The (new) Official PC building thread!

could you tell me wich one motherboard should i take?. and what else do i need besides mobo - graphic card - psu- and hard drives?

$1000 left.

 

@Mort81

what kind psu do you have in your Cooler Master Mystique case? also what the watts of it?

 

@pszczoll

I see you went with keeping the 8800. That will be plenty fast for games of today and with another in the future you, should be set.

As for what else you may need for your PC.

Make sure your case comes with all the cooling fans that it can support, if not don't forget to pick some up.

Also since you plan to OC, do remember to pick up a good cooler, I too use the Arctic Cooling HSF as BigDk recommended. It is fairly priced for it's performance and most importantly quietness.

AS for motherboards, I've used many ECS boards and are they have all been really reliable. OC'ing wise they are not the best, but they are rock solid, from little to no OC'ing at all.

In the end I would say go with the ASUS P5B, it is on par with the ECS in performance stock wise and should OC much better.

Soundcard wise..don't go with the $80 X-Fi card, it is not a true X-Fi unit, rather pick up the extreme gamer that has the onboard X-RAM.. the sound quality is far superior, let alone it will offload sound data from the CPU, like what a GPU does.

For hard drives I would get 2 WD raptor 74GB drives and run them in RAID-0 for faster disk performance, for the OS. A single large data drive is fine. since it's primary goal is to just store data.

Stay away from Vista at this point, I've heard nothing but bad things right now, lots and lots of compatibility issues.

PSU wise, a good 600W+ PSU should be more than sufficient for what you have listed, but for the future, 8800 I would get something in the 650W+ range. To be certain you have juice to spare you can always look in to the power consumption of each component..and add it all up.

I've used and liked PSUs from makers:
Antec
ThermalTake
Enermax

I've used these brands since AMD K6-2 Pentium 2 days. some of which are still running today.

 

Motherboard: $178
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16813131045

Processor: $313 Intel Core 2 Duo 6600
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16819115003
memory: $189.00 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16820145590

Sound Card: $139.99 Creative 70SB046A00000 7.1 Channels 24-bit 192KHz PCI Interface Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeGamer Fatal1ty Professional Series - Retail
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16829102005
Case :$119.99 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16811129021

Optical Drives :
LITE-ON Black 18X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 8X DVD+R DL 18X DVD-R 6X DVD-RW 12X DVD-RAM 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-R 32X CD-RW 48X CD-ROM IDE Burner – OEM $28.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16827106042

LITE-ON Black 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-ROM ATAPI/E-IDE DVD-ROM Drive Model SHD-16P1S - OEM $17.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16827106028

Floppy : NEC Black 1.44MB 3.5" Internal Floppy Drive Model FD1231H-302 – OEM $5.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16821152005

Software:
Microsoft Windows Vista 32-Bit Home Premium for System Builders Single Pack DVD – OEM $119.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16832116202

Keyboard:
Logitech G15 Gaming Keyboard $68.99 http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/Se...5&CatId=534

Hard Drives:
2x Western Digital Raptor WD740ADFD 74GB 10,000 RPM 16MB Cache Serial ATA150 Hard Drive - OEM $310 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16822144701

Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD2500KS 250GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM$74.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16822144701

Graphic: MSI NX8800GTS-T2D640E 320-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16 Video Card - Retail $379.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16814127225

power supplie : $134.99
OCZ / GameXStream / 700-Watt / ATX / 120mm Fan / SATA Ready / SLI Ready / EPS / Active PFC / Power Supply:
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=2235424&Tab=0&NoMapp=0

fans: ARCTIC COOLING Freezer 7 Pro 92mm CPU Cooler - Retail$39.99 (i dont know where im gonna put it smile.gif but ok.)$39.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16835186134

All that is about $2140. What else do i need here?. To be secured

 

@pszczoll

From the specs on it the gameXtreme model, it seems like it will meet your needs, in addition to that Ultimate PC Reviews test showed min voltage drops, and the warranty is a year longer. I haven't used any OCZ PSU before, so in terms of reliability you'd be on your own, or if someone else has tried it here..they could probably give you a better idea about it.

I have used this Coolmax PSU, but it seems to be hit or miss in terms of reliability. Out of 3 PSUs, that my buddies and I picked up (at the same time): mines died in about 6 months time, one had a unstable +12v in about the same time frame, and the other was rock solid to this day.

So, make sure it's been getting good reviews by users who have had it for awhile, though I've noticed the rebate is ending today.

 

Thats my monitor . Do you think its gonna handle 8800 GTS 640MB?
http://www.superwarehouse.com/HP_P930_19_CRT_Monitor/P9009D/p/302909

Or if i would sell that one, what should i get?

 

You'll get a very good quality output from that card and screen.
If you are happy with the screen then there's no point changing it.
The only thing is, that no matter what screen you use in the future, the system and GPU will handle it.
My 7900GTX works well on my 3007 monitor, but I do have to drop quality on some games if I play at full resolution, not surprising though as 2560x1900 is enough to kill most systems.

