The (new) Official PC building thread!

redmars,
I would be very careful with that particular chioce of motherboard. It has had a number of problems since day one, and continues to have problems popping up. I know 2 people that RMA'd theirs and then finally sent them back for a refund! Abit's development is still a good bit behind both Asus and GigaByte, especially in their bios/chipset implementations! Asus and Gigabyte have an advantage there because both companies were contracted by Intel to help develop some of the new "P" series chipsets. I know it did well in some of the motherboard tests, but I wonder just how honest those tests were. Then again I always question whether "special" boards were supplied for the tests. It wasn't that long ago that Abit was making and selling a whole line of very cheap motherboards, in the high $30 to min $40 range. I do a lot of computer repairs and I see more failures with Abit, ECS, Jetway and even Asrock than any other brands. They all seem to have a lifespan of a couple of months past the warranty. I rarely see problems with Asus, Evga or GigaByte.

Very few of these are overclocked as I do a lot of Office machines for Doctors, Dentists and accountants. I also build over 40 computers a year (48 this past year) and use lower end GigaBytes for the Intels and Biostar T-Force for AMDs, all with built in graphics for all my office builds and I rarely ever have any problems so warranty work is rare for me. Considering that more than half of these run 24/7/365, that's remarkable!

I am AD's #1 GigaByte Fanboy! Why? because they make very good, high quality product and their extraordinary Customer service is second to none. They will even discuss and encourage overclocking and give you help with it. Asus makes good, high quality products as well, but their customer service is light years behind GigaByte's. When I asked to exchange my GA-965P-DS3 motherboard for a GA-P35-DS3R after having it for six months, because of an advertising error, they swiftly came up with a great deal for me. When FedEx lost it and it finally got to me and it had been tampered with by the party FedEx delivered it to, it was less than 2 days before I received a replacement. They paid for all the shipping, both ways. When that MB had a failure in one of the Voltage Regulation modules, a replacement was shipped overnight at thier expense. They also took care of the shipping on the return and even gave me 30 days to do it without a Credit card charge! Amazing!

GA-P35-DS3R Rev. 2.0, E6750 @3.52gHz, 32,000+ MIPS, SuperPi 1M of 14.750s and all that stops me from running it faster is my current 800MHz memory. When I get the 1066 Crucial Ballistix Tracer memory, it's straight to 3.8GHz. It does 4.0gHz easily but I'm not comfortable with how hogh you need to set the voltage to do it! It's on about 15 hours a day and is just about bullet proof! Wonderful machine! NO glitches or Blue screens either!

Best Regards,
Russ

 

Redmars, you don't get it. You CANT use that OS for gaming. The support, as far as games go, is horrible for 64bit. Also the 8800GT does not have as good as a image quality as the HD 3870 so yeah take your pick. The third thing is that the Gigabyte motherboards is just fine. Like Russ said that ABIT motherboard isn't all that good. Honestly Gigabyte has been cranking out some very good boards.

 

abuzar1,

You do like to laugh, don't you! LOL!! All intel will tell you is what's on the box! 1.350v! LOL!! It's especially funny since it's tech papers say 1.50v! ROFLMAO!!

Increments of 5MHz ar too small! It would take you forever. Take a realistic desired overclock like with mine when I first built it and did a burn in at 3.0GHz or 3000MHz with Orthos for 12 hours. Divide 3000 by the CPU's multiplier (8) and you get 375MHz as your base fsb which gives you a 1500MHz fsb, 3.0GHz. once the burn in is complete go up in 25MHz increments. If it crashes, drop it in 5MHz increments until stable and play with the voltages from there. It's real hard to hurt anything these days as most motherboards these days have active bios and won't let you burn it up. If your power supply turns on and off check the post screen to see that the bios hasn't reset to defaults. If it has, lower your settings a bit and try again. There's lots more, but this is just a basic start.

AnandTech makes a case for finding the limits of the memory first and then overclocking the CPU. Find it here. Works very well with any C2D!
http://www.anandtech.com/printarticle.aspx?i=3184

Best Regards,
Russ

 

Yes I do like to laugh lol. Look I did it again! Anyway he wanted to be safe so I just said 5mhz. Wrong thread by the way.

 

@redmars
We can't really help you...if we know nothing about you...or what you want out of your computer...so far...you have given use very little info...I know it seems like a lot of question to answer...but it really helps...We all spend a considerable amount of time making these lists to try and help people...the least you could do is answer a few questions...so we are not just...taking a stab in the Dark..
All we know is...You have built a system before...and you want it to play UT3...and you appear to want Vista 64 as your O/S...
Why Vista 64?...have you ever used Vista?..
What are you wanting from this build?..
Why did you originally want a Micro Build?..
Is this a Gaming only Computer?..
Is this a Business Computer?..
Is this a Media Center?..
Is this a combination of the (3)?..
Is this for a living room?..Bedroom?..Media Room?..
How Old are you?..
What is your Computer Knowledge Level?..

