I am planning to buy the motherboard below but I do not understand one thing in the specs. What does DDR2 1200(O.C.)/1066 in the memory standard? What exactly would I have to O.C. to use DDR2 1200 RAM. I plan to overclock but this is first time ever building a PC, so my knowledge of overclocking is not that good. Thanks http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128379
If this is your first time building I would suggest you don't OC. Enter 1 thign incorrectly and you could ruin your whole system. Anyway what "DDR2 1200(O.C.)/1066" means is that the motherboard supports DDR2 memory up to 1066 speed out of the box/stock. It can unnoffically support 1200 speed but you will need to overclock in order to do this. I would recommend just buying 2Gb worth of DDR2 800 if your running XP or buying 4Gb of DDR2800 and installing Vista 64 Bit. In everday use you will probably never see the speed difference between 800 and 1066 speed. http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Products...ard&ProductID=2995&ProductName=GA-MA78GM-US2H Is the link for that motherboard and it says it does support DDR2800.
i wouldnt' recommend OC'ing a brand new chip. after you build your machine, run some of those diagnostic aps like Sandra Benchmark, run some CPU intense apps for a while just to break in your CPU. then start overclocking in SMALL increments.
Thanks for all your advice. I have been planning this build for a couple months now and I think I know all the components I plan to buy. If you would like to, please look at my build below and give me recomendations. I plan on using this for minor gaming. Thanks. http://secure.newegg.com/WishList/PublicWishDetail.aspx?WishListNumber=10466506 I already have a hard drive and disk drive.
The parts you chose aren't bad, but if $367 is your budget price you wuold be better off dumping the AMD processor and getting a Intel Core 2 Duo. A 2.5 Ghz Core 2 Duo can be had for $70, $33 less than the AMD. It will be faster out of the box than the 3.1 AMD and is EASILY overclockable to 3.3-3.5Ghz w/ the stock cooler. Also there is no real need to get a Artic Silver 5 thermal paste, sure its good but unless your pushing your CPU to the limits all the time it won't matter if you use the Silver 5 or the stuff thats already on your processor. I'm a bit busy now but if I get time later on I will post a quick spec change.
If you could hold off on building a new PC and somehow come up with another $140 you could have a dual core 3.2Ghz Core 2 Duo, a nForce 750i motherboard, a 750 watt PSU, and a eVGA 9600GT or 8800GT videocard, and 2 GB of RAM. And to put it in laymans terms even though the AMD has a higher Ghz than the Intel chip the "slower" Intel chip can get more work done in less time than the AMD can therefore making it faster. Its hard to explain but ask anybody thats serious about PC's and they will tell you that right now the only way to go is Intel Core 2 Duo! When I get back tonight I will post what I would consider a good "gaming" pc.
I am looking to build the cheapest build. Maybe I could jut buy the cheapest Core 2 Duo, or could you recommend one to buy. The cheapest one will probably do fine for me but is there one that really stands out? Thanks for taking your time to help me.