 

@BigDK
would please take alook at this budget computer that i'm trying to put together for a family member and give your views on it .

i have also notice that the amd 939 socket boards are becoming harder to find.


heres what i have
monitor
keyboard
mouse
1 gb of ddr 400 (3200)
amd 3200+
WD 320gb harddrive
dvd-rom drive
dvd-rw drive

so i need a case , motherboard, video card, psu.
heres what i was looking at
case
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16811119114
motherboard
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131125
or
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813186059
video card
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814143049
psu
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817153052
or
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817128001

only looking to spend about 300- 400 dollars on this.
will all this work?

 

Hi Redice.

All the parts will work together well so there's no issues there.

I use the Hiper 580W and they are good, although 1 did die on me a while ago, but for me I just posted it within UK where they are based, so maybe the Thermaltake would be better for warranty returns (not sure on that one) saying that, the Hiper is good and has a good quality about it, looks nice in the dark and the blue cable sleeving is UV reactive.

Asus board will be fine if you don't get a DOA like the reviewer, but no one else has left the same comments, so it can't be that common.

VIA chipsets don't set the world on fire, but they work well, and in my experience are easy to setup and update.

Coolermaster cases are just good, they make good quality cases athat are generally easy to work with, and don't shred your skin when you put a hand in.

Video card is a good acrd as well which will play most games well and give a high quality desktop experience.

Not sure if you've overlooked a Hard drive and floppy drive.

It will be a good budget system that will do most things well enough for most people.

 

@BigDK

ok thanks and yes i did overlook the harddrive because i also have WD 320gb harddrive. so you are saying that the Thermaltake psu would work better for me than the Hiper 580W ?

i was going to go with the Asus board but beacase of the VIA chipset it was said that i would have to do this as stated Do note that VIA 800 series chipsets are ones that require that a WinXP SP2 install disc. If you only have a SP1 disc then you will need to do a slipstream procedure see here:

with that being said as i started to look at the Foxconn NF4SK8AA-8KRS which is looking real nice to me.

 

Thanks to all of you !. You helped me a lot. im gonna take what i got here without changing monitor for now. Got last one question do you think im gonna need more fans ?

 

I think both PSUs will work as well as each other, its just Hiper are in the UK, so easy for me to return, not so easy for you.
Thermaltake (haven't got a clue where they are, maybe its US which would be easier for you).
Chances are neither will ever fail and the location of the manufacture is irrelevant.

 

what do i need to put hard drives in "raid" or something i dont even know whats that i just heard that drives in raid got better performance and speed.

 

@BigDK

Ok thanks and i think i'm going to go with Foxconn NF4SK8AA-8KRS for my board. also can you tell me if the Hiper psu has enough power Connectors for all of my pars?

 

@pszczoll

in short..RAID-0 is using two or more hard drives to function as one. data is spanned across the multiple hard drives to increase data write and read speeds, because each drive caries only a portion of the data so for two drives think of each drive roughly doing 1/2 the work as one single drive would... you can kind of think of this as SLi for harddrives. Hope that clears things up.

Oh during WinXP install you will need to give RAID controller drivers when prompted for additional drivers required, I think it tells you to hit F6. You will most likely need to set in your bios to run SATA in RAID mode as well. BigDK can probably help you with that portion as I am not familiar with that Intel chipset.

 

That PSU will handle all the bits you're using without any problems at all.

To make the RAID setup, you just make a raid driver disk, you get a blank floppy and copy the raid drivers from either the cd or from the Intel download site.

It then allows the OS to be loaded onto the SATA drives.

Boot PC and enter BIOS and select the onboard devices section and select to enable sata ports and the then to select raid mode enabled.

Then re-boot and then enter what ever key you need to enter raid setup utility on the board, you'll see the 2 drives, so add them to a raid by following instructions on screen, and then set up the partition sizes 'either the whole lot - or split it'.
Now you'll see the drives as a raid when you boot.
Load the OS from CD/DVD and when asked enter F6 to load additional drivers, then when asked for where they are, press return for A:\ and allow it to load.
Then complete the install.
If you get it wrong, the OS won't see the drives when you try and load the software.

 

@BigDK
heres the final breakdown of everything. also would you willing to help me i need any help once i get all the parts if i need it?

case
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811119116
motherboard
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813186059
video card
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130075 ( had to change because i need the blue Connector because thats what the montitor has that is being used)
psu
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817128002
Arctic Silver 5
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16835100007

 

I'd be glad to help where I can.

 

ok thanks BigDK and to all the rest of aD that has helped me.

 

omg ... i just got bad infoooo. to all who can help .
thats psu i want to get and i just ordered it! (darnit)
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=2235424&Tab=0&NoMapp=0
and thats the mobo i want to get ! :
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131045

one of my friends told me that the mobo with supplie is not compatible:/. and that i need psu with 8 pin connector to that motherboard.

that motherboard got 24 pin power , and that power supplie got 20+4 connector. tell me that he's wrong plz