 

Ok I understand now about Vista 64 is not the way to go. I was thinking because I wanted to have access past the 4 GB of RAM if I was to buy more later.

What are you wanting from this build?
Mainly a gaming system.

Why did you originally want a Micro Build?..
Making it easy to carry to LAN parties

Is this a Gaming only Computer?
Most of the time.

Is this a Business Computer?
Replace my Dell 8200 that I have had now 7 year.

Is this a Media Center?
Will build another one later for this.

Is this for a what room?
Home basement office.

How Old are you?
38

What is your Computer Knowledge Level?
PC tech support field now 20 years. I have build other older system like dual Pentium Pro, other 486DX systems, but that has been a while I have been out of the loop on what is good to get. My Dell 8200 has lasted me 7 years. Its been sitting off now because I got a new laptop.

But having a nice laptop does not compare to having a desktop. I stated using CMP systems in 1980, Used all different versions of Windows and OS/2 Warp, Redhat/Fedora, and Solaris it feels like a long time ago now. I glad the time of the IRQ is really gone now. lol

Mainly doing corporate server support now.

theonejrs,

I do actually like nVidia more also. Many problems in the past getting ATI drivers to work correctly(most uninstall or update) or flash the firmware on the card.

I do like the idea of having the Intel X38 chip set to give support for PCI Express 2.0 x16.

The GIGABYTE board do look good and the reviews are also very nice.
This GIGABYTE GA-X38-DS4 LGA 775 Intel X38 ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail Looks good. But no review on it yet, same as the board that looks like it but just has the better cooling is GIGABYTE GA-X38-DQ6 LGA 775 Intel X38 ATX Ultra Durable 2, Ultra Cooling Intel Motherboard - Retail But most of the reviewers had problems with it.

I have had so many browsers windows open trying to compare all of the various features and reviews sometime enough to make you hear explode.

LP531,
Can't forget the thumb screws:
Sunbeam TS-AL-BZ Bronze Alien
http://www.svc.com/ts-al-bz.html

 

Well I have a PCI-E 2 card working fine in normal PCI-E. Actually I believe the P35 overclocks better than the X38 chipset. Ok now if it was up to ME, this is what i would build. That is if I had the same needs as you. I don't go to lan parties so I have a full tower case. Obviously you wouldn't want to carry around a 55 pound computer with you.

 

So...it will be a Home Office Gaming Computer...that you will take to Lan Parties...and I am assuming you do not sleep in the basement with the system on...so cases with Led's are OK...and a M/B with dual lan is preferable...

 

Yeah the system will not be near me when I sleep. What does dual lan nic's get me? I understand in server why you would have dual nic's to have on different subnets.

 

It allows you to use your PC as a Router/Gateway to share the Internet connection with the other PC's at the Party...most upper end M/B will have it...

 

id say go for vista 64bit. firstly, any signed drivers have to have a 64bit version as well as a 32 bit, so nearyl all your driver will do. most if not all component hardware does. also vista is a damned good OS, and has improved with the fixes, and with SP1 to be release soon, itll be better.

 

redmars,

One of the sad truths with new chipsets is they are usually very "Green"! LOL!! It's also sad that most manufacturers sometimes can never get the design to fit around the chipset properly, no matter how many bios revisions they try. They all build "Duds" from time to time! LOL!!

I had a huge nightmare with a build for a friend in Chicago with an Asus P5N-E SLI motherboard that I bought on the basis of the tests done on at either tom's or AnandTech and the advice of Leo PaPorte (the computer guy) on the radio. Early tests and rewiews were great. To make it short, it took 3 motherboards before I got one that would even work, $1200 in Credit Card charges (which did finally get credited), $80+ in phone calls and wasted better than 2 weeks. Leo publicly admitted that he made a mistake and apologized on his radio show to all that bought one because of his advice. It just never lived up to the performance of the earliest models. I believe that we've had only one successful build and overclock by a member here and that was one of the first to hit the shelves and still going strong. sammorris had one and now enjoys his GA-P35C-DS3R. My friend's is acting the way Sam's did so I expect it will eventually die too. I know I must have set a record for BSODs as I had so many of them. What irked me the most through all of this was that Asus customer Service and Tech Service were denying that there was any problem with the P5N-E when their own forum was choked with people complaining about the exact same problems I was having. I know as I'm a member there!

