The (new) Official PC building thread!

ugh, the nub.

 

You could always try make a wooden frame some cheap lcd shove it in LOL do the same to the rest LOL just like homer making a barbecque.

 

Modern art. Well a laptop's modern, I suppose...

 

fasfrank..Sorry bout that,I noticed that afterwards.Thanks for the insight on the Samsung Burner.I've been a Samsung fan ever since they came on the market with VCRs & TVs..I've been swinging towards SATA myself,but mostly HDD 500gig.On DVD Burners is their a difference in SATA & IDE,ya know 16x is 16x etc,etc.
I bought a Liteon[SATA]Burner,but have not had a chance to use it yet.
Also I've used numerous brand Burners & found that anything burned over 4,6x leaves more bad sectors on the Disc [TYs,Verbs]mostly.But not Ritek,I burn at 8x,but again over 8x about 1 in 10 will have a bad sector.Even with bad sectors though,they play fine in most DVD Players
Actually I'm even getting away from DVD Players,I'm in the Process of building a Computer just for TV [watch,record].Not real familiar with this BRD,but thought I'd give it a try Jetway M2GT3-PTD,W/AM2 6000+,2gig Mem,2 500gig Samsung,Enermax 620W Dual
This PSU W/2X+12 at 22A looked pretty good for Graphic cards,& Multiple HDDs.About the only other ADD ons will be a burner & DVD Drive
Any Opinions would be great

 

I don't burn discs much, but I've only ever had one bad disc with verbatim media. Just don't write anything on the ones that are supposed look like vinyls, it'll come through the other side and wreck the disc!

 

fasfrank,

are you sure you're not mistaking the 650i chipset for the 680i? I believe the 680i is a good chipset, especially for SLI.

I burn 3 - 6 dvd's a week usually with my litey. I primarily use my benq for ripping but it's a good burner too. I burn my 8x rated discs at 8x and my 16x rated discs at 12x. never any playback problems when burned on my litey or benq.

 

EVGA do make 650i boards though I think, don't know how they compare...

 

I was thinking of this system for my next upgrade. (Around Christmas time) Sammoris allready knows, but I just wanted to get some other peoples oppinion:

WD Raptor X 150GB 10,000rpm HDD
Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 @ 2.44Ghz
ASUS P5W Deluxe Mobo
Antec Neo Power 650watt
Crucial 2GB (2x1GB) DDR2 800 pc6400 RAM
Windows Vista Ultimate 32 bit
Swiftech H20-220-APEX-GT CPU Liquid Cooling

nvidia 8950GTx2 (when they come out, I hear they'll be out in November)

So what do you guys think? I am still kinda worried about the PSU, and not having enough juice, because I will be using the parts about, and I'll be recycling 2 HDDs, and 2 optical drives, as well as some other small things, like a sound card, a VGA liquid colling kit (tidewater), a linksys PCI wireless internet adapter and some fans.

What do you guys think? Crysis on max? No problem!

 

Hi Rick,
I see the open box version of this board at Newegg for $39.99. Out of Stock though.
I don't know if price is a big concern but I'd probably want something that was an ATX form factor and have more SATA ports. I consider the motherboard, CPU and RAM the most important parts so I figure there is a balance there.... What I mean is that I'm not going to build a high end system with a cheap Mobo and then start adding high end parts to it. I would use this board if I wanted to build a very inexpensive system. Looking at the other good parts you selected, I'd get a better board. I'll make up my list of parts if I were to build this for about $1000.00.


Here is a Foxconn C51XEM2AA- 8EKRS2H AM2 NVIDIA nForce 590 SLI MCP ATX AMD Motherboard:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813186098 $184.99
($104.99 after $80.00 Mail-In Rebate)
A good deal for one of the best AMD motherboard.

For the CPU, I'd be looking for another good deal:
AMD Athlon 64 X2 5200+ Windsor 2.6GHz Socket AM2 Processor Model ADA5200CSBOX http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103759
$119.99

RAM:
For RAM I have to recommend this.
CORSAIR XMS2 TWIN2X2048-6400C4
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145034
$102.00
($62.00 after $40.00 Mail-In Rebate)

HDDs:
For the 500 GB hard drives I'd go with these Hitachi Deskstars. I've been using the 320 GB versions and they are very quiet and fast.

HITACHI Deskstar T7K500 HDT725050VLA360 (0A33437) 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822145137
$109.99

Video Card:
I've been using these and getting OK 3Dmark06 results. Easy to overclock with that ATI Tray utility as well.
Asus EAX1950Pro:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121031
$149.99

Sound Card:
I've been adding these to my builds. They have better sound than the onboard audio, IMHO.
Creative Sound Blaster SB0570 Audigy SE 7.1 Channels 24-bit 96KHz PCI Interface Sound Card
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16829102002
$29.99

CPU Cooler
I dislike stock CPU coolers so here is an Arctic Cooling Alpine 7:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835186009
$9.99

And some Thermal paste:
Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835100007
$5.99

PSU:
You don't need more than 600 Watts, this is a 600 Watt unit from OCZ. OCZ bought PC Power and Cooling Co.
OCZ StealthXStream OCZ600SXS ATX12V / EPS12V 600W Power Supply
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...0320058+50001550+4801+4803&name=Discount+Item
Original Price: $99.99
You Save: $10.00
$89.99
($74.99 after $15.00 Mail-In Rebate)