I'll spec out the cheapest machine I would recommend to anyone interested in as you say it "minor gaming". By minor I assume you mean you will play games like Left 4 Dead, Call of Duty 4, etc. just not very often. Which is good to know because why pay $$$$ for a videocard to play the games when a $$ videocard will do just as well for minor gaming. Do you have a monitor already? If so how wide is it? 15in? 19 in? 22in? something else? Alright here is what I would consider a "baseline" build. This is more expensive than your build and for some of the parts I chose there were cheaper options but let me explain why I chose what I did. PSU= 7 Year Warranty, it breaks they mail you a new replacement. Plus it has enough power you will never need to worry about power or having to upgrade your PSU again. Mobo= You wanted to overclock. The model I chose is very friendly for he beginning overclock as well as the advance overclocker. Plus it has a FULL lifetime warranty. Board ever breaks, hit by lightning, anything; the company will mail you a new replacement. RAM= Corsair offers great RAM that can be easily overclocked. And as with any good RAM company the warranty it for life. CPU= It is the cheapest Core 2 Duo @ $120, but you want to overclock read some of these reviews: Videocards: Same thing, Good power at a low price with a lifetime warranty. The way I see it if anything on this PC breaks within 7 years you'll get a free replacement. And everything except the PSU is warrantied for life so free replacements forever. Now yes you are spending more now, but personally I wuold rather spend a bit more now for quality parts then buy cheaper lower quality parts. Have the cheaper parts break in 3-4 years and have to rebuild the PC again. With the cheaper PC your spending less money now but if anything breaks after the 1st year your going to end up paying for new parts again. With the parts/pc I picked out you won't have to worry about having to buy replacement parts EVER because nearly everything is covered by a lifetime warranty. I didn't include a case because those are a very personal choice and I don't know about your taste in cases. Maybe you already had one, idk. Anyway here are all of my chosen parts: PSU Motherboard Processor Videocard Memory/RAM Total is $505, then you have $60 in rebates so in the end to build this PC you would have spent $445. About $70 more than your build but you get higher end parts many with lifetime warranties, and a actual videocard which is a must for any type of PC gaming. A motherboards built in graphics just don't cut it.
Thanks a lot. You have been a great help. I decided to use some of the brands you suggested but lower models of them. I would like the my build to be the cheapest possible. Keeping that lifetime warranty in mind was very smart. I would like a lifetime warranty for my motherboard but I need one with IDE connectors for my hard drive and disk drive. I do not see any EVGA motherboards with that. Do you know any other brand that offers quality lifetime warrantied motherboards? I also already have a graphics card. It is a GeForce 8500 but it will play all my games well.
I take it since you already have the 8500 video card that you have a powersupply that can run it as well? If thats the case you can eliminate the PSU and Videocard from the list. Which knocks nearly $200 off the price. With the money saved why not then get a newer SATA hard drive? They are much faster then IDE drives and IDE Hard Drives are all but obsolete. I would recomend going with this HD... http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136319 Its a Western Digital 640GB Sata drive for $75. You will get much faster read/write/load times with a SATA Drive. You could always put your old IDE Drive in a external enclosure and use it as external storage or as a backup drive. So from the parts I posted. If you get the motherboard, cpu, and ram; along with the above posted hard drive you get a total of $378 shipped. Then you get some $$ back in rebates. Plus since this is a nForce chipset based board you always have the option of going SLI. Also as far as I know eVGA is the only company that backs there motherboards with a lifetime warranty. But they only do so for certain models, the ones that end in A1. The model # for the board I picked out is: EVGA 123-YW-E175-A1 so this one will have a lifetime warranty, others may not.
The 8500 is actually a PCI card I added into my old Dell Dimension 2400. So I can not take the PSU out of that. I would really like to keep my disk drive and hard drive because it is good enough for me. I think my list is completed, unless you have any other suggestions.
Yeah if the machine is a dell you can't use that powersupply. And if the 8500 is a PCI card it probably doesn't use a PCI-E power plug. If you want more IDE connectors you can get a cheap $10 that plugs into PCI that adds 1-2 IDE connectors.
lol, I didn't realize you had changed the items in the "Newegg Wishlist" that you posted. What you posted does look like a solid build. I will say again though that even though the Gigabyte board is $20 cheaper (after rebate) if it breaks after that first year of warranty coverage your going to have to pay out another $100 for a new mobo. I really recommend getting the eVGA board and its lifetime warranty.
Gigabyte boards are a lot better quality than EVGA boards and it is a good thing that EVGA has lifetime warranty. But I prefer Gigabyte. Peace.
@Gera Had bad luck with eVGA or something? They make top quality boards, they offer the same warranty for there videocards. If you look at there feedback they've won multiple customer awards and have good feedback and across the board. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...&bop=And&ActiveSearchResult=True&Order=RATING
