The (new) Official PC building thread!

Oh you guys are silly!! ASUS and Gigabyte StinK!!!! heheheehe. NOT really, I have a mobo by each manufacturer and they seem just fine to me. btw the ASUS (A8N5X) is a lower end model and has been in good working order for over a year now and the Gigabyte (DS3P) is NEW and seems to work like a charm. Sorry but I haven't had it long enough to make an educated post about it and may not even if I have it for a year. lol.

You guys have so much experience I'm just plain jealous!!! Keep up the help fellas...... and thanks again for your time.

....gm

 

Out of interest, has anyone around here used a DFI board recently?

 

OK guys im planning on building a new pc & need help/advice.

My cureent setup is:
AMD Athlon 3000+ 64 @2.2GHz
Asrock K8 upgrade motherboard
2GB Corsair twinx matching pair ddr400 pc 3200 ram
Nvidia Geforce 6600
Audigy SB 4
400w PSU

I want it to be able to play the latest games,
& maybe for the next couple of years as well.
I can currently run a lot of good games,
but i wont even attemp any of the latest tho it plays The orange box.

I have a budget of about £500
& was thinking of getting the CPU & Motherboard first.
I was wondering if i could get a good Quad Core & maybe a good motherboard for that kind of money?
Because then in another couple of months,
i'd upgrade the PSU & graphics card.

If i kept my existing ram & sound card would that make an impact on performance?

I'd like to hear anyones opinions.
Thanks

 

Is it just me or should every office pc or school system be equipped with these PC's?

http://youtube.com/watch?v=gJgzd68Tmcc

I mean those standard HP systems you get are maybe drawing over 110w?

This 60w system included in every business place/school that only runs spreadsheets etc could save our electricity bill by alot.

*emails government*

 

My overclocked core 2 duo and HD3870 draw 110W at idle, those PCs must be damn inefficient if they use that much.

Dougal79: The Orange Box is probably the least demanding of all new games that have come out recently, thanks to the efficiency of the Source engine. Games like Stalker, Supreme Commander, Crysis, Call of Duty 4 etc. though will be beyond the reach of a 6600.
For a wee bit more than £500 you can get:
CPU: http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/ProductInfo.asp?WebProductID=632054
Mobo: http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/ProductInfo.asp?WebProductID=605526
RAM:
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/ProductInfo.asp?WebProductID=632574
HDD: http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/ProductInfo.asp?WebProductID=530765
GPU: http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/ProductInfo.asp?WebProductID=746249
PSU: http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/ProductInfo.asp?WebProductID=644038
Case: http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/ProductInfo.asp?WebProductID=644041
DVD: http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/ProductInfo.asp?WebProductID=751778
Sound: http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/ProductInfo.asp?WebProductID=292191

A complete gaming system for £579.98+delivery.

 

OK cheers for the info bud.
Ill have a look through it all.

 

Sam just thinking out loud here.

What if 'he' dropped down to 2GB of RAM, to a 320 HDD, and NO sound card for now AND upgraded to a little more power on the P/S. I think that's cutting it a bit close even for that setup. If that was a NEW Intel cpu I wouldn't worry as much but given it's not the new structure and 'he' wants to run a 3000 series ATi gpu I believe going to at least 550W would better serve him. jm2c.....

...gm

 

Could do, with a single hard disk he doesn't need to worry about power on surges, so a 450W unit should be fine, but no harm in erring on the safe side.

on a different note, a new development on my 3870 lag issue. Playing Crysis at top res (but with shadows/shaders low and AA off) the game ran fine for 10 minutes or so, after pacing through a section in a car rather than on foot, suddenly the game drops to 1 frame every 7 or 8 seconds, then blackscreens with repeating sound for about a minute, then crashes to the desktop. I then find that all my torrents have been stopped, with the error "insufficient system resources to complete the requested operation" - I was using 2.5GB of my 4GBs... Is this too much for windows? My memory monitor reads 3582MB available for use, so I don't see why everything should shut down at 2.5GB. Do I have a faulty stick of RAM perhaps?

Also worthy of note, the game no longer loads. It will crash at the blank black screen before the intro videos are usually played...
Interestingly enough, neither does the demo, which is untouched from a working config a week ago...

 

Come to think of it Sam, i got a similar system resource error when video editing(which i never got on my crappy 1gb ram on laptop)

It fixed itself out when i closed the program down and reopened it but still i would have expected better.

That E6750 has jumped up £10 since i looked at it last month.......

 

It just seems rather fishy that my PC runs like ass after adding a new graphics card. I never got any errors, bugs or problems with my old X1900 apart from not being able to play CSS at 2560x1600. I'm not sure all this hassle is worth it for the extra few frames per second. I'm going to reinstall windows and put the omega drivers on straight off, and if that doesn't solve my problems, I'm changing to an 8800GT. Sod the lack in image quality, it's worth paying the extra 25% for a card that actually works...