That experience, and on the advice of some fine folks here and at DVDHounds that know a lot more than I do is how I got my first ever GigaByte, a GA-965P-DS3 Rev. 1.33. I put it together and it worked no problem, and then I overclocked my E4300 to 3.2GHz. Easiest OC of my life! never got any error messages or BSODs It will actually OC higher but considering the amount of use I give a computer I don't like to run anything stressed to the max. That's why I'll settle for 3.8GHz with this one as I know it will easily run at 4.0GHz but I won't run the CPU voltage over 1.5V. I've already borrowed the Tracer memory from my buddy so I know it works well!

Best Regards,
Russ

 

Seems all of us have good experiences with Gigabyte boards. I had one die on me, but I don't blame Gigabyte, some boards are bound to be faulty. They were speedy about the RMA process.

In my build above I only have 2GB of RAM, which is all you should need right now. Later on you can upgrade. I also have two dvd burners in there because it makes it much easier if you are copying and burning disks.

 

abuzar1,

I don't plan on ever going with Vista so 2MB is more than enough ram. Someone mentioned to redmars to halve the memory and run XP, but C2Ds run much better with 2GB instead of 1GB.

As far as two DVD Burners goes, I have my NEC/Optiarc 7170A to burn with and an Asus E616A DVD Rom to use for copying from. Both excellent drives!

EDIT: Glad to see that I'm not alone in getting Speedy Service from GigaByte! GigaByte Rocks!

Best Regards,
Russ

 

I have the drive I added in the build and it's very good. I think as far as a gaming PC goes thats your best best, and with rebates it's under a thousand!

I've also read reviews about that case being VERY good for lan parties, so you might wanna keep that the same. It's up to you if you want something a bit more expensive you could try to future proof by getting a DDR3 compatible X38 board.

 

redmars,
If it was me, and I had your needs I would love the DQ6, but I would get the GA-P35-DS4 and just add a lan card. Simple solution to a simple problem. Reputed to be a very good motherboard for gaming and very popular with serious gamers at Lan Parties here in Southern Ca.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128064

Best Regards,
Russ

 

Hey,
Can someone kindly suggest a budget conscious motherboard that supports DDR2,dual core and/or quad core processors?


Much appreciated.

 

papola,
I'm not certain how much you want to spend but GigaByte makes a GA-P35-DS3L That Newegg sells for $99.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128059
This one has a lot of features for a $100 MB.

If you're willing to part with another $26 then the best buy would Be the GA-P35-DS3R
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128050
For $127 this one has everything you need for a successful build and overclock at a reasonable price. It's more heavy duty with Ultra-Durable 2 and better Chipset cooling than the one above and offers more features like 6 Intel Sata Ports & 2 GigaByte Sata ports. All Sata 3.0Gb/s ports with Raid. It's what I use and I gave up my favorite motherboard ever, to get it! I wasn't disappointed in the least. This thing will rock even with Intel's lowest price dual-core in it. Compare the specs on both and you will see what I mean. Both motherboards support the new 45nm chips from Intel too!

I have an Intel E6750 in mine and it is fast! It's overclocked to 3.52GHz and does over 32,000 MIPS (Million Instructions Per Second). Good solid performance for a very reasonable price. very popular too, and GigaBytes Customer Service is second to none!

Best Regards and Welcome to AD,
theone

 

Russ, I have a question. Why dont you just do a nice round 3.6 Ghz? 450 FSB, and the memory is at 960mhz with 4-4-4-12 timings.

 

abuzar1,

Don't really know. When I had the E4300 at 3.84gHz the memory ran fine at 940MHz on a 2.5 multiplier at 4-4-4-12, but some times the screen would freeze. I changed the timings to 5-4-4-12 and the problem went away. I guess the G.Skill isn't as good as I thought it would be, since I can do it with the Crucial Ballistix Tracer 1066 memory at 3.8GHz with the memory running at 1140MHz using the 2.4 multiplier. I don't think the memory I have overclocks that well with such a high fsb! Either that or I got a lousy pair! LOL!! Whatever it is, it's my memory that's holding me back.

On the Asus P5N-E SLI, you can set the memory speed independent of the fsb (to a degree). I had to bump Gina's up a bit to get it to read 800MHz in the post at 3.0GHz on her E4300. I don't know how they set the memory on other Asus motherboards, as I haven't owned one since that fiasco with the P5N-E! Some of the newer chipsets have a better range of memory multipliers now. I don't think that anyone ever dreamed that we would see everyday clock speeds like the C2Ds will produce. At least not for everyday 24/7 use. Maybe in the lab with LN (Dumb and worthless)! LOL!!

Best Regards,
Russ