripherals but those aren't part of the "build" so to speak, not including in the price. I'm thinking around $20 for speakers, $20 for a keyboard (I found some scissor-switch ones by Rosewill that look decent), and a cheap but high quality mousepad to round this out to $750 or so.

From what everyone has said there isn't much need for >4GB of RAM at the moment, right? Also that RAM says it is optimized for Intel processors, whatever that means, but it will still work in this set-up won't it?

I also want to make sure that this is not just an upgrade but a significant upgrade for my parents from what they currently have. Their current computer, a Dell purchased mid-2007, has an Athlon 64 x2 4000+, 2GB DDR2 RAM, and a 256MB ATI Radeon X1300 Pro. They mostly use it for internet browsing and Microsoft Office but dad would like to branch into some minor video editing and mom teaches online classes. I think they would want a modem for dial-up -- how do I go about adding one of those?

Also hope that this build will be somewhat quiet. That would be great.

As usual open to any suggestions. I think I've learned a ton so far from all the questions I've gotten answered here, but I still don't know WTF I'm doing compared to you all. I'm happy to make a few minor upgrades for the sake of quality/performance if warranted but I'd like to try to keep it to $750 or so not including shipping or peripherals.

Thanks folks.
 
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4Gb is the Minimum I would go & that ram will work on intel or amd just like any other ram. Just make sure you get ram the is 1.5V. This new build is rip through that junk dell
 
Yeah I made sure to get RAM at 1.5V -- Danny pointed that out earlier in this thread and I made a note of it in the word document I started to keep track of all the awesome info I've learned from reading around these forums.

Thanks for the reminder! And I'm glad to know it's gonna rip through the old one, hah, now if only my parents could get cable or DSL where they live...
 
Thanks for the link on saving a few bucks with the drive, but I neglected to mention that I was going for one with LightScribe so long as it's only a couple of dollars more. Good link though!

On a slightly different note -- if I buy this Rosewill Modem that will allow the computer to connect using dial-up internet, yes? It apparently connects via PCI, which I think I have an extra Mobo spot for this, and as far as I can tell it would work but I don't know if there are fax specific ones or something. Edit: Or maybe not -- I only see one PCI slot listed on the Mobo info and that one is the one for the Graphics I think, so now I'm confused again.
 
OrangeWolf said:
On a slightly different note -- if I buy this Rosewill Modem that will allow the computer to connect using dial-up internet, yes? It apparently connects via PCI, which I think I have an extra Mobo spot for this, and as far as I can tell it would work but I don't know if there are fax specific ones or something. Edit: Or maybe not -- I only see one PCI slot listed on the Mobo info and that one is the one for the Graphics I think, so now I'm confused again.
Click to expand...

Ok, that card you chose is PCI. That mobo has three PCI slots (the light blue ones). The PCI slot is not used for graphics nowadays. You're thinking of PCI-E for graphics. That PCI modem card will work in any PCI slot on that mobo.
 
So far so good?!

It took me around 4 hours to figure out how to put all the pieces together but I think I finally got most of the things hooked into other things and screwed down. It turned on (once I figured out that it wasn't working b/c I was pushing some button other than the one to turn it ON) and I'm installing Windows while I play around here with my Mac.

I still have a sense of foreboding though. I keep expecting something to be wrong and I'll have to open up the case again to fix it. I took a few pictures!


Here we have the parts!
IMG_4537.jpg



Yeah, yeah -- I probably did a super crappy job of cable management. But believe me this looks a lot better than it did before I went back and put some effort into it.
IMG_4541-1.jpg



This concerned me slightly when I was looking confusedly at the BIOS before popping in my Windows CD -- it looks like it says some of the fans aren't on? And the CPU is, well, I think it's hot, but I'm not sure what it is supposed to be. I think 44C is good? Or not so much?
IMG_4543.jpg



Here's to hoping! Any tips or anything I might need to know at this point? How do I make sure that everything got installed correctly? I assume my next step after Windows is to update the drivers for all my hardware. How do I make sure I used the right slots for RAM? Or that my graphics card is working as well as it can, and so on? Are there any software things everyone must install in a custom build to monitor heat or whatever else?

Sorry, I know it's a lot of questions. Is there a link somewhere around here that's reputable I can check out? Thanks!
​
 
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Take a look at the motherboard manual, it will tell you which MEM slots to use first.

Plug your monitor into your Video card port (not the one that comes w/ motherboard), and install the drivers after windows install
 
I read the motherboard manual about the RAM -- actually I read it 6 times -- but finally just put the 2 DIMMs I had in the two blue slots. I swear I tried to figure out what the manual meant and even google'd channels and found something saying to put at least one stick in each channel but then something else said to put them in A1 and B1 which were sharing a channel and in the end I decided I just was stupid.

Thanks on the video card -- I had been doing something wrong with that one (checking it while installing drivers, so I'm really an idiot there)

Edit: Yay posting from new computer!
 
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OrangeWolf said:
This concerned me slightly when I was looking confusedly at the BIOS before popping in my Windows CD -- it looks like it says some of the fans aren't on?
Click to expand...
Yeah don't worry about that: It's only referring to any fan that's directly connected to the motherboard. Since the CPU fan speed is being reported, you're fine.

OrangeWolf said:
And the CPU is, well, I think it's hot, but I'm not sure what it is supposed to be. I think 44C is good?
Click to expand...
With the stock HSF, that's an ok temp.

OrangeWolf said:
Are there any software things everyone must install in a custom build to monitor heat or whatever else?
Click to expand...
SpeedFan works for me. Also use CPU-Z and GPU-Z for normal hardware information finding.
OrangeWolf said:
Sorry, I know it's a lot of questions. Is there a link somewhere around here that's reputable I can check out? Thanks!
Click to expand...
Look through the stickied General Hardware FAQ for all sorts of guides on how to setup and build a PC correctly.
 
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