 

Problems...beep...beep...help

Build 1 Intel/Nvidia

ASUS Striker II Formula 780i Chipset
Q9300/Q9450
Corsair DDR2-800 4GB(2x2GB) XMS2 DHX
XFX 8800GT 512MB
Antec TruePower Quattro 850w
Antec 900 gaming case

Build 2 Intel/ATI

ASUS Maximus Formula X38 Chipset
Q9300/Q9450
Corsair DDR2-800 4GB(2x2GB) XMS2 DHX
Sapphire HD3870 512MB(Thinking of CF)
Antec TruePower Quattro 850w
Antec 900 gaming case

Trouble:

- I like Nvidia's latest 780i chipset but
- Can't 3-Way SLI with 8800GT
- GTX/Ultra is too expensive
- I like X38 chipset, because
- I don't have to worry about getting a new mobo for 3-4 years but
- X38 or even P35 chipsets doesn't support SLI, CrossFire Only
- I like 8800GT because it's faster than HD3870
- 2 8800GT is faster than CF HD3870 or even HD3870 X2
- If i do get Intel/ATI Build i'm worried because if
- Nvidia produce a newer and faster card my mobo can't support SLI


Any solutions that can help me, i want the latest chipset mobo's eg. 780i and X38.
I've have been researching and asking for solutions/help for couple of months now, and still haven't made up my mind. I started from a budget pc to a mid-end pc now i'm going for a high-end, and i'll stay on the high end side, but i'm jumping around, "Should i get Nvidia or ATI gpu, should i getIntel or Nvidia chipsets?"

Please guys help me here. and keep in mind that i'll be gaming on a 24" monitor (1920 X 1200 resolution)

 

Get an X38 chipset and a single 8800GT. My HD3870 on the rare occasions that it works can play anything at 1920x1200 except for Crysis on max, and even then you can put the shaders and shadows to medium and not suffer too badly.

 

sam if you don't mind I'm gonna make these suggestions for change on the system you put together for dougal79.

@dougal79,
RAM

HDD

P/S

and NO Sound card....saves £48.81 before shipping charges of course. SO that moves the total to £531.17 (which is a bit closer to the £500 budget you wanted) for the minor changes I've suggested and most of the system that sam posted. HTH...... good luck...

....gm

edit:
change RAM link and that changes the price by about £10 more.....sorry for the over sight Pepp.....

 

Then what happens to the other PCI-E 2.0 X16 slot? Then there is no use for it. It really feels odd, but if i buy HD3870 then it's slower...

 

OK cheers guys.
Would i not be best using my existing sound card?
Its an Audigy SB 4 & i have a 320GB HDD & a 250GB HDD.

 

Ah, yes you would, that sound card's fine. The hard disks are also fine, but it'd be best if you got an additional hard drive for your new OS. It needn't be big, something like an 80GB Barracuda would do the job fine.

 

Ah ha, check this out! SLI on X38/X48 motherboard, but it won't happen soon

http://www.fudzilla.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=5177&Itemid=37

http://www.fudzilla.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=5187&Itemid=37

 

Ok, Crysis ran fine with only 2GB of RAM so I wondered if that was the issue. Put the other 2GB back and ran the game with the case side off and the GPU fan forced at a higher speed - passed through the trouble section fine, went to save the game and the game hung-ish. I couldn't move or press anything but the console responded and the frame rate etc. stats page was still running. Found lots of "could not..."etc. errors in the console - methinks my less than legitimate version of the game may have bugs. I'll try getting a proper copy of the game and see what's what. FEAR still lags a bit, but always did to a certaine extent. Going to try COD next and if that works fine, i'm satsified. COD4's an important game to get running though, as it's played lots at my LAN party. FEAR isn't, and Crysis isn't often. CSS at least runs better than before, so I can take pride in that.

 

it has to be the games, not your hardware.

Why Nvidia cards, Chipsets run so hot?

 

dougal79,
If you use the P35-DS3R, try the on board HD sound first! It's awesome. I didn't even put my SB Live sound card in this one. It has Coax and Optical S/PDIF. I using the Coax as I can't find my Optical cable at the moment. I borrowed one from my next door neighbor, to check to be sure it works after reading that some didn't. The cable will turn up. Sampling rates are 44.1, 48, 96 and 192KHz, although my 5.1 ProLogicII Surround Amp only goes as high as 96KHz. The surround capabilities go as high as 7.1. I have some music I use to test my sound that covers pretty much the entire dynamic range, and trust me when I say you don't want to be playing 16 and 32 foot bass notes on an empty stomach! LOL!! Not at any decent volume level, anyway! The Audio also supports both Blew Ray and HD DVDs!

The motherboard works just as advertised and gives an awful lot of bang for the buck! Highly recommended!

Best Regards,
Russ