The (new) Official PC building thread!

Greensman: I use a hard drive that couldn't store an OS as a data drive fine for months, it was only months not years because a faulty PSU cable toasted the drive (I can be sure it was the cable because it toasted the drive next to it as well - it was a molex splitter) - to be on the safe side though, I'd back up everything you're storing on it.

Greg: I wouldn't recommend watercooling kits. Your PC will be dead silent if you drop the fan speed on the S-Flex fan cooling your CPU. The Lexa is a quiet case, the Corsair HX is a very quiet PSU, and the HIS cooler for your graphics card is also super-quiet. Watercooling should NEVER be used for silence, it should be used only for lower temperatures, and you should always do it yourself. Watercooling kits won't be as good as the Thermalright heatsink you've got already.
Tripplite: Big isn't it? Me and Greg both use one, they're superb for cooling. Up until I got an HD3870 I used an HR-03 graphics cooler like the one in that photo too. I'll get another for this card eventually.

On the DFI topic, they're good boards, but they're VERY picky about stability. e.g. you can't use memory slot 1 unless you're using all 4 slots, and you need a floppy power connector and a molex to power the board in addition to the 4-pin and the 24-pin ATX. They have ludicrously well-equipped BIOSes however, and are known for innovative features, such as the RDX200, the only SKT939 board to be able to run all four memory slots at 1T, apparently.

 

good quality board but very picky when it comes to stability, hmm...that would be a problem for some. i rather stick to gigabyte board.

that guy replace all the stock heatsinks with thermalright ones. am i correct? but he doesn't use a fan.

 

Am I right in thinking if Im running 800Mhz RAM that I would get best performance with my CPU FSB set at 400Mhz. Or does the polarity not really make a difference.

 

well i got about 40 mins before i have to leave for work and still no parts.. man this sucks.. i know as soon as i leave UPS will be here...lol well that just means i'll be up all night playing with my new toys...

 

ENOMISH,
You went a bit cheap in two areas you really shouldn't go cheap in. The Motherboard and the memory! At least get a GA-P35-DS3L and some decent cas4 800MHz memory. The board you chose only has 3 stage power regulation vs the 6 stage of the DS3L. It's one thing to save money, it's another thing to do it wisely!

Best Regards,
Russ

 

Pepp77,

Polarity??? What polarity?

Best Regards,
Russ

 

GTR: He doesn't use a fan because he doesn't need to!
As for the stability, I agree with you. The "it just works" factor of the Gigabyte is one of the things I like about it most.
Cincyrob: I've been there dozens of times. It pays to live near a courier depot! I took a day off just to sign for my 3870s once, just as well as they didn't turn up until 2:30pm! In case you're wondering, I only had one 45 minute lesson that day, or I wouldn't have bothered!
Russ, Pepp: Yeah, Polarity? In what sense? I'd recommend using 800mhz RAM if you're going to go as far as 400mhz FSB but no further, 1066mhz RAM if you're going beyond, specifically PC8500 Crucial Ballistix.

 

Polarity is obviously not the right word but it sounded so good when I was typing it lol

I mean the fact that they will be 400/800 Mhz would the (want to use polarity again lol) uniformness (cant think of a word to actually describe what Im thinking ) of them be better than say 401/800 - theoretically this is.

 

HELL I'm NOT!!! I'm mostly German by ancestry BUT I'm TEXAN by birth..... hehehehe. Well I take that back, me grand-pappy was English, God rest his soul. Great man too!!!

Ok enough about our origins!! Let's get on to computer stuff....

Rob you poor soul!!! You'll NEVER get your parts will you. hehehe.

On the DFI with all the Thermalright stuff....... WOW..... How much did that fella spend just on heatsinks?? hmmmmmm....

@sammy,
Thanks for the reply m8. (me likes that term of endearment.....)

@ENOMISH,
Russ makes some great points. He's also good at putting together a "budget" machine so you might bend his ear a bit.

@all,
It seems to me the from reading the OC thread the Q9450 might be a good purchase for a budget Quad machine. Any ideas on that?

hope everyone is having fun.....

....gm

 

Ebuyer got 10 E8200's in yesterday at £112 and they sold out in about 5 hours, today they got 15 E8400's in and they sold out in about 2 hours lol, not surpised at only £127 (£40 quid less than overclockers). Pretty popular chips it would seem, I was almost tempted to buy 5 and stick them on ebay lol (but dont think the credit card would have been happy).

@Rob - chin up it wont be long - Ive still got to wait before I can even order my case and motherboard.