DVD burner:
Samsung SH-S203B
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827151153
$31.99

DVD-ROM:
ASUS DVD-E616A3T OEM
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827135151
$18.99

Floppy:
SAMSUNG SFD321B/LBL1
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16821103203
$6.99

Case:
COOLER MASTER Centurion 5 CAC-T05-UW
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811119068
$49.99
($29.99 after $20.00 Mail-In Rebate)

OS:
I always add the price of the OS to my builds and I like Windows XP Pro. I get it at Mwave.com:
http://www.mwave.com/mwave/Skusearch.hmx?scriteria=AA15070
$131.90

Total: $1152.77
Rebates -$155.00
Total: 997.77 + Shipping

So you end up with a 1 Tb, Windows XP Pro system with lots of RAM, a decent video card, good audio for about $1000.00.

My opinion on build prices is that for less than $500.00 you may be better off to go buy a cheap PC. Walmart sells them:
http://www.walmart.com/search/browse-ng.do?ic=24_0&ref=125875.126125+500986.4293423185

For 500.00 to 750.00 you can get a reasonable desktop for E-mail, business apps, web stuff.
$750-$1250, Light gaming, overclocking fun. DVD-Video work.
$1250+, Fast Video cards, SLI, Crossfire etc. Quad cores.
That's my opinion which is subject to change, lol!
Cheers,
Frank

 

@Waymon3X6
This is the best P/S for the price right now...I can not say if this will be enough with the 2 Cards you are speculating about...I do not know how much juice they will require...
PC POWER & COOLING S61EPS SILENCER 610 WATT EPS POWER SUPPLY $122
+5V @ 30A
+12V @ 49A
-12V @ 0.8A
+3.3V @ 24A
+5VSB @ 3A
continuous = 610W
peak = 670W
http://www.svc.com/s61eps.html

I know its big brother the Quad 750 can handle 2 8800GTX's...

 

Seems funny to say this, but the PC Power and cooling Silencer's too noisy for my liking. The Corsair HX and the OCZ Stealthxstream are both pretty good in that respect. Frank's list of parts is again sound.

 

Hi Mort,
I've got a 680i based system with a E6850 and 8800 GTS cards in SLI.



Since then I've built two 650i, E6750 systems in the Antec Sonata case.



My reasoning, flawed or not, is this:

It's popular with "Boutique" companies like Cyberpower, ibuypower, and others... They would choose a reliable board, wouldn't they?

Newegg has a $20.00 rebate. I keep the rebate money from my builds.

I like the EVGA website and excellent support.

I like the bios setup.

I'm certainly not stuck on this or any other particular part. I don't buy Asus boards even though I have two P5W-DH deluxe's, one with my QX6700 and another with the E6700. Mainly because their website sucks and customer support is iffy at best. Has that changed?


BTW,
I don't know about you but after using the new stuff, Oc'ing and getting used to it, I sort of forgot what most other folks are using.... typically a P4 2.8, 512MB, 80 Gb HDD, onboard video.. and they paid $1500.00 for it, so when they get a look at the C2D systems we play with they are definitely impressed.

As far as DVD burning goes I do most of mine with Pioneer or Lite-On drives. I've got two burners and two ROMs in my P180:




Cheers,
Frank
Edited to add pictures

 

Totally, I sometimes get so consumed by the continual strive to make my PC better that I forget how awesome it is compared to the standard stuff out there.
Asus' customer support hasn't changed by the way.

 

So you think a 650watt PSU can run what I want? I am running a 500watt antec psu right now, seams to be working fine, but I wouldnt dare run a 500watt psu with a quad core and a 8950GX2, and 3 HDDs.

I just hope 650 watts is enough.

 

Funny as it may seem, a good 500W would probably run fine with that. Three hard disks would be 50W max, the CPU 130W max, worst case scenario of two 8800GTXs would be 270W max, leave 50W for the rest and that's 500 exactly. Since full load never usually happens you'd probably find a well-made 500W unit like a Corsair HX, Seasonic S12 or similar would cope fine, so a 650W unit would certainly manage, provided it was made by a decent company.

 

I finished that Gigabyte3D build and bought a Coolmax 700 Watt for it. About a week later I ordered the 850 Watt Enermax Galaxy you see in it now.



I'd recommend getting a PSU you know will work. Trial and error can get expensive! lol.

That Coolmax was not the greatest, it probably had enough power but the voltages were not stable.

 

Well the antec neo power 650 should work fine then... Just wanted to make sure!

 

I recognise that CPU cooler! lol. In a full tower case like the gigabyte aurora it doesn't look quite as huge, but then your power supply's vast as well.
I'm so glad you got rid of the coolmax, that beautiful PC really deserved better!

 

Waymon,
650W should do you just fine but do as sammorris recommended, a GOOD p/s not low end.

@fasfrank,
How do you like that case?? I've been drooling over it for a while. There's a couple of cases that I'm looking at for my next build but I want to stay under $100 if I can.

....gm

 

I like the Antec P190 (if it wasn't so expensive, having come with those unnecesary paired power supplies), the NZXT Zero, the Antec 1200 and the NZXT Rogue. I guess I'm an Antec and NZXT fan. I do like the Gigabyte case too though.