My First Build

G

Gobstopper

n00b
Joined
May 15, 2008
Messages
47
Hey everyone. This will be my first build so I've been doing as much research I can to make up for my lack of experience. I'm not going to do the actual building, that will be taken care of by a friend of mine who works for a small custom pc company, but I'd like your opinions on the components I've chosen. Basically I'm looking for feedback on the quality of the parts and their compatibility with each other.

What this build will be used for
Since my current pc is 3 years old, I'll be using this new build to play games that I've been missing out on. I'll also use it to watch movies and the usual internet browsing and word processing. I don't plan on doing any media editing on it.

Notable games I plan on playing are: Supreme Commander, CoD 4, Crysis, and the soon to be released Mass Effect. I plan on gaming at 1280x1024 or 1680x1050 if possible.

Build Details
Monitor: Samsung 2493HM 24" LCD
Motherboard: Asus P5N-D LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 750i
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 Wolfdale 3.0GHz LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Processor
Video Card: 8800 GTS 512MB (Not sure which one yet)
Sound Card: None (Anyone know about the quality of the 750i onboard sound?)
Ram: Crucial Ballistix Tracer 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR2 800 (Mixed reviews about this one)
Hard Drive: Western Digital Caviar SE 500GB 7200 RPM SATA
Optical Drive: ASUS Black 20X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 8X etc...
PSU: Not determined yet. Any suggestions?
OS: Windows Vista Home Premium (Can't decide whether to go with 32-bit or 64-bit)
Case: Coolermaster Cosmos S (It's a little big, so I'm open to other case suggestions. Main reason for choosing this is I'll be shipping this across the US in August and I liked how sturdy this case felt at Fry's. I also hear it has good airflow)

Budget
With the deals my friend is getting me from his company, the above build was quoted at $2100 USD including everything (even the monitor). I'd like to keep it around that price with a max of around $2300.

Overclock
I'm thinking about overclocking this so I'll be buying better fans for extra cooling. I'm also thinking about getting the ZALMAN 9500A 92mm 2 Ball CPU Cooler if I do decide to overclock. Strictly sticking to air cooling for this build.

There you go. Don't hesitate to suggest alternatives to anything I've posted. Also, how is the life on the components I've chosen? I know the graphics card isn't high-end, but I don't want to spend too much money since the next generation of nvidia gpus are apparently nearing release. With that said, would this build be easily upgradeable in terms of the gpu? (ie. Would I be able to buy a next gen nvidia card and use it with this system without the other components giving me a bottleneck or compatibility issues?).
 
Asus P5N-D LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 750i - I'm not a big fan of Nvidia chipsets. If you're not going SLI then I'd stick with P35/X38/X48 mobos. P45 mobos coming out in June as well if you can wait a little bit.

8800 GTS 512MB - Radeon HD4870/4850 and GTX280/260 coming out mid June so I would hold off till then. All of them look as if they will crush the G92 8800GTS.

RAM - Just get whatever cheapest DDR2 you can get a hold of.

Western Digital Caviar SE 500GB 7200 RPM SATA - Slow and outdated. Get the Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD6400AAKS 640GB instead. It's faster, quieter, and sucks down less power as well.

ASUS Black 20X DVD+R - Samsung SH-S203B is your friend. Review here. Just about the most popular drive at cdfreaks.com and for good reason.

PSU - I like the Enermax Modu82+ 625W (review).

HSF - That Zalman 9500A is a pretty poor (and loud) HSF compared to what you can get these days. Get the Noctua NH-U12P (review) if you want low noise/high performance cooling. Or go with one of the new direct touch heatpipe solutions if you want even better cooling.

OS - 64bit so you can address all 4GB of RAM and any additional sticks you may add in the future.
 
I concur with Toaster Oven.

However, I recommend getting this PSU instead:
Corsair 750TX 750W PSU - $99

And yes it'll be easy for you to upgrade your graphics card to one of the newer ones without any problem.
 
Ah, thanks for the suggestions. Yeah, I was thinking about just waiting til June instead of getting the 8800 now and then upgrading. The only thing is, the MSRP for the GTX280 will probably be around $600 right? That might put me over my budget unless I cut corners elsewhere; like the case, but I don't know what I would substitute for the Cosmos S.

Also, what's the estimated price range for a mid-range P45 motherboard?
 
Gobstopper said:
Ah, thanks for the suggestions. Yeah, I was thinking about just waiting til June instead of getting the 8800 now and then upgrading. The only thing is, the MSRP for the GTX280 will probably be around $600 right? That might put me over my budget unless I cut corners elsewhere; like the case, but I don't know what I would substitute for the Cosmos S.

Also, what's the estimated price range for a mid-range P45 motherboard?
Click to expand...

Judging from last year's P35 chipset launch, around $170 to $200 IIRC. After two months or so they'll drop down to more reasonable prices. Just a guess though.
 
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