On that subject guys Im thinking of upgrading the graphics in my new build from the 8500GT sooner rather than later, so would like recommendations on a £50-65 graphics card that will be good for HD playback via DVI to an HMDI input on a 1366x768 LCD TV. Id like it to be able to handle games like C+C, Civilisation etc, but definitely no FPS or driving or sports game (have console for that which I prefer). Ive been looking at the Sapphire 2600's as they are the right sort of price but there are about 50 of them lol

 

I think there's an irish connection somewhere in my ancestry but it's at least half a dozen generations ago, if not more... Suffice to say all my living relations since birth have been english, I'm pretty certain of that...
Having a uniform memory multiplier is generally recommended but not essential. A lot of boards only let you have rounded figures like 2.0x and 2.4x, for the gigabyte boards that's certainly the case.
Greensman: The HR-03 and Ultra 120 are worth about £70 between them, the other coolers together maybe £60-£70, so maybe £130 tops? About as much as a mid-range watercooling system, if that. Not as expensive as you might think... Not to have overclocked components operating in complete silence, without all that worrysome fluid!
Lol @ the m8-related discussion...
As for the Q9450, it's not what I'd call budget, but it looks like it'll be a stonking performer, certainly worth checking out.
I wouldn't say I'm having fun right now, I'm using my parents' laptops for a few days while I'm staying here. Man I miss my proper PCs so much, they're easily 20x as fast as these... I'm using the old XP machine with 256MB of RAM right now. Much faster than the Vista one with 1GB, I kid you not, even with its faster CPU, it's an absolute dog, and it can't torrent or Vista removes your internet access lol - it's definitely out, mainly for that reason!
Pepp: Doesn't surprise me - they're cutting edge. If they only got a dozxen in, it doesn't surprise me they sold out that quickly... Makes a change that CPUs are in the "no supply" duldrums you usually find with new graphics cards. What's more, it doesn't really seem to be affecting the americans...
Not that it bothers me much of course, my E4300 is still nice and fast. It is kind of shocking that I paid as much for it as you can get an E8200 for now though... Guess that's the way I suppose. The 4200+ I bought 6 months prior to the E4300 was more than twice the cost, £235. What's it worth now, £30?

Some annoying so and so tried to mug me of £500 on my credit card the other day, so my IT spend is out until I get a replacement one (they barred the old one because of this...)
You can run Civ4 and C&C3: Tiberium Wars on an HD2600XT with no problems, I think they're that sort of cost nowadays. You'll be looking at low settings for games like Supreme commander if you play that, but otherwise the 2600 will probably serve you fine.

 

sorry for leaveing everyone hanging in suspence. o got my stuff right be fore i left for work. yup took it with me...lol

i was worrying about nothing. ive kinda dry fit everything. pretty cut and dry stuff. cant wait to put it together for real now. im a little leary of the wireing from the case to mobo, but i just gotta look at all the cool pics in the manual...lol
from what ive done so far i think putting in the OS and then the drivers is gonna take the most time...

ok gotta get this work done so i can get home and have some fun

 

Good stuff, best of luck with it!

 

Rob, only thing I can say is that, wiring can be a b**ch!

I just took apart my computer and put it back together, but this time I think I did a better job with wire routing.

 

im not gonna have alot of wires hanging around i only have 2 disc drives and the 1 sata hdd so that i dont think will be much of a problem...i was mostly talking about the audio,led all the little wires from the case, power wire ect. those i think might give me some trouble makeing sure i got them pluged into the right thing...

do have 1 question right now... is there a wrong way to puttin in the cooler, or i should say putting it on the cpu wrong? greensman you know which one i have first hand. i have the fan faceing the mem sticks and the back of it is faceing the rear exhaust fan..which is nice..... if i got it right.(well its all taken apart now)

 

rob you got it right m8. lol. FAn blowing air out the back of the case. Will has one he should know. Is he there tonight or is it his night off? You gonna call me about midnight tonight?? lol. I'm sure I'll be up, well maybe not.

boozer how is the mobo doing?? Glad you didn't "fubar" anything. BAD stuff that would be!!

...gm

 

The air should go TOWARDS the rear fan. That's the basic idea, not too complicated. I only have one HDD and one optical drive and I still have wires! lol

 

Pepp77,

I think you're meaning the 400MHz fsb to memory ratio which runs the memory at 800GHz, right at the memory's rating! In other words, Optimal! It all depends on the speed and multiplier of your CPU and what they will allow you to do with the memory speed. I can't get past 3.55GHz because my memory at the smallest multiplier won't run past 900MHz! With 1066MHz memory, at 3.8GHz, my fsb would be 475MHz, using the 2.5x memory multiplier the memory would run at 1188MHz, well under the limit of about 1200MHz for the Crucial Ballistix memory! Sweet!! LOL!!!

Best Regards,
Russ

 

you'll keep saying sweet things about this crucial ballistic 1066 mem i got am i gonna have to speed it up some?????

@greensman i got about a hour left here. so i should be home about 11 my time 10 yours. i hope im putting the OS in by midnight my time..depending on how tired i am i might try and get the drivers and such in also... yea you think im going to bed until i got it all together...lmao no im not gonna push it im off all day tomorrow to play with